Elijah Burke disagrees with Paul Wight’s blanket rejection of professional wrestling’s paying-dues culture, arguing that the specific expectations may change while accountability and hard work remain necessary.
Burke addressed the ongoing debate during the pilot episode of Pope & The Conman, presented by the In Your Howse Wrestling Podcast.
WrestlingHeadlines previously reported that Wight dismissed the traditional concept of paying dues, describing it as an excuse for established wrestlers to bully or gatekeep younger talent.
Burke acknowledged that the business and its customs have evolved.
“Time changes. People change. But certain things don’t change.”
He said the form that paying dues takes should not necessarily remain identical to what previous generations experienced.
“Maybe that has changed, what that looks like. Maybe paying dues today, what it looks like, differs from what we had to do to pay dues.”
Burke nevertheless rejected the idea that a wrestler should enter the industry without earning a place through work, accountability and experience.
“When it comes to paying dues, everybody’s got to pay dues.”
“But everybody has to pay their dues. I don’t necessarily agree with that because, again, there’s a cost. There’s a price to be paid by every man when it comes to this business and ascending.”
Burke argued that removing expectations entirely has made it easier for people to enter wrestling without learning the responsibilities that traditionally accompanied the opportunity.
“That mindset has literally, not figuratively, literally allowed others to just get in a ring because there’s no dues being paid. There’s no accountability.”
“Anybody, literally, cosplayers have gotten in the ring. Why? Because they’ve got a cool look. They’re a cosplayer. They know somebody.”
Burke distinguished legitimate work from unnecessary suffering or mistreatment.
“You’ve got to go through something.”
“You may not have to suffer, but you’ve got to put the work in.”
He said assisting with a ring, equipment or other shared responsibilities can be part of demonstrating that a wrestler belongs in the locker room.
“You can’t just get in, but you’ve got to fit in as well.”
“Fitting in means doing the things that everybody else is doing without having to be told to do so.”
The larger debate began after Arik Cannon criticized AJ Styles’ son Avery Styles over an allegation that Avery did not help with event setup when asked. WrestlingHeadlines has covered AJ Styles’ defense of his son, Cody Rhodes’ response and GCW distancing itself from Cannon’s comments.
Burke did not witness the incident and made his opinion conditional on whether Avery was specifically asked to help by an established locker-room leader.
“If he was asked, that’s different. If he was asked to do so, then that is different.”
“If he’s, quote-unquote, the veteran, the leader of the locker room, and he asked, then maybe that should have been adhered to.”
Burke also questioned Cannon’s decision to take the matter public. He said Cannon should have attempted to contact AJ Styles directly or raised the concern with the promoter.
“He should have contacted AJ first and reached out to him.”
“Maybe the young man, whoever he is, maybe he should have got with the owner of GCW, reported that to him, and then allowed him to be the mediator to AJ Styles if that was a problem.”
“It falls back on the owner of GCW as well, because if he didn’t have a problem with it, then nobody else can have a problem with it.”
Burke then challenged Rhodes’ argument that Avery had already paid dues by growing up while his father sacrificed time with his family to build a wrestling career.
“If anybody gets a pass, or could have gotten the pass, it would have been Cody Rhodes.”
According to Burke, Rhodes did not accept special treatment when he entered Ohio Valley Wrestling as the son of Dusty Rhodes.
“When Cody got to OVW, Cody did exactly what everybody else did because he wanted to fit in.”
“He was in the fraternity, and he knew what that fraternity entailed for him to do.”
Burke believes Avery’s connection to AJ Styles has softened the public response that another inexperienced wrestler would have received.
“If this was anybody that did not have a name associated with them like AJ Styles, they would be thrown under the bus, and everybody would be running over them after the bus.”
Burke closed by expressing hope that Avery uses the controversy constructively at his next wrestling appearance.
“Hopefully, he’d be someone who makes sure to go get some of that steel rust on his hands by lifting up those ring posts and all that stuff.”
“Get your hands dirty a little bit. It ain’t going to hurt. It’ll help more than anything.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Pope & The Conman, with a h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.
