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WWE RELEASES, BIANCA BELAIR, PRO WRESTLING THIS WEEK AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2020-04-25 10:00:00

I've seen people making noise about talents still working for WWE after they have been released?  Is that unusual?

Not if you have any sense of history.  Talents who are announced as released still technically work for the company and are paid for the next 90 days as such.  That's why there's a no compete.  They are technically still with WWE but have been informed at the end of their window, they are being released from their contractual obligations.  If WWE wanted to book them to work Raw or Smackdown or NXT to do jobs, that's WWE's right.  Rhino worked the first One Night Stand after he was released because he was in that window.  Drake Maverick will work the Cruiserweight Interim tournament.  Blue Meanie was released at one point and built up enough fan outrage that the company reversed the release.  It's not unusual.  Each situation is a case by case, unique situation.  There's no textbook rule for it.

I've seen it posited that WWE could have kept from releasing and furhlouging talent by canceling the dividend.  Why didn't they just do that?

I am not a financial expert when it comes to stocks and publicly traded companies in the least, but my guess is that had WWE announced they were cancelling the dividend in order to instead spend that money to maintain the status quo, it would have sent their stock price into a freefall because investors would quickly want to part ways with it.  The company's prime objective is to keep stockholders happy.  The stock price went up after the releases and after Thursday's financial earnings release for a reason.  From a moral standpoint, yes, this sucks, but WWE's job isn't to do the most moral thing - like other publicly traded companies, their goal is to protect their bottom line.  This isn't me defending the decision, just trying to explain why they made the decision.

Did Vince McMahon take a pay cut?  How much?

Yes, we are told WWE instituted a pay cut across for every executive not furhloughed.    They aren't going to confirm the amount obviously.

Whatever happened to ZZ from Tough Enough?

He continued training at Wildkat Wrestling's school in New Orleans and was appearing on their events but in recent months, he's been working full-time for his family's company, Zam's Swamp Tour Guide + Wildlife Conservationist in Louisiana.

Bianca Belair is pretty impressive.  Where was she trained?

Belair is a product of the WWE Performance Center.  She was trained completely in the WWE NXT system.

With Joe Pedicino passing, I was wondering who owned the Pro Wrestling This Week library?

I would think Pedicino's estate owns the content but I could see some questioning who is the true owner of the content given it features footage from so many territories and even international promotions.  I'd love to see the complete run of the series available for fans, but I don't know that's actually a feasible possibility from a legal standpoint unless the agreements to run the tapes from different companies included the rights in perpituity and you know WWE, etc. never would have signed off on that!

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