All Elite Wrestling: Four Important Questions Still Remain For AEW

Credit: AEWrestling on Twitter

1.) Are the wrestlers getting employed by AEW getting health insurance?

This is a big question that has been lingering about AEW since Cody Rhodes’s various tweets about health insurance last year, but with Rhodes promising that pro-wrestlers being paid the least out of any level of professional athlete is going to change, the question, of course, popped up again.

It’s not exactly a well-hidden secret that despite the dangers their jobs put them in, professional wrestlers work as independent contractors and oftentimes without health insurance. If you’ve seen the GoFundMe go around recently for the Buffalo Brothers, you’re probably all too aware of this. Even at the level of WWE, which despite making billions of dollars still makes their performers pay out of pocket for their health insurance instead of listing them as full time employees.

Having signees of AEW considered full time employees instead of contractors and be offered health insurance would indeed be revolutionary and make those “happy wrestlers” Rhodes was talking about, but it’s still unclear if that is indeed on the table.

Rhodes did clarify later that executives and “top level” talent would receive benefits. He also assured that anyone injured in an AEW ring would be taken care of, but there still are a lot of questions of what that covers.

Does “top level” mean only a few stars receive benefits? Is the healthcare going to be comparable to what other sports stars receive? Will it cover mental/behavioral health? How about other types of illness? And do “injuries in an AEW ring” cover those who don’t have an AEW exclusive contract? What about AEW talent that gets injured in a sister promotion?

To Rhodes’s credit, he said there are still some finer details to iron out after Double or Nothing, but the question is much more complicated than any one initial promise.