“Independent Contractors”
By Scott Keith on 4 April 2019
I've always wondered how the WWE has gotten away with classifying their wrestlers under contract as "independent contractors"? I was always under the impression that an independent contractor was a person who was able to work for multiple companies at the same time? Is it a matter of none of the current talent under deals want to risk getting fired for making waves, or is a simple instance of, hypothetically speaking, "You knew the deal with us up front. If you don't like it, you are free to work someplace else."? Thanks.
It's mostly because that's the way things always were before, in the days before the WCW/WWF contract escalation wars, so they've never felt the need to change. In the territory days, guys really were able to work for multiple places at the same time and frequently did so. It was the introduction of exclusive contracts that turned wrestlers from contractors to employees, but the problem is that anyone who tries to fight will be ground up by WWE's team of lawyers and bled dry by legal costs. And everyone knows it. And now everyone in the WWE system has become so indoctrinated into thinking that This Is The Way It Should Be that something happens like Undertaker (GASP!) taking an outside date and suddenly Vince loses his shit.