AEW President Tony Khan has commented on the latest round of WWE releases, describing a WWE contract as a “temporary arrangement.”
On November 18th, WWE released yet more Superstars, following the already extensive talents cuts made throughout 2021. Prior to November 18th, the company had already let go more than 72 Superstars including the likes of Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman, Ruby Soho and Malakai Black. Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole also left the company after their contracts expired.
The latest round of releases saw John Morrison, the remaining members of Hit Row and Tegan Nox among others depart.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Tony Khan addressed the latest releases, commenting that a WWE contract isn’t a proper contract, only a temporary arrangement.
“Anyone who signs a contract (in WWE) these days, is not signing a real contract. It’s a temporary arrangement. People who come wrestle with me, a lot of these people are frankly lifers and they know that. There are some people who are here, who work really hard and there are some people who come in and work more than really hard and I feel like is their actual life and will be with me for the rest of my life. I don’t know if everybody who works for my competition can say that. I think there are people who work there and they aren’t sure they will be there next week.”
Tony Khan continued by explaining how AEW is different, in that it offers greater job security, adding that laying off so many people on a regular basis isn’t something to be proud of.
“There is a lot more security with a contract here. I can’t say I’m going to extend every contract or bring every person back, but I also haven’t been doing mass layoffs. I’m not the most profitable company of all time, I don’t brag about being the most profitable company of all time. I do brag about bringing in a lot of revenue for a start up and being a real success story.
What I will brag about is we haven’t been doing mass layoffs and we haven’t fired 15 people last week or 18 people the week before that. It’s not something to be proud of when a company lets all those people go and you’re putting press releases out like that frequently, I don’t think it’s a good thing.
I don’t want to make light of that kind of thing ever. When you talk about a bidding war, each person is their own individual case and there may be multiple people coming for his services, but we’ve seen most of the talent going in one direction and, I think that’s for a variety of reasons, but I’ve been very selective in the people I’ve signed and every time there has been a mass layoff on the other side it’s terrible and I can’t say I would be able to take on every one of these people,”
Prior to the latest releases, United States Champion Damian Priest spoke of “survivor’s guilt” with regard to the large number of Superstars let go.
H/t to Fightful for the transcription.