Vince McMahon Calls WWE's Released Wrestlers "Dead Weight"
When Pat McAfee asked Vince McMahon about WWE's wrestler release, the WWE Chairman responded...
Vince McMahon's interview on The Pat McAfee Show was as fluffy, light on insight, and soft-balled as expected, with the host largely handling the WWE Chairman and CEO with kid gloves throughout. Nonetheless, McMahon came close to cutting through the fluff when asked about WWE's glut of roster releases over the past few years.
McAfee asked McMahon:-
“People always assume that you just have no heart and you do not care at all about any of these people...are any of those decisions more difficult than others, or is it just always what will make the best show in your eyes?”
Vince's response, firstly, was the easily-disproven claim that WWE always listens to its audience, before referring to the 100+ people the company has cut since the COVID-19 pandemic's onset as "dead weight":-
“I’m always concerned about what’s best for the audience. Always. What does the audience want? And if you have dead weight around, you have situations whereby someone’s not cutting it and you have an opportunity for someone else to come in, it’s like, okay, that’s probably the best thing. It’s one of the reasons why, with [Hulk] Hogan and a lot of those guys who left me at one time, [it’s] why I brought them back...what’s the best thing for business? If the audience wants Hulk Hogan back, you bring him back, if he has value that way.”
The majority of WWE's releases between 2020 and 2022 and the present day have been attributed to "budget cuts", despite the promotion currently being more profitable than at any other point in history. Thus, these decisions have attracted deserved controversy - as will McMahon's cold new wording on the matter.
Continuing, McMahon insinuated that the wrestlers he has let go make too many excuses when cut:-
“Sometimes athletes...when they’re not given the opportunity, or even if they are and it doesn’t work, people from all walks of life seldom look in the mirror and say, you know what, I was the guy who f*cked up. It was on me. Instead, everyone has a million excuses to why things didn’t work. And generally speaking, the heat has to go some place, the old blame game, and I’m the bad guy. That’s a part of the job.”
How very empathetic.
(h/t Cageside Seats for the transcriptions)