August 14, 2025 • 16 mins
Join me Freddie, and the ever-awesome Jeff Dye, as we dive deep into the world of wrestling contracts, representation, and the gritty side of corporate negotiations. We talk about the recent updates on Karrion Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux's contracts and the tactics WWE and other corporations use in these deals. We give insights into how artists, from wrestlers to actors, should value themselves and navigate these tricky waters. Plus, Jeff adds his experience from the comedy scene, showing that we're all playing the same game. Don't miss it!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready shuts up bouts that
hit the fan? Welcome to on sanctioned Thursdays ho Wrestling
with Ready.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
What's up? Everyone?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to unsanctioned Thursday, the show that you demanded and
you received.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So see, it's good to.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Just be demanding and impolite and yell and scream and
not go hey, could we please have some extra time?
That doesn't work? You gotta go out. This show sucks, man,
it's not long enough. And then we listened and we're like, yeah,
all right, the squeaky wheel gets the grease on this
podcast with me as always, mister Jeff, I, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Jeff? Tell you, well, what's up? Biceps? How you doing? Baby?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Feeling good, buddy? Happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Great wrestling's been great lately, which means we're in good spirits.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Not everyone's in good spirits, Jeff. Because contract negotiations are tense,
sometimes contentious. It's a great word content and they suck.
And that's why lawyers and agents are important. I don't
think enough wrestlers have representation. A lot of them negotiate themselves,
especially when they're young. They don't want to give up
(01:12):
that five percent if it's a lawyer, ten percent, if
it's an agent, fifteen percent. Sometimes with the manager, all
of a sudden, after taxes, you're looking at less than
half of the money that you got. So young actors,
young musicians, young artists in general usually get screwed on
early deals because they don't have the right representation, or
they have representation that's either inexperienced, or they don't have
(01:33):
their best interests at heart. They're trying to maintain a
relationship with the studio, they're trying to maintain a relationship
with the team. Things like that, you can have the
wrong representation. That happens too. And the reason we're talking
about this is because Carrie and Cross and Scarlet Bordeauz
contracts are up. WWE has moved their their likenesses to
(01:54):
the alumni page, which means they are no longer under contract.
I think the word on the street is people believe
they're free agents and they can sign anywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I'm going to tell you guys what I think.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Is probably going on, based on my experience in his business,
my knowledge of how TKO operates from a certain level
of knowledge, I don't know exactly how they operate. But
I know how they do things on the UFC side
a lot of times, and I know how studios negotiate
pre corporate and post corporate takeover. So I'll throw that
(02:26):
out there. Jeff, feel free to jump in a comment
and ask questions. Are called bullshit on anything you want,
and we're.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Going to start right now.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I don't think he's going anywhere. I think this is
how WWE negotiates. I think they're very public with the
things they leak. I think they leak with intent to
apply pressure to talent. Sometimes I think talent has to
leak things because they have to get their side of
the story out there. These things are very public. It
(02:54):
happens in sports as well. But here's what I think happened.
And I'm going to go based off the last experience
that I had in a negotiation pre I know what
you did last summer. That was a pleasant one, oddly enough.
But most of the time, the first number you get
sent is incredibly low, and they'll they'll concrete that by saying,
(03:14):
and this is the best we can do. This is
our best offer. There's no more money in the budget.
That is one hundred percent of the time, complete and
total bullshit. Never believe that if you're a young artist,
Never believe that there is always more money. This I
know for a fact. Corporations have now changed the way
they negotiate with artists on television shows, on movies, on everything.
(03:36):
Instead of looking at the quote the artist has earned
over time, the quote being how much money they're due
per show, that per episode, or per movie, or per
year in wrestling, they have now instead of valuing the client,
they value the position. And they say, this role or
this position in the company is worth thirty thousand dollars
(03:58):
an episode, take it, leave it and you go in there,
you go, who whaha, My salary's one hundred thousand dollars
an episode, or or a million dollars a movie or
whatever the quote that's been earned. And they say, we
know that, and we totally understand that, but this is
how much role we feel, how valuable this role is
in the script, and that's all the money there is
in the budget. This is total horseshit, and we can
(04:21):
get away even deeper if you want. There's some actors
that are guilty of this kind of corporate nonsense too,
because they're taking the majority of the money and everybody
else is getting treated like a guest star instead of
a series regular, even though they're working like a series regular.
There's a lot of shows, and I don't throw people
under the bus, but you guys can figure it out.
When one dude's making forty million and everyone else is
making fourteen thousand, that's not good. So here's what I
(04:46):
think happened. I think a disgusting offer was made. It's
hard not to take this stuff personally as an artist.
But my uncle, who was like Richard Pryor's manager, he
was my dad's manager. He's Fluffy's manager these days. He
always said, you have to be too minded in show business.
You have to have a businessman's mind and an artist's mind.
(05:07):
And the artist is always going to think the businessman
is cruel and preventative of making art, and the businessman
is going to think the artist is a pussy. His
word's not mine, and you have to allow both those
things to exist at the end of the day. And
he said this too, this is show business, which word's bigger.
(05:28):
And when I was twelve that didn't mean anything to me.
I was just like, well, business, duh. And then we
moved on. But when I got into the business. I
was like, Oh, they're just in it to make money.
That was true, then post corporate buyouts, it's ten times
more true. They want labor as cheap as possible so
that their bonus is as big as possible. It's all
(05:49):
about a profit margin. It is not about art. TKO
does not want to make great wrestling. They want to
make great amounts of money, regardless of how it's earned.
They want to make great amounts of money. This is
true in every studio movie now. This is true on
every television show now that except you know, the A
twenty fours, the private studios that are still making cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You know, they don't they're.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Not subject to stockholders notes, right. But that's literally what
we're dealing with now, and I think that's what we're
dealing with in the Carry and Cross and Scarlett Bordeaux thing, too.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Is just gross corporate negotiations.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Jeff, I'm sure you've had You've negotiated rates and things
like this on all kinds of stuff. Do you find
a similar experience or is the comedy won a much
more unique experience.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
No, you nailed it. You literally if anybody was tuning
out during that, like you took us to church as
far as how that stuff works.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And great advice, very great.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Little gems of advice in there if it applies to
your trade.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But I will say there's a little.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
A little thing when you're a dreamer, right, which wrestlers
are chasing a dream. These were all young men who
they didn't want to have regular jobs. They wanted to
be a macho man, reny savage or a whole color.
They're chasing a dream now. Sometimes when you're chasing a
dream and you get sent a crappy offer, you know,
(07:13):
you know it's a crappy offer. They know it's a
crappy offer, but it's the only offer you got. You know,
there's not a ton of wrestling promotions, and who doesn't
want to be in WB so, WWE and probably AEW
now and definitely WCW back in the day. They know
they got you. Buy the balls a little bit. They're like,
you know what's he gonna do? Okay, this is how
much we're offering you take it or leave it. And
(07:35):
you're like, I don't want to take it, but I
also I'm chasing a dream here, So they kind of
got you in a weird spot. And it's hard to uh,
it's hard to kind of know your worth or it's
even harder to get your worth. Now with the Carrying
Cross thing, I think what happens is that they're being
very intentional about it. I think this seth Rawlins thing
really drummed up some interesting stuff because they know that
(07:57):
they can move Carrying Across's music out of the Spotify
things so it looks like, oh, maybe he got released.
They know that if they move him to the alumni
section of the WWE website that people are going to
start speculating and tweeting and sharing that he's must have
been released, he must have been released. That's all good
(08:17):
getting attention on Carrying Cross. The only reason people are
all obsessed with Carrying Cross right now is because they
feel like he's not getting appreciated or getting the push
that he deserves. But if he was getting the push,
would you be buying Carrying Cross shirts? Would you be
chanting his name? Would you be tweeting about him twenty
times a episode? I don't know, maybe you would, maybe
(08:40):
you like him that much, but I'm gonna guess most
people might not. So you can't have every wrestler being
pushed this is a great way to grow traffic for
carrying cross. So I think they probably are have a
pen to paper contract in I think that that's what
I think that's what they're trying to get more attention
on it.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I don't think he's going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere either. I think
it'll take longer than what you're saying. But you could
be right, because they do really try to manipulate social
media in wrestling more than any other former show business.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
They definitely do that. The corporate thing is weird, man.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
This is always going to be one of the negatives
when WW sold, and I've seen it now in the
studios in the movie business on both sides, and I
definitely prefer the studios.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
When they were privately When they were privately.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Owned, it was a much better experience. And I was
there for the transition. My generation was the last generation
that got to work with private studios. And then Seagrims
bought Universal and Sony came in, or it might have
been Coca Cola and Sony bought it from Coca Cola,
and then AOL bought Warner Brothers. This is a long
time ago so if I don't get all of them right,
I apologize, but I think I am and I was
there for that transition and the whole waste notes got
(10:21):
delivered to scriptwriters completely changed, completely changed, and everything was
about a budget, and they were like, yeah, these are
the locations that you're allowed to shoot in, so you
now have to rewrite the script to work those locations
instead of the ones that you want wrote in the script.
And the writer's like, oh, okay, I have a kid
that just was born, and a wife and a mortgage payment.
(10:44):
It's costing me x amount of dollars every month. I'll
give you what you want. And then the critics shit
all over the writer because the script all of a
sudden feels unorganic or inorganic, whichever the word is, and
they want to know why. And it's not the writer's fault.
It's not the director's fault. Well, they should have some integrity.
They do, but they also have bills and just like
(11:05):
you do. And the artist's life is a life of poverty,
just like a lot of jobs that are crappy unless
you get to the top. So I always found it
funny that critics never had the courage because they know
how the studio system operates to a certain degree, they
never had the courage to criticize the executives. And then
I realized when I was in my twenties, I was like, oh,
(11:26):
because they won't get invited to the premier stuff and
that's why they don't gie the executives. So there's a
whole kind of like crazy circle of negotiation processes that
the corporate version has done. And like when I worked
at Netflix, their number was their number, and I was
just like, well, see it, Like I don't know what
(11:47):
to tell you, man. I think what I'm giving you
is a fair number. I'm not asking for what I
made on my last movie. It's been five hundred years
since I made a movie. Here's what I think, based
on your budget and based on what I bring to
the table, that this is my value and that's my worth.
And eventually we've found that number and everybody was cool.
And I remember sitting there at the end of the
negotiation and my agent at the time was like, are
you happy, And I was like, nah, man, they lied.
(12:10):
They said this is all we have, and they lied
they had more, and when I asked for more, they said, no,
we don't think you're worth that much. It's basically what
they said, and we value you at this number, and
I said, well, I value myself at that number. And
so it's like, I don't know. It's hard not to
take it personally as an artist even I have, you
know what I mean. And then there's times where I
(12:30):
address it properly. But it's a tricky thing because Netflix
is all analytics. Man, this actor and this actor equals
this many eyeballs equals this much money, so we're going
to hire them. That's why you see the same twelve
actors in every movie that's ever made, because it's super
analytics now, and I think that's what they're trying to
apply to WWE. I would advise any wrestler to always
(12:57):
bring your merch numbers to the table in any snociation
you do, because that shows profit for the company. Cut
together reels of your best work on there so that
you can remind people of what you do. That's more
for like the younger wrestlers, not the older ones. You're established.
That would be for the younger. Here's what I can do,
Here's where I've gotten better. Here's look you wanted me
(13:19):
to work on this, Well, look at that I worked
on that and this I think is better and shows
my worth. Like you, guys gotta fight for what you
believe in value yourself, which is really hard for every
artist to do because you want people to like your
work before you decide whether you like it or not.
Most of the time, those are just like the personality
types alpha, beta, and omega, Like the alpha's already decided
(13:40):
how they feel. A lot of stand up comics are
alphas and betas, but you can tell the difference, Like
Larry David is an alpha personality. If a joke doesn't work,
he's like, it's the audience's fault. It's not my fault.
That's a great joke, whereas others are like, fuck, they
hate me. That's more the beta personality. They're very susceptible
to criticisms and compliments, and the omega personality is usually
just wants to know what the motive behind the compliment
(14:02):
or criticism was. They'll be like, and that's more me.
Like someone's going I love you in this movie, and
I'm like, man, they probably have a script they want
me to read. Or if they go, man, I hate
your movie, I'm like, oh man, their girlfriend drug them
to that movie, then I feel bad. So that's more
how my brain works. But most of the artists that
I meet are alpha's and betas, and they either don't
give a shit how you feel, they're not doing it
(14:23):
for you, or they're totally doing it for you. And
I think wrestlers are probably in that same boat. So
be careful out there, wrestlers. Keep your shoulders to the grindstone.
Push that rock up the hill. You are not sissiphist.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
You.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It will get to the top. It will not roll
all the way back down. That was a myth in
your stories real life, and I love you all.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Some of them are sifist.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Some yeah, okay, some are doomed. I'm being too positive.
You're right, I'm being too positive. I'm trying to bring
positivity to negotiations.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Jeff No, I love it well.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I mean I think as an artist, as a comedian,
as even as a politician, as a wrestler, as anything,
whether you're trying to do good or bad, whatever your
goal is, whatever your art.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Is, I'm trying to do bad.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
We're all beholding to a system, you know, like that,
like you're stuck in what the system is and you
gotta place smart, and and that's that's hard to do well.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Jeff's out here trying to do good.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I'm combating that, doing as much evil as I can do,
trying to keep some balance in the world. So you
guys don't just have sunshine and rainbows every fricking day.
You need a little rain, Like they say in Scotland,
you need a little rain in Seattle. On behalf of Jeff,
I'm Freddie. Thanks for listening. Hope you learned something, Hope
you liked it. If you didn't, don't worry. We don't
talk about this much. We'll be back into wrestling next week. Jeff,
(15:47):
tell the people you love them.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I love you boys, I love you girls. I love
you all the marks and all the all the fans
Speaker 3 (15:56):
See in Houston.
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready shuts up bouts that
hit the fan? Welcome to on sanctioned Thursdays ho Wrestling
with Ready.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
What's up? Everyone?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to unsanctioned Thursday, the show that you demanded and
you received.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So see, it's good to.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Just be demanding and impolite and yell and scream and
not go hey, could we please have some extra time?
That doesn't work? You gotta go out. This show sucks, man,
it's not long enough. And then we listened and we're like, yeah,
all right, the squeaky wheel gets the grease on this
podcast with me as always, mister Jeff, I, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Jeff? Tell you, well, what's up? Biceps? How you doing? Baby?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Feeling good, buddy? Happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Great wrestling's been great lately, which means we're in good spirits.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Not everyone's in good spirits, Jeff. Because contract negotiations are tense,
sometimes contentious. It's a great word content and they suck.
And that's why lawyers and agents are important. I don't
think enough wrestlers have representation. A lot of them negotiate themselves,
especially when they're young. They don't want to give up
(01:12):
that five percent if it's a lawyer, ten percent, if
it's an agent, fifteen percent. Sometimes with the manager, all
of a sudden, after taxes, you're looking at less than
half of the money that you got. So young actors,
young musicians, young artists in general usually get screwed on
early deals because they don't have the right representation, or
they have representation that's either inexperienced, or they don't have
(01:33):
their best interests at heart. They're trying to maintain a
relationship with the studio, they're trying to maintain a relationship
with the team. Things like that, you can have the
wrong representation. That happens too. And the reason we're talking
about this is because Carrie and Cross and Scarlet Bordeauz
contracts are up. WWE has moved their their likenesses to
(01:54):
the alumni page, which means they are no longer under contract.
I think the word on the street is people believe
they're free agents and they can sign anywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I'm going to tell you guys what I think.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Is probably going on, based on my experience in his business,
my knowledge of how TKO operates from a certain level
of knowledge, I don't know exactly how they operate. But
I know how they do things on the UFC side
a lot of times, and I know how studios negotiate
pre corporate and post corporate takeover. So I'll throw that
(02:26):
out there. Jeff, feel free to jump in a comment
and ask questions. Are called bullshit on anything you want,
and we're.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Going to start right now.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I don't think he's going anywhere. I think this is
how WWE negotiates. I think they're very public with the
things they leak. I think they leak with intent to
apply pressure to talent. Sometimes I think talent has to
leak things because they have to get their side of
the story out there. These things are very public. It
(02:54):
happens in sports as well. But here's what I think happened.
And I'm going to go based off the last experience
that I had in a negotiation pre I know what
you did last summer. That was a pleasant one, oddly enough.
But most of the time, the first number you get
sent is incredibly low, and they'll they'll concrete that by saying,
(03:14):
and this is the best we can do. This is
our best offer. There's no more money in the budget.
That is one hundred percent of the time, complete and
total bullshit. Never believe that if you're a young artist,
Never believe that there is always more money. This I
know for a fact. Corporations have now changed the way
they negotiate with artists on television shows, on movies, on everything.
(03:36):
Instead of looking at the quote the artist has earned
over time, the quote being how much money they're due
per show, that per episode, or per movie, or per
year in wrestling, they have now instead of valuing the client,
they value the position. And they say, this role or
this position in the company is worth thirty thousand dollars
(03:58):
an episode, take it, leave it and you go in there,
you go, who whaha, My salary's one hundred thousand dollars
an episode, or or a million dollars a movie or
whatever the quote that's been earned. And they say, we
know that, and we totally understand that, but this is
how much role we feel, how valuable this role is
in the script, and that's all the money there is
in the budget. This is total horseshit, and we can
(04:21):
get away even deeper if you want. There's some actors
that are guilty of this kind of corporate nonsense too,
because they're taking the majority of the money and everybody
else is getting treated like a guest star instead of
a series regular, even though they're working like a series regular.
There's a lot of shows, and I don't throw people
under the bus, but you guys can figure it out.
When one dude's making forty million and everyone else is
making fourteen thousand, that's not good. So here's what I
(04:46):
think happened. I think a disgusting offer was made. It's
hard not to take this stuff personally as an artist.
But my uncle, who was like Richard Pryor's manager, he
was my dad's manager. He's Fluffy's manager these days. He
always said, you have to be too minded in show business.
You have to have a businessman's mind and an artist's mind.
(05:07):
And the artist is always going to think the businessman
is cruel and preventative of making art, and the businessman
is going to think the artist is a pussy. His
word's not mine, and you have to allow both those
things to exist at the end of the day. And
he said this too, this is show business, which word's bigger.
(05:28):
And when I was twelve that didn't mean anything to me.
I was just like, well, business, duh. And then we
moved on. But when I got into the business. I
was like, Oh, they're just in it to make money.
That was true, then post corporate buyouts, it's ten times
more true. They want labor as cheap as possible so
that their bonus is as big as possible. It's all
(05:49):
about a profit margin. It is not about art. TKO
does not want to make great wrestling. They want to
make great amounts of money, regardless of how it's earned.
They want to make great amounts of money. This is
true in every studio movie now. This is true on
every television show now that except you know, the A
twenty fours, the private studios that are still making cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You know, they don't they're.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Not subject to stockholders notes, right. But that's literally what
we're dealing with now, and I think that's what we're
dealing with in the Carry and Cross and Scarlett Bordeaux thing, too.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Is just gross corporate negotiations.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Jeff, I'm sure you've had You've negotiated rates and things
like this on all kinds of stuff. Do you find
a similar experience or is the comedy won a much
more unique experience.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
No, you nailed it. You literally if anybody was tuning
out during that, like you took us to church as
far as how that stuff works.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And great advice, very great.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Little gems of advice in there if it applies to
your trade.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But I will say there's a little.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
A little thing when you're a dreamer, right, which wrestlers
are chasing a dream. These were all young men who
they didn't want to have regular jobs. They wanted to
be a macho man, reny savage or a whole color.
They're chasing a dream now. Sometimes when you're chasing a
dream and you get sent a crappy offer, you know,
(07:13):
you know it's a crappy offer. They know it's a
crappy offer, but it's the only offer you got. You know,
there's not a ton of wrestling promotions, and who doesn't
want to be in WB so, WWE and probably AEW
now and definitely WCW back in the day. They know
they got you. Buy the balls a little bit. They're like,
you know what's he gonna do? Okay, this is how
much we're offering you take it or leave it. And
(07:35):
you're like, I don't want to take it, but I
also I'm chasing a dream here, So they kind of
got you in a weird spot. And it's hard to uh,
it's hard to kind of know your worth or it's
even harder to get your worth. Now with the Carrying
Cross thing, I think what happens is that they're being
very intentional about it. I think this seth Rawlins thing
really drummed up some interesting stuff because they know that
(07:57):
they can move Carrying Across's music out of the Spotify
things so it looks like, oh, maybe he got released.
They know that if they move him to the alumni
section of the WWE website that people are going to
start speculating and tweeting and sharing that he's must have
been released, he must have been released. That's all good
(08:17):
getting attention on Carrying Cross. The only reason people are
all obsessed with Carrying Cross right now is because they
feel like he's not getting appreciated or getting the push
that he deserves. But if he was getting the push,
would you be buying Carrying Cross shirts? Would you be
chanting his name? Would you be tweeting about him twenty
times a episode? I don't know, maybe you would, maybe
(08:40):
you like him that much, but I'm gonna guess most
people might not. So you can't have every wrestler being
pushed this is a great way to grow traffic for
carrying cross. So I think they probably are have a
pen to paper contract in I think that that's what
I think that's what they're trying to get more attention
on it.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I don't think he's going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere either. I think
it'll take longer than what you're saying. But you could
be right, because they do really try to manipulate social
media in wrestling more than any other former show business.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
They definitely do that. The corporate thing is weird, man.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
This is always going to be one of the negatives
when WW sold, and I've seen it now in the
studios in the movie business on both sides, and I
definitely prefer the studios.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
When they were privately When they were privately.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Owned, it was a much better experience. And I was
there for the transition. My generation was the last generation
that got to work with private studios. And then Seagrims
bought Universal and Sony came in, or it might have
been Coca Cola and Sony bought it from Coca Cola,
and then AOL bought Warner Brothers. This is a long
time ago so if I don't get all of them right,
I apologize, but I think I am and I was
there for that transition and the whole waste notes got
(10:21):
delivered to scriptwriters completely changed, completely changed, and everything was
about a budget, and they were like, yeah, these are
the locations that you're allowed to shoot in, so you
now have to rewrite the script to work those locations
instead of the ones that you want wrote in the script.
And the writer's like, oh, okay, I have a kid
that just was born, and a wife and a mortgage payment.
(10:44):
It's costing me x amount of dollars every month. I'll
give you what you want. And then the critics shit
all over the writer because the script all of a
sudden feels unorganic or inorganic, whichever the word is, and
they want to know why. And it's not the writer's fault.
It's not the director's fault. Well, they should have some integrity.
They do, but they also have bills and just like
(11:05):
you do. And the artist's life is a life of poverty,
just like a lot of jobs that are crappy unless
you get to the top. So I always found it
funny that critics never had the courage because they know
how the studio system operates to a certain degree, they
never had the courage to criticize the executives. And then
I realized when I was in my twenties, I was like, oh,
(11:26):
because they won't get invited to the premier stuff and
that's why they don't gie the executives. So there's a
whole kind of like crazy circle of negotiation processes that
the corporate version has done. And like when I worked
at Netflix, their number was their number, and I was
just like, well, see it, Like I don't know what
(11:47):
to tell you, man. I think what I'm giving you
is a fair number. I'm not asking for what I
made on my last movie. It's been five hundred years
since I made a movie. Here's what I think, based
on your budget and based on what I bring to
the table, that this is my value and that's my worth.
And eventually we've found that number and everybody was cool.
And I remember sitting there at the end of the
negotiation and my agent at the time was like, are
you happy, And I was like, nah, man, they lied.
(12:10):
They said this is all we have, and they lied
they had more, and when I asked for more, they said, no,
we don't think you're worth that much. It's basically what
they said, and we value you at this number, and
I said, well, I value myself at that number. And
so it's like, I don't know. It's hard not to
take it personally as an artist even I have, you
know what I mean. And then there's times where I
(12:30):
address it properly. But it's a tricky thing because Netflix
is all analytics. Man, this actor and this actor equals
this many eyeballs equals this much money, so we're going
to hire them. That's why you see the same twelve
actors in every movie that's ever made, because it's super
analytics now, and I think that's what they're trying to
apply to WWE. I would advise any wrestler to always
(12:57):
bring your merch numbers to the table in any snociation
you do, because that shows profit for the company. Cut
together reels of your best work on there so that
you can remind people of what you do. That's more
for like the younger wrestlers, not the older ones. You're established.
That would be for the younger. Here's what I can do,
Here's where I've gotten better. Here's look you wanted me
(13:19):
to work on this, Well, look at that I worked
on that and this I think is better and shows
my worth. Like you, guys gotta fight for what you
believe in value yourself, which is really hard for every
artist to do because you want people to like your
work before you decide whether you like it or not.
Most of the time, those are just like the personality
types alpha, beta, and omega, Like the alpha's already decided
(13:40):
how they feel. A lot of stand up comics are
alphas and betas, but you can tell the difference, Like
Larry David is an alpha personality. If a joke doesn't work,
he's like, it's the audience's fault. It's not my fault.
That's a great joke, whereas others are like, fuck, they
hate me. That's more the beta personality. They're very susceptible
to criticisms and compliments, and the omega personality is usually
just wants to know what the motive behind the compliment
(14:02):
or criticism was. They'll be like, and that's more me.
Like someone's going I love you in this movie, and
I'm like, man, they probably have a script they want
me to read. Or if they go, man, I hate
your movie, I'm like, oh man, their girlfriend drug them
to that movie, then I feel bad. So that's more
how my brain works. But most of the artists that
I meet are alpha's and betas, and they either don't
give a shit how you feel, they're not doing it
(14:23):
for you, or they're totally doing it for you. And
I think wrestlers are probably in that same boat. So
be careful out there, wrestlers. Keep your shoulders to the grindstone.
Push that rock up the hill. You are not sissiphist.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
You.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It will get to the top. It will not roll
all the way back down. That was a myth in
your stories real life, and I love you all.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Some of them are sifist.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Some yeah, okay, some are doomed. I'm being too positive.
You're right, I'm being too positive. I'm trying to bring
positivity to negotiations.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Jeff No, I love it well.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I mean I think as an artist, as a comedian,
as even as a politician, as a wrestler, as anything,
whether you're trying to do good or bad, whatever your
goal is, whatever your art.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Is, I'm trying to do bad.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
We're all beholding to a system, you know, like that,
like you're stuck in what the system is and you
gotta place smart, and and that's that's hard to do well.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Jeff's out here trying to do good.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I'm combating that, doing as much evil as I can do,
trying to keep some balance in the world. So you
guys don't just have sunshine and rainbows every fricking day.
You need a little rain, Like they say in Scotland,
you need a little rain in Seattle. On behalf of Jeff,
I'm Freddie. Thanks for listening. Hope you learned something, Hope
you liked it. If you didn't, don't worry. We don't
talk about this much. We'll be back into wrestling next week. Jeff,
(15:47):
tell the people you love them.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I love you boys, I love you girls. I love
you all the marks and all the all the fans
Speaker 3 (15:56):
See in Houston.
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