Kevin Nash used the latest episode of his Kliq This podcast to publicly urge WWE wrestlers to consider unionizing through SAG-AFTRA following reports that TKO has approached talent about 50 percent pay cuts.
Nash, who appeared remotely from Michigan, referenced reports of compensation increases at the top of TKO, including Ari Emanuel’s pay swelling to roughly $67 million, while talent further down the roster has been told to take cuts.
Nash said the math behind a pay cut could work in some scenarios. He described a wrestler going from 300 dates a year for $10 million to 80 dates a year for $5 million. “Now the math, the mapping works,” he said. Co-host Sean Oliver pointed out that what’s being reported is the pay reduction, not whether the date obligations are also moving in step. Nash did not sound confident they were.
On the union angle, Nash directly invoked Jesse Ventura, who has long advocated for wrestlers to organize. “Tell them how you were going to do it. Tell them how you were going to unionize. Go to SAG, get a bunch of guys together,” Nash said. He argued WWE television is scripted to a level that should qualify the performers as actors. “Take one of the programs that’s written down, and you tell me that that program isn’t more heavily written and more produced than Curb Your Enthusiasm was when all those actors that went on that show got SAG paid.”
He criticized TKO’s Endeavor leadership for classifying talent as 1099 independent contractors. “If one thing Endeavor does know, because it’s all Endeavor’s deal, Endeavor knows that game. That’s their home run. So if they’re so good at that game, let the boys play by those rules. You know the game. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t play Endeavor at the f—-ing top with the 300 percent increases and f—-ing 1099 the dock workers that are f—-ing Brad Pitt and f—-ing Pacino. Can’t do both.”
Nash also questioned how WWE’s 90-day non-compete clauses would hold up to a class action. “How about when they tell you that you can’t go work someplace else for 90 days. You can’t paint my house, Mr. Painter, but you can’t paint another house either for 90 days. See how that would f—-ing run that one up.”
Slipping into his “old school Louie” character, Nash described how an everyman wrestler would respond to the offer. “They came at me and said, ‘Hey, old school Louie, we’re gonna cut your pay 50 percent.’ I say the f—- you are. Just because you f—-ing guys are business guys, you think all the business are run the same. You guys are f—-ing tanked on this one. Everybody thinks that this business is like the circus, and this business is like businesses like no other. If you get in it, you don’t f—-ing know it before you get in it. There is no learning curve. Go f—- yourself. I want all my money.”
He defended WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, arguing the pay cut directive is coming from above creative. “How about leaving the f—-ing company alone? Get your f—-ing noses out of creative. Go f—- yourselves. Let Paul run the f—-ing company,” Nash said. “How about you grow a set of f—-ing balls and you walk in and you tell them that because the UFC is f—-ing bleeding through every tourniquet that they have, we’re gonna cut f—-ing people off of the f—-ing WWE to stop the bleeding from the other company you bought, because the UFC is hemorrhaging f—-ing money and f—-ing WWE isn’t.”
Nash said he would walk away from WWE entirely if Triple H is removed. “I hope that you would follow my lead, because the minute they f—- with him, I’ll have nothing to do with that product the rest of my life.”
He pointed to the Roman Reigns June scheduling situation as another example of the disconnect. Reigns was reportedly pulled from advertised June WWE Raw dates after he was not booked for the WWE Saudi Arabia premium live event. “So I’m so proficient that I just got a 300 percent pay increase, yet somehow somebody underneath me, and I think the term that I read in the article was the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, somebody booked Roman Reigns for the June dates,” Nash said.
He also flagged the reported 50 percent pay cuts offered to The New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Big E, both of whom have been with WWE roughly 16 or 17 years. “You have already picked the New Day.”
Nash returned to the broader trust issue with signing 1099 contracts the company has signaled it can walk back. “If you’re wanting to renege 50 percent of the funds on a contract that’s signed moving forward, do you think that that’s an anomaly, or do you think that’s just their f—-ing motives?”
He ended the segment with one line: “I wouldn’t believe a f—-ing word they said.”
