The professional wrestling business, an industry that originated from the carnival circuit, was never known for its high ethical standards. Thankfully, as the sport evolved, including the start of the WWE Wellness policy, as well as better choices from the current generation, the genre has cleaned up some of its more notorious aspects.
That said, and as we saw with the Vince McMahon scandal, the corporate image that WWE touts as a part of its massive television deals and lucrative sponsorships often clash with the nature of the content. Despite the PG era, even when John Cena was in the midst of his big run at the top of the company, the narrative of the shows are usually told through some form of violence. Regardless of the WWE’s mega success as a corporate entity on Wall Street. it’s still fair to ask if a business like professional wrestling can truly thrive when shareholders, not the fans, are served first. One could argue that yes, it can be successful based on the WWE’s record-setting profits in recent years, which is absolutely a valid point, but the other side of the coin is that at the very least, it’s a difficult balancing act to produce contemporary pro wrestling that won’t rock the boat for the stockholders. Considering that it’s those investors that made WWE worth a few billion dollars, they maintain the priority as to what the WWE office serves first.
If you want to know the level of power the board of directors has that serves the shareholders, keep in mind that it was revelations of misconduct that were sent to them that ultimately saw Vince McMahon ousted from his own organization.
That’s why the surprising release of Mandy Rose is somewhat of a tricky situation because there are several contradictory dynamics within the scenario.
Originally inked to a WWE deal through the Tough Enough competition in 2015, she worked on the main roster for almost four years with a rather undistinguished run before she returned to the NXT brand in 2021. Credit to Mandy, she was a completely average performer during the majority of her original main roster stint, but completely reinvented herself in NXT and did the best work of her career.
That’s why many fans were shocked when she dropped the NXT Women’s title last week after an extended reign and was released from the company two days later. Reportedly, WWE management were aware of her FanTime, a site similar to OnlyFans, page prior to this, but weren’t happy with the more recent nude content she posted. Since the page is behind a pay wall, one of the subscribers, who appeared to have paid extra for “custom content” leaked the videos online, which led to her firing from the organization.
In some ways, this goes back to the controversial policy that Vince McMahon put in place in 2020 that prevented talent from third party ventures such as Twitch, non-WWE merchandise, and sites like OnlyFans. On one hand, as ridiculous and illegal as it probably is, while WWE talent are classified as independent contractors, which means that the office wouldn’t have the right to prevent them from doing other projects, the bottom line is, it’s not going to change. The WWE performers are going to be employees in every sense of the word except they won’t be given any of the benefits of that status, and the billion dollar company that they work for will get to skate around offering health insurance or payroll taxes. It’s unfair, but it’s not going to change because it’s not a political issue since pro wrestling is often looked at as low brow entertainment so it won’t get the investigations or regulation of the NFL or other sports.
Mandy charges $30 for a subscription to her FanTime content and while I don’t get the point of this because there are only so many pictures or videos of a person you can see before it’s literally the same content recycled several times, there’s no doubt that OnlyFans and similar sites are major revenue streams for female performers. Don’t get me wrong, if they can get those monthly subscriptions, good for them, that’s capitalism. Hey, nobody is paying me for pictures of surgery scars and bunions so I’m not criticizing the hustle. In theory, if a female wrestler is producing content outside of the WWE bubble on their own time, as an independent contractor, the office shouldn’t have a right to prevent that. At the same time, Mandy Rose has the notoriety she does because of the exposure of WWE television, which is what ultimately allowed for the number of subscriptions that generated a hefty sum on money for her on the pay site. She wasn’t just another pretty face on the internet behind a pay wall, she was WWE star Mandy Rose, which allowed her to standout from the thousands of other pages on those sites.
So of course, the WWE exposure played a role in her success outside of the company, but does nude content behind a pay wall justify her release?
It’s important to note that many of these sites only allow adults to subscribe so it’s not as though her nude content was posted publicly for any of the younger audience to randomly find on Instagram. Plus, when Seth Rollins, Paige, or other WWE stars had private photos leaked online, they weren’t released from their contract. The difference being that Mandy has a pay service, and the others were victims of a hack of their private photos so in some ways that’s an apples to oranges comparison. Still, as far as the potential “morality” or lack thereof in the situation, the Usos had several DUIs, but weren’t released. The bottom line is, Mandy Rose choosing to post nude content on a subscription site isn’t nearly as outrageous as some of the other headlines that WWE stars made in the past.
The true hypocrisy of all of this is that Vince McMahon was accused of misconduct with employees and it took The Wall Street Journal investigation to take it public. Yet, Mandy gets fired for posting nude content on a private web site?
Unfortunately, it might not be fair, but it’s within the WWE’s right to terminate her contract if they decide her decisions reflect negatively on the corporation. To be clear, I don’t see the logic of that because Vince got the boot for actual misconduct, and the company is making literally billions of dollars so it’s not as though Mandy hustling a few extra dollars is going to affect the company’s bottom line. The fact that the talent contracts are completely one-sided is another matter completely, but the point is, Mandy knew what she signed when she inked a WWE contract, and the terms of the deal give the company the right to release her.
It’s a harsh reality, but when you take into account the amount of money the company generated, and the depth of the women’s division on the main roster, Mandy Rose was expendable. If I had to guess as to the reason she was released, I’d say that they don’t want to set a precedent that would potentially allow the rest of the roster to get involved in OnlyFans or similar sites. If more of the roster were involved in those type of projects, it might garner negative publicity when the company is already trying to distance itself from the negativity of the Vince McMahon situation.
Finally, Mandy Rose can continue to make good money on her site, and if nothing else, the release has generated some buzz for her so there’s always the potential that she can get signed elsewhere.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram & Facebook @jimlamotta89
