Major League Wrestling CEO Court Bauer recently spoke with Fightful about a number of different topics, most notably how contract structure for the promotion has changed since they reopened in 2017, and how MLW has a 90% success rate at renewing talent’s contracts. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says MLW has a 90% success rate at getting MLW talents to renew their contracts:
“It’s a great feeling because you have stability. I like to map out eighteen, ideally twenty-four, months. But injuries, situations, pandemics, change everything. You want to have a rough outline where you’re going. So knowing the major pieces on the chess board is important, and also figuring in there’s gonna be some new additions along the way. Stuff like that helps. So having these guys locked in, having them be invested in MLW, means the world to me. Yes, it’s great to have them on the roster, but their commitment to MLW and the acknowledgment that they’re so into this, that it’s the right system for them, means the world. It’s very validating, for me on a personal note. For us, when we go and recruit them, it’s a conversation of like, ‘How are you feeling about your time here? Are you having a good time? How are you feeling about things? Well, we have a scenario we’d like to run by you’ and we give them the vision for it and then take it from there. To have that kind of 90% success rate in getting renewals for the guys we want? Now more than ever they have all these great options and all these other opportunities. That’s a big thing for us,” he continued. “It’s a huge get for us and it’s huge for my team that works really hard in developing these relationships with the talent, so do I, and for the talent. We want them to come here. I think for some of them—like Fatu, Hammer, Matt—it’s like, these aren’t guys that just started in wrestling a few years ago. They’ve been around. But this is a system that just meshed, it connected from a creative point of view, from a financial point of view, they’re finding that level of success that they had been hoping and look for in this system. I always say, ‘Look, we’re gonna grow together.’ So our generation one contracts, generation two contracts, generation three, you’re seeing an escalation of what we’re able to offer financially, if we’re growing, then they’re growing and benefiting from it. Whatever I said is going to happen, is going to happen. So I’m good for my word.”
How the structure of contracts has changed since MLW reopened in 2017:
“It’s funny, one thing I’ll mention about the contracts, everyone’s like, ‘Oh, those MLW contracts.’ So when we started as a baby company in a nightclub in Orlando in 2017, we had a lawyer draft these contracts. They were very simple. It was simpler times,” he said. “As times changed, we looked at those contracts and they were very—they weren’t exactly Swiss cheese, I wouldn’t say they’re edible, but they’re very close to Swiss cheese. So we said, ‘We’ve gotta get a better legal team on this and get these contracts up to snuff,’ and that’s what we did. When these guys are locked in, they’re locked in. The contracts are better for us and they’re better for the talent financially. We’re also the company where you can be on national TV on [belN Sports] in twenty countries and also have the freedom and liberty and do your indy bookings. We don’t take a piece of that action. You go out and do you. We don’t want to get involved in that mess. If you miss a flight or negotiate a higher price—that’s all you. Please use that as a platform to get more bookings. It’s worked out great. It’s worked out great for them. We really don’t want to have those walls up around us. We want to give that talent that opportunity.”
