Wrestlers having to report to work on "off days"

[Deleted]

I've noticed countless instances over the years of WWE, WCW, and ECW having wrestlers come to TV tapings and PPVs even when they won't be appearing at all or will have, maybe, 5-10 seconds of screen time when, let's say, someone else is shown walking to the ring for a match. Here's few instances of this happening.

On "The True Story of WrestleMania" Blu-ray, one bonus feature shows some backstage footage from WrestleMania IX. One of these clips shows several people watching HBK and Luna Vachon's entrance on a monitor. One of the people watching is Virgil, who didn't appear on the show in any way.

ECW did this, too. At Hardcore Heaven '97, there's a big brawl to end the show. It could easily have been scrapped or not booked in the first place because it wasn't really ever mentioned again, yet seemingly around 6-8 of the guys involved in it were making their first and only appearance of the night. The show was in Florida, and a lot of those guys would have to have been flown in, either by ECW or maybe on their own dime.

On the flip side, Daniel Bryan did an interview a few months ago and said WWE decided to not fly him in for last year's Survivor Series. He was the MITB briefcase holder at the time. Yet, it's fairly common to see someone really low on the card, like JTG or Aksana, for a couple seconds in someone else's backstage shot, despite having no match on the main show, no match taped for one of the B-shows, no speaking role that night, or any real reason to not be at home or somewhere else enjoying a night off.

Is there a way it is determined whether or not the company makes a performer show up on an "off day"? It seems like a waste of money since the company would have to pay for the airline ticket. I have noticed that TNA doesn't seem to do this, at least not nearly as much. Usually, TNA only brings in the performers who have a match or a speaking role on that's night's show.

[Burst]

I'm willing to bet most of the time it's for promotional work before the show and potentially to keep either the workers from complaining about not being used or to justify to the stockholders why they're employing such-and-such.

But I feel like unless I was getting paid to do not much, if I was a talent and I knew I wasn't going to be on the card period, I think I'd rather have the period to stay with family.

But I also feel like the way the wrestling culture is cultivated, even if you've nothing to do, you NEED to be there just so you can brown-nose and kiss ass to even remotely attempt to raise your stock.

[austinariesfan88]

I believeduring his first run with TNA, Austin Aries was suspended because he didn't want to tape vignettes on his day off.

[molson5]

The could probably save money but I can definitely see the temptation to just have everyone there at every show in case you have booking changes, injuries, vignettes, promotional stuff, meetings, whatever. And in the days after RAW, they probably have house shows in the vicinity, so you'd probably be flying them out to the region a day later anyway. For a corporation like WWE it's probably not a huge expense.

[saintpat]

Another reason, I think, is because from everything I've ever read including stuff that gets into very recent times, wrestlers travel together and split expenses (most pay their own way out of their paychecks, but they can write it off).

So if Kofi and Yoshi are travel buddies and Kofi has a role on Raw and needs to be there and Yoshi is working a house show in that area -- let's say they are in LA and have house shows in San Diego and then Vegas at the end of the week -- then Yoshi would obviously tag along with Kofi to Raw.

There are also things like Superstars and/or NXT tapings and dark matches where the person you catch a glimpse of in the background at Raw may be working one of those that night.

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

It's also a backup plan.

Let's say Kofi is supposed to face Damien Sandow, but Kofi on that day gets food poisoning. They can't exactly send him out there when he's puking. So you grab a lower tier guy (like Yoshi), and have a squash match.

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2012 0:18:47 GMT -5 saintpat said:

There are also things like Superstars and/or NXT tapings and dark matches where the person you catch a glimpse of in the background at Raw may be working one of those that night.

Oh, that I understand. I'm talking about when someone's only appearance for the entire taping is being seen for 2 seconds when, say, Sheamus is shown heading to the ring for his match coming up after the commerical break. No match/promo on Superstars/SMS/Main Event, no match/promo on Raw/Smackdown.

Sometimes, it happens in reverse, and WWE doesn't bring wrestlers to a PPV and lets them spend the day of the show heading to Monday's city even when there's a segment on the PPV where it would have made sense for them to be there. Last year at Extreme Rules, there were two backstage segments with the Divas, but Eve and Maryse weren't involved because both of them were flying into the Raw town during ER (according to them on Twitter). There seems to be little rhyme or reason to how WWE decides it.

[thegame415]

Wasn't WCW, circa '98-99, famous for having tons of guys backstage and using only a handful?

[unoriginalalex]

Brian kendrick has talked about getting paid to go to raw when he wasn't being used, and he would hide out somewhere and jack off and get high. Though I'm not sure if they have to pay for flights, because he said something like, "after expen
ses, I was getting paid 300$ a night to jerk off ect."

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Well, today's shows are often written hours before they go live on the air, so it's not like they know who they are going to use before they get to the arena.

At least in the Daniel Bryan case, he wasn't on a PPV card, so they knew ahead of time that they could forgo getting a plane ticket.

[Can you afford to pay me, Gah]

Nov 27, 2012 7:11:16 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

Well, today's shows are often written hours before they go live on the air, so it's not like they know who they are going to use before they get to the arena.

At least in the Daniel Bryan case, he wasn't on a PPV card, so they knew ahead of time that they could forgo getting a plane ticket.

I think the Kofi example is a possible reason why a lot of guys are there. Nobody going to know how bad could get sick before hand. So what happens if something you ate the night before is making you puke all day of the event? Someone like said has to fill in.

WWE have Otunga at SS this year for Rhodes not able to go at all.