Since Endeavor purchased WWE in 2023 and merged it with UFC to create TKO, people from all corners of the wrestling world have experienced a change in how the industry’s biggest company does business.
Fans are dealing with the rising cost of following WWE’s product, live or on-screen. Talent’s seen in a change in how the end of their contracts and negotiations are handled. And now we’re hearing from former stars, the ones on so-called Legends deals.
The issue has been raised by someone known for putting the “business” part of the wrestling business first — Kevin Nash. He did so on his Kliq This podcast, and started by sharing a conversation he and fellow WWE Hall of Famer Sean “X-Pac” Waltman had recently:
“I was talking to Mr. Waltman this week. We had our weekly update. We both got our royalty check and I called him… and he’s laughing on the other side of the phone. He goes, ‘Obviously, you got your royalty check.’
“I said, ‘Holy fuck.’ I said, ‘The last one was good… this one was rotten.’ I mean, it was half.”
When his co-host Sean Oliver was amazed by that, Nash said there were signs before the latest “rotten” check. They’ve all come since TKO took over:
“When I was making huge money in my royalties, it was broken down. It would say ‘nWo t-shirts’, ‘nWo women’s t-shirts’. Now it says ‘nWo intellectual property’ and there’s just a number.”
“It got weird when they sold. It started when they sold, all of a sudden… the weirdness starts.”
He explained why he thinks TKO would engage in such “weirdness”:
“I can only go by what I was making, I can only imagine what like Hulk, Austin, Rock, like if you take all those guys – I think Steve was at 50 percent of his merch. Some of mine was at 25. So I mean, when you take that and you cut that in half and put that back on the books, that’s several million dollars.”
Nash mentions suing and getting forensic accountants involved, but quickly moves on as the nWo founder and Oliver discuss how Nash is also a TKO shareholder, so as an investor he’s likely benefiting from practices like the alleged royalty check “weirdness” that screw him as talent.
Ultimately, Nash says he won’t make it an issue as long as his friend and Kliq brother Paul “Triple H” Levesque is in one of the people in charge of WWE:
“My thing with it is, I would never do anything to put any bad light on Paul. As long as Paul’s in charge, I just roll with everything.”
Will other Legends feel the same way? Let us know what you think, and check out the entire new episode of Kliq This here.
