Erik Watts says his WCW contract renewed automatically, but the company later released him and took back a payment that had already reached his account. Speaking with Bryan Asbury on Developmentally Speaking, Watts recalled the abrupt exit that led him to WWE.
Watts was discussing the change in WCW leadership after his father, Bill Watts, left the company. He said Eric Bischoff had publicly praised his time at the Power Plant before Watts received the release letter.
“The WCW contract was that if they don’t give, you know, they got to give you a 30-day or 60-day notice before the end of your contract or it flips for another year. And literally, I got paid and my contract had flipped over. And then next thing you know, I got no call … I got a letter in the mail saying, ‘We’re releasing you from your contract,’ and they took the money back. It was in my account.”
Watts said he considered challenging the release because he believed the renewal had already taken effect. He decided to move on rather than fight to remain with a company that no longer wanted him.
“I had a whole bunch of feelings about that at first, like, you know, I could get a lawyer. I could have sat there and said, ‘No, no, I wrestled into my renewal. I’ve been paid also. On top of that, you guys paid me.’ … But listen, you don’t want me somewhere, God bless you. So that’s what did it. I was like, ‘Cool. I’ll just go to WWE.’ So that’s what I did.”
For more from the show, see WrestlingHeadlines’ Developmentally Speaking coverage archive. Source: Developmentally Speaking interview with Erik Watts; quotations from the video’s original YouTube auto-generated transcript.
