The REAL Reason WWE Won’t Pay Wrestlers Healthcare

This setup also prohibits unionisation ever giving wrestlers even the slimmest hope of fighting for a cause. Unions have routinely failed to gather steam in the past due to the aforementioned capitalistic nature of the game - so much so that Hulk Hogan wasn't remotely chastised for ratting Jesse Ventura out when he attempted to make the fantasy a reality in the mid-1980s.

Individualism repeatedly trumps collectivism too, and McMahon knows it. Matt Hardy's pro-WWE appraisal of Oliver's comments didn't come across as fist-clenched rhetoric so much as a call to praise the organisation for improvements made since the "wild west" era he walked into in the mid-1990s. Hardy missed the point whilst making an entirely different one - things do get better, but the relative terms he - a millionaire and made man - spoke in served as a reminder that they weren't good enough for everybody by some distance.

We are just over a fortnight removed from the original Oliver story, and the fact that this piece might suffer in clicks (and cash!) as result of the rapidly-shifting news cycle highlights why Last Week Tonight's coverage only managed half a job.

The narrative in wrestling moved on just as quick, ironically to whether or not Sasha Banks should be grateful just for having a spot in WWE, regardless of how badly she's used there. Talent yet again maligned for wanting just a sliver of control - financial or otherwise - in their careers. Healthcare plans cover physical and mental aid, and woe betide the state of the findings if WWE ever paid for that.

With nobody other than each other to fight for, wrestlers may yet be some way from the salvation John Oliver was so stringently in support of. Until wrestlers use their minds before their bodies, that's the REAL Reason WWE Won’t Pay Wrestlers Its Healthcare. That, and money.