We noted Monday night here on the website that current WWE star and former Cryme Tyme member JTG made some negative comments about his work in WWE during a Twitter rant on Monday evening. To update the situation, the basic story is that numerous mid-card talents are quite frustrated at the amount of television time they’ve been given lately. Additionally, the current pay they receive was addressed.
According to our source, “about 60 percent of the current WWE roster” is frustrated with the way WWE is handling pay for their talents, especially those lower down the card. A lot of frustration boiled over several weeks ago during the recent tour of Brazil. Many mid-card talents were only making approximately $500 per show, while talents higher up on the card were pulling in a much healthier figure. Not only were these shows sold out, a significant amount of merchandise was sold as well. Although these numbers may seem high to the average person, they are substantially low for WWE. During WrestleMania 28 week where talents are constantly on the run (I.E. – AXXESS), they were only being compensated an average of $2,000 for the entire week. WWE talents were encouraged to bring as many family members as they wanted, despite the fact that the $2,000 they are given only covers the cost of one or two family members at best, once travel, hotels and other accommodations are included.
According to sources, JTG finally had enough of these dealings and basically said “Screw it, if I get fired, I get fired.” One source we spoke with hopes other talents rally around JTG’s tweets and take the company to task as well. Numerous talents are increasingly frustrated these days, and WWE appears to be waiting until after Linda McMahon’s Senate campaign before doing their normal “spring cleaning” talent releases.
The morale of the story? WWE is allegedly being extremely cheap, particularly when it comes to overseas tours and merchandise sales. With talents being on the road year-round and almost no breaks or time off, many are visibly upset and talent morale as a whole is dropping by the day. There are some stars, as has always been the case, rallying for a union but they’re afraid to be more outwardly vocal about the situation.
