JBL thinks WWE is entitled to lock young wrestlers into long NXT contracts because most of the money it spends training them never comes back.
The argument came up on Something To Wrestle while discussing developmental deals and what wrestlers starting out are paid.
“I don’t have any problem with the cuts and the releases and the salaries. It’s about what you negotiate, but WWE takes a lot of chances with a lot of people, and they pay people incredibly well to train there.”
He said the point is about volume rather than generosity.
“They spend a lot of money that just goes out the door because the people don’t make it, so I think it makes perfect sense for them to try to lock them in because of the investments they make.”
“I go down there, and I see these huge classes. Most of those people don’t make it, so you spend a lot of money trying to make whatever 30 or 40 percent that make it, or 20 percent. I have no idea what that percentage is, so I can see why they try to lock them in for long-term contracts because they need to make their money back for what all they’ve invested in. I think that’s fair and just for them to do that.”
He said he would like to know the real figure.
“I’d love to see the ratio of how many people don’t make it at NXT. They probably know exactly what that percentage is. They’re good at everything else with percentages, so I’m sure they do. I’d love to hear what the percentage is out of 100 people, what they expect to make it, and how that’s scaling up or scaling down based on training.”
He was blunt about where the leverage sits.
“You’re a minus quantity at that point. You don’t have any leverage, and you don’t deserve much leverage. I’m sorry. But if you make it, you can end up making a ton of money.”
He addressed the obvious objection to a wrestler of his generation making that argument.
“These people that are there training may think they’re not getting paid that well, but understand it’s apples and oranges. We weren’t making enough money to do anything.”
He was on unemployment while he trained.
“I was on unemployment for about six months when I got done with football. Thank God I played pro football, and so the only thing I had to take was a job that was comparable. So I didn’t have to apply for many jobs because the only thing I was eligible to do was play pro football. I coached one year, and I got like 250 bucks a week, or 220 bucks a week, or something. That’s one of the things I lived on when I trained.”
He said the old system was not better.
“Now people say, oh, that’s your old school, that’s your old ways. No, I get that. I understand all that, and I wouldn’t trade what I did for anything. But if I had the choice of saying, okay, we’re going to pay you whatever they pay them down at NXT, 40,000, 80,000, whatever it is, that’s a pretty good wage to start out to learn how to train, to see if you can make it in this business.”
He also had nothing good to say about how training was done in his era. Asked about the volume of squats and bumps new wrestlers were made to take, JBL said he never understood the point of it.
“I’ve never understood why you had so many guys do so many squats and push-ups and bumps and all that crap. I did it. You go to other places, and guys wanted you to train with someone there, and they say, “Okay, do 500 squats.” Why? Makes no sense to me. You’re either in shape, or you’re not. You’re there to learn.”
“We used to take so many bumps, and instead of learning how to be safe, you end up getting hurt by it.”
He agreed with Paul Wight, who said this month that paying your dues is an old-timer’s way of bullying younger talent.
“I saw what Big Show had talked about with guys that were saying it was old school, just a way of being a**holes, and I agree with that. I never thought these guys should beat people up. I was kind of in that intersection where I was still part of the old school when I broke in, then got into the new world. But I never thought that these guys should be mistreated like that.”
