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By Jeremy Hanna
Contributing Sports Writer
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WWE has come under fire recently for counter programming rival promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW).
This has led to WWE rescheduling premium live events (PLE) and creating new PLEs to attempt to draw audiences away from AEW pay-per-views (PPV).
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The most recent example of this is the upcoming Wrestlepalooza, which led to AEW CEO Tony Khan rescheduling All Out: Toronto to earlier in the day.
This has led to fans and wrestling personalities questioning the move, including modern wrestling legend Bryan Danielson.
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During an appearance on The Kairous Boys, Danielson addressed WWE's counter programming,
"I'm just curious, like, what the people who are making these decisions, what they're thinking, right? In the sense of like, 'Oh, okay, this AEW thing. It's a real danger to our billion-dollar business.' That can't be it," Danielson said, per Robert DeFelice of Fightful.
"AEW existing and being this challenger brand, and being as successful as we've been, has changed the landscape for wrestling, for the wrestlers themselves. Wrestlers are being paid more now than ever from a sports rights perspective.
"So, for example, in most major sports in the United States, the players get anywhere between 40 to 50% of the revenue. WWE was paying their wrestlers nowhere close to that. Now, keep in mind, they're still not paying anywhere close to that, but they do have to pay more, because if they don't, the talent is going to leave and go to AEW.
"AEW does pay that 40 to 50% of their revenue to their wrestlers. You know, despite making much less money. I mean, our TV rights deal was incredible, but we're still the challenger brand catching up on however many years WWE has."
Danielson went on to say that, overall, he wasn't concerned about the issue.
"I would be really interested, and I'm not saying this in the sense of like, 'Oh, those evil people,'" Danielson said. "Because when you think of corporations, they are not people, right?
"In the United States, I don't know if it's like this in Australia, but corporations have been, have been determined as, like, legally, as people, they have the same rights as people. It's just like, wait, what? But they're not people, right?
"So that these corporations make these decisions, but the people in WWE, a lot of people I know, are great people, right? So it's like, I'd be interested to know, okay, what's the decision-making process in this?"
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