Dutch Mantell weighed in on John Cena recently recalling a business opportunity that he said violated Vince McMahon’s trust.
As noted, Cena said he backed out of the outside opportunity after speaking with McMahon. Speaking on Story Time with Dutch Mantell, Mantell discussed WWE’s history with third-party deals and outside bookings.
Those third-party deals, you have to be very careful with that WWE contract.
I’ve heard this, not that I ever had firsthand experience with it, but I’ve heard that you have to be very careful taking a third party because they don’t like that because it’s out of their control.
Mantell said WWE could make those outside opportunities difficult.
They will go out of their way to actually mess that deal up.
John was probably on the receiving end of that. They’re trying to mess that up.
Mantell said Cena was rising at the time and looking for another opportunity, but WWE’s involvement complicated the situation.
He was in his rise as a third-party contractor, but he wanted something else.
And when the company that he had wanted to do the work for contacted WWE, they made it very difficult.
Mantell then spoke more broadly about WWE contracts and outside bookings.
When you signed this years ago, when you signed a contract with WWE three years and the date is on there plainly, you signed from January the 1st, 1990 to January the 1st, 1993 or 94.
That’s three years, isn’t it?
Mantell said wrestlers could be restricted from taking other work, even if WWE was not actively booking them.
You couldn’t take any other bookings at all, even if they did not book you.
So, you were basically having no money coming in, but yet you couldn’t take another booking to make money.
Mantell said the issue continued for years because challenging it would have required money.
Nobody ever really thought enough about it to challenge it because it would cost you money to challenge it.
And that went on for years and years and years.
Mantell said the arrangement conflicted with the idea of wrestlers being independent contractors.
Which flew in the face of a third-party contractor.
See what I mean?
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Story Time with Dutch Mantell, with a h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.
