WWE: How can we show our support as wrestling fans after firings?

How do you support WWE talent that are still there?

Bruce: I support my favorites in WWE in simple ways because being unemployed, I don’t have the resources to financially support them through buying merchandise. I follow them on Twitter and like/retweet their posts. I highlight them in my articles and gush their praises. I push for them to be involved in major storylines and be placed higher on the card.

I criticize WWE/creative when they’re placed in less than ideal positions on the card, when their stories are crap, or when they’re involved in something racist/ sexist/misogynistic/ homophobic/ transphobic. Far too often in WWE, particularly because most of my favorites are people of color, they are generally regulated to the upper-mid card at best. It’s frustrating, but those wrestlers need our support regardless.

Patches: Every fan has to make their own call on how they want to support and engage, and your financial situation may change the ways you can help. If you are able to spend some money supporting them, don’t buy merch from WWE, which the wrestlers get almost nothing from. Instead, look on their social media for merch they’re selling directly, or other supplemental content like Pateron or Cameo. Support them directly.

On top of that, when you’re tweeting about shows, tweet about the wrestlers and not about the show. Instead of using WWE hashtags like “#SmackDown” or “#WWENXT”, use the names of the wrestlers themselves and get their names trending rather than WWE’s hashtags.

Bryan: This is the trickiest part of cutting WWE out of my life — how do I support talented performers like Cesaro, Becky Lynch, Daniel Bryan, and Sasha Banks, among numerous others? Buying merch still puts money in WWE’s pocket, unless the talent in question has a side gig (and even then, I’m not sure how involved WWE is in those endeavors).

I follow them on social media to keep abreast of what’s going on, and I’ll watch highlights from third-party sources like TDE Wrestling on Twitter to sing their praises. But financially, I find it really hard to toss money in their direction at present.

Chris: As repugnant as WWE’s actions are and have been in the past, I always stuck around under the idea that it was more important to support the talent; after all, those men and women shouldn’t be held responsible for the company’s questionable-at-best deeds and they still have bills to pay. But again, WWE makes it really, really, hard.

There’s no obvious answer to this question, but whether you choose to continue watching their product or not, support for those still contracted to WWE has to include a unified dissent that holds the company’s proverbial feet to the fire whenever it steps out of line. For someone in the media, that means fairly challenging the company with good reporting and thoughtful columns to keep people informed. For fans, that means criticizing the company and voicing your displeasure in a manner that the company is likely to respond to (see: The Fabulous Moolah Battle Royal)

Cheering on your favorite wrestler and buying their merch is great, but so is wanting to ensure that the place they work treats them and their contemporaries right.

Erik: As stated, I am not going to stop supporting the evil empire with my viewership.  I will likely watch until the day I die.  Even though the product is pretty terrible, even though the WWE continuously proves themselves to be purveyors of the dark side – I am not going to stop watching any professional wrestling that’s free or reasonably priced (like $9.99).

Unfortunately, the WWE is banking on people like me to stick with them through whatever.  If you love sports entertainment enough to pay a monthly fee to get various forms of extra content, chances are, you’re not going to cancel for any reason – just like I won’t, despite me loathing Donald Trump and him being buddy-buddy with the McMahon family.

Samantha: I haven’t bought WWE merchandise in a very long time. I prefer buying from Pro Wrestling Tees or from the wrestlers directly. I’ll talk about the ones who I like that are still there such as Cedric Alexander, Street Profits, Bianca Belair and Kevin Owens. I try to avoid retweeting anything from WWE’s official accounts and stick to tweets from their accounts or TDE and Italo Santana.