10 Most Mind-Blowing Wrestling Secrets Of 2023
5. Tapping Up Allegations
Partly down to wrestling existing in a grey area in how talents are paid/contracted and also because allegations of tampering or tapping up in any industry can be taken very seriously, it's possible this minor scandal that broke late in 2023 might come to nothing. But break it did.
Emerging from the embers of Tony Khan's post-Tuesday Night Wars posts on X in October, further information about talent apparently involved in the murky situation was revealed.
Swerve Strickland and William Regal were allegedly wrestlers WWE had shown more than a passive interest in despite both being on AEW deals, and to make matters worse, the whole thing had gone down while Khan was at the side of his ill mother. The furore died down as they typically do, but it brought back into focus just how seriously both sides take all of this in spite of multiple public cries to the contrary.
Wrestlers and promoters alike can tell you there's no war. Bad faith critics can tell you it's bad form to favour one company over another. But that's not how they really see it, and definitely not how they want it.