Chris Jericho has seen and done it all in the professional wrestling world. He has worked for a long time in WWE and is currently working in AEW and is well aware of how each company treats their talents.
While speaking to Andrew Yang on Talk Is Jericho, the topic of how WWE treats their Superstars was brought up. Andrew Yang revealed he was able to see a WWE contract for a Superstar and understood how WWE Superstars have money taken out of their pockets. He said WWE has saved “hundreds of millions of dollars” due to the complicated way the contracts are worded, which is intentional.
Jericho then explained how Vince McMahon and Tony Khan treat their talents. McMahon is fixated on old wrestling ideas, while Khan treats talents similar to a sports team.
“I think the biggest difference is kind of what we’ve been talking about this whole conversation is that WWE treats the business as a wrestling business because that’s what it’s been for 60 years from Vince’s father and Vince’s grandfather, almost from the old school carny attitude, and you can see that with ‘the independent contractor’ for example. It’s not right, but it’s just the way it is, like I explained.”
“AEW treats things from a sports team perspective. The Khan family owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. They own Fulham Football Club in England. So they treat the company like they treat their football team, and that’s a whole different vibe as how the talent, the athletes [and] the performers get treated.”
h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.
