WWE Stars Taking Significant Pay Cuts Update – Who & Why It’s Happening

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The latest update has emerged on WWE attempting to “restructure” a number of talent contracts to lock in pay cuts for several wrestlers on the roster.

A few days ago, it came out that New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods had come to terms on their departures from WWE.

This ended up being because they’d been approached to sign new contracts with signifcant pay cuts, which they rejected.

New Day aren’t the only WWE stars who have been approached, with one name already said to have agreed and signed a new contract with a 50% pay cut.

These names are most likely talents who were signed to big money deals a while back when they were at a higher position on the card, but they’ve since fallen down the pecking order, so they’re not seen as being worth that level of pay anymore.

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez had some further news, noting that he knows of around “a half-dozen people” who have been approached to sign these new contracts.

He said:

“From what I understand, these people who have been asked to restructure their deals are people who are upper midcard-ish, maybe even higher than that. The ones I’ve heard, they’ve been around for a long time and they were making a lot of money.

“We’re not talking a guy like Roman Reigns or a guy like Seth Rollins. Those guys, the very tippy top main eventers, they’re not gonna be asking those tippy top main eventers to restructure their deals. If you are low on the card, you’re probably not making enough that they’re gonna bother.

“So the reason there’s a specific window it appears of people that are being asked to restructure, is because these people signed pretty big money deals quite a while ago, and they’ve been making that money for quite a while, and now they’re not where they were.

“Their justification is, ‘Things are very different now than when you signed this deal. Yes, we are asking you to take less money,’ but their argument is, ‘You are doing significantly less now.

“‘You’re not doing four house shows a week, you’re not on the road four days a week, paying for your transportation and your hotel and your this and your that. You’re on the road one day a week, you’re wrestling maybe twice a month, and we want to pay you less because you’re doing less now.’ That is their mindset. That’s their perspective there.

“I was told, the number I got was like a half-dozen people. And obviously we know two of them said, ‘That ain’t happening,’ that’s the New Day.

“I’ve heard at least two names that did (agree), and my presumption is the other names probably did as well because if they didn’t, they would be gone, we would know.”

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WWE Stars Need To Be Careful About Taking Pay Cuts

It’s ultimately nobody else’s business who agrees to take these pay cuts and their reasons for doing so, but those who are signing new WWE deals do need to be careful.

At any moment, WWE could turn around and update its model once again, leading to more live events, more days on the road, etc – at which point, talent pay in theory should increase in the same way it’s decreasing right now, but the company obviously wouldn’t be as willing to do that.

WWE talents need to be mindful that this could happen, and be aware of what’s being asked of them so they can ask questions and look to negotiate if it feels their pay has been knocked down to the current level, but then their rate of work ends up picking back up in the future.

Whether that’s a purposeful business tactic or not, it’s just something for WWE stars to be mindful of and not be afraid of speaking up about if/when it happens.

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