Paid Members garynysmon Posted April 16, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 16, 2020 (edited) 53 minutes ago, tiger_rick said: This sort of narrative is horseshit. Brock Lesnar was trending last night for similar reasons. The Saudis are paying them tens of millions annually to get people like Goldberg on their shows. The TV deals pay hundreds of millions for stars like Brock Lesnar. They're worth every penny and their price tag reflects that. This is a slimey move with shitty timing but it's fuck all to do with other necessary business decisions or other stars. It would be nice if WWE had offered everyone the chance to take pay cuts to save jobs or something as they've done with execs. But this is where the contractor status affects them again. They're not employees. They're expendable and contractually easy to drop. Unless they ever do anything about that, they'll always be subject to the environment. There’s a certain portion of the current fanbase that hate seeing the part timers at all, usually turning up and running roughshod over their favourites and fucking off again. I can half understand it if you’re too young to remember them in their pomp and consider the current lot to be stars in any way, shape or form. But they’re going to take a pop against Goldberg etc either way. Its comparing apples and oranges though, and attacking the wrong target in this case. Goldberg, Tyson Fury etc were investments for the Saudi shows which bring in substantial income of their own (as morally questionable as that may be), way and above what they were paid. With the best will in the world, the released wrestlers were and never are going to fill those roles and fulfill nostalgia pops for anyone. Their shitty treatment is a different kettle of fish altogether. Edited April 16, 2020 by garynysmon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Love-Wilcox Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 Yeah, throwing shade at Goldberg or other part timers really just takes everyone's attention off the main issue, which is that WWE have $500 million in cash reserves and regardless were still set to turn a decent profit at the end of the year. A mass culling of your employees during a major pandemic when you are financially capable of keeping them is incredibly callous no matter how you try to spin it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK Kat Von D Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 (edited) The McMahons are the ones who should be taking pay cuts to save jobs. Followed by releasing anyone who has asked/volunteered to be released. I bet Jericho would take a pay cut to stop midcarders getting sacked, can’t think of many other guys that would. Edited April 16, 2020 by UK Kat Von D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 (edited) 5 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said: Followed by releasing anyone who has asked/volunteered to be released. Is there anyone else left who's expressed that they want to leave and are being kept on? After Harper and Revival, the only ones I could think of were Kanellis, Rusev and I believe Lio Rush too, so it seems they might have done that at least. Edited April 16, 2020 by sj5522 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted April 16, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 16, 2020 It's daft talk anyway. Shafting someone out a payday so their favourites can get one instead. It's not Goldberg's fault, it's Vince McMahon's. Seth Rollins is just a miserable twat. That documentary they did on his comeback from knee injury exposed him as a humorless bore; I'm pretty sure even his dog didn't like him. In terms of his poor judgement and hubris, nothing sums him up better than him sending dick pics with something akin to a half eaten packet of Rolo's above his chuckies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Maestro Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 (edited) That WWE roster is completely bloated so the usual spring clear out would have been justified and valid under normal circumstances. However, we are not in normal circumstances so these releases leave a nasty taste in the mouth and do nothing to dispel the idea that they are a heartless company. Edited April 16, 2020 by The Maestro Future Endeavoured Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winston Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 AEW won't want to flood their roster with all these guys right now either, they'll be going through the same financial hardship and will only do what budget dictates. I think guys like Rusev, Ryder & EC3 would be a shoe-in though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grecian Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 41 minutes ago, Love-Wilcox said: Yeah, throwing shade at Goldberg or other part timers really just takes everyone's attention off the main issue, which is that WWE have $500 million in cash reserves and regardless were still set to turn a decent profit at the end of the year. A mass culling of your employees during a major pandemic when you are financially capable of keeping them is incredibly callous no matter how you try to spin it. Just a quick point of order: it's not half a billion in cash. It's a mixture of money in the bank (pun not intended, just a happy accident) and available debt facilities, such as overdrafts, Vince's credit card, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grecian Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 I've looked into it a little more. Going by their most recent financial report (issued on 6 February 2020 and can be found here: https://corporate.wwe.com/investors/news/press-releases/2020/02-06-2020-132933376), they had $250 million in cash, plus $200 million in debt capacity. Sounds a lot of money, but when they're unable to run any live shows, merchandise sales will have taken a hammering, the loss of Mania and still having to pay Goldberg, Brock and co for going to the Performance Center with no income from it, I can understand why they've chopped the number of people they have. I'm not trying to defend their actions at all, just saying that when you run a huge multi-national business with an enormous wage bill and shareholders, that money might not last very long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CTXRussomark Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 (edited) 20 minutes ago, Grecian said: Just a quick point of order: it's not half a billion in cash. It's a mixture of money in the bank (pun not intended, just a happy accident) and available debt facilities, such as overdrafts, Vince's credit card, etc. Yeah I've been seeing a ton of posts about this $500m of cash when it's clear from reading the report that only a fraction of that (I think around $90m someone had quoted per the latest financial report) is genuine cash. That doesn't change the fact that they could afford to get through this with no layoffs if they wanted to, but very few businesses are going to allow their cash reserves to be eaten away with such uncertainty around if/when they'll be able to build it back up. *EDIT* What @Grecian said. I didn't think they had as much as $250m in cash but the same point remains. Edited April 16, 2020 by CTXRussomark Update Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 Didn't spot this in the Twitter thread but it seems more poignant here . What a dude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted April 16, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 16, 2020 I wish I could say that I'm surprised about the amount of people defending WWE through all this, also in trying to do so by explaining they're not totally mega-rich but *only* mega-rich, but welcome to 2020. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted April 16, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 16, 2020 How much cash/credit WWE have on hand is only relevant if keeping these guys on staff is going to put WWE in the red. If they're saving $4 million a month, that means they'd have to be on course for less than $48 million a year profits before these layoffs are necessary to avoid eating into cash reserves. Last year they made just under $100 million in profits and that was with only four months of the new TV deals. This year they've got the ludicrous money coming in all year, with a rise in September. There's no house shows for the foreseeable, but they weren't making much of a profit on those anyway. They're still getting a healthy wodge from the Network even if subs are falling. Merchandise will be down because they've got fewer outlets to sell it. The Saudi money's probably gone, though the profits on that aren't as high as they seem given the payoffs to the big names. Upshot is, it's highly unlikely the profits this year wouldn't have been enough to pay these guys, so the size of the piggy bank is a red herring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 Taking the moral aspect out of it, because, well, it's Vince, it's actually understandable. I think the released talent gets three months pay during their no-compete, right? There's every chance that WWE would have been downsizing their production over the next few months during this lockdown anyway, so many of those released would maybe have been sitting at home anyway. They've done this to secure themselves against having to continue paying that talent if this shit is still going on three months from now. And let's be honest, if we're still in this position three months from now there's going to be a lot more problems to deal with. Three months with no real income via house shows and suchlike? Any business is going to take a hit in those circumstances. So rather than get two or three months down the line, and then release a load of talent who they would then have to pay for an additional three months, they've done it now so they're in a good position if the situation is still the same three months from now. If shit starts to improve and we see business picking up over the next month or two I fully expect that most of them will be brought back if they wish to return. Again, I'm not saying it's morally acceptable. This is a company worth a lot of money, but morals rarely plays a part in business, pandemic or not. That's just how it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted April 16, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 16, 2020 Should have just given them PS4s on their way out to make everything okay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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