RADICAN’S TAKE: WWE wrestlers and executives deliver frustrating messages to fans on recent podcast appearances

Shut up!
You talk too much
You talk too much
You talk too much
You talk too much

Hey! You over there, I know about your kind
You’re like the Independent Network News on Channel 9
Everywhere that you go, no matter where you are at
I said you talk about this, and you talk about that
When the cat took your tongue, I say you took it right back
Your mouth is so big, one bite could kill a Big Mac

You talk too much
You never shut up
I said you talk too much
Homeboy you never shut up

-You Talk Too Much by Run-D.M.C.

I’m tired of listening to WWE wrestlers in interviews say ridiculous things with very little repercussions. Seth Rollins defending WWE’s relationship with Saudi Arabia on Jay Mohr’s Mohr Stories podcast recently was disappointing to hear to say the least. Mohr engaged him in the discussion, talking about how comedians that went over to Saudi Arabia recently for a comedy festival had been getting blowback from fans for participating in it. 

“Look, here’s what I’ll tell you, said Rollins. “We’ve gone there for six years and I’ll say this, when we went in 2019, I was skeptical as well. ‘Oh, I don’t know about this. I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about it,’ but we go over there and the change in the culture and the people at our shows in six years has been incredible. “When I tell you we went there the first time, there were no women on our show. There were no women backstage. They wouldn’t do anything. Now we go there and it’s just like a WWE show. There are a ton of women.”

I don’t know how you equate the atmosphere backstage changing in relation to the number of women backstage at a WWE show held in Saudi Arabia to the country changing as a whole, but that seems to be what Rollins was doing here. It’s also disappointing to hear Rollins talk about actual change in a country when he’s spent so little time in it, especially when the time he’s spent in it is in a controlled environment. Rollins didn’t mention here that women are still forced to cover up a certain way with their ring gear when they appear on PLE’s held in Saudi Arabia.

Then there was John Cena appearing on Insight with Chris Van Vliet in December saying that C.M. Punk appearing at the Night of Champions 2025 WWE PLE in Saudi Arabia made him cry. “That s— made me cry… like, awesome, awesome,” said Cena. Accountability, vulnerability, apology, forgiveness. Cultures melding into each other and then he comes out and does my gimmick. Like, how do you follow what I did? He came up with this crazy idea. I’m like, ‘Dude, you have to do that’ and he crushed it. He absolutely just crushed it.”

Cultures melding into each other? C’mon John! Believe it or not this might not have been the most ridiculous thing Cena said to Van Vliet during their interview. If what was clearly a staged apology by Punk made Cena cry, I have no words for you. Punk’s apology and acceptance from the Saudi people in attendance wasn’t exactly a watershed moment in taking steps towards world peace. 

If you think some WWE wrestlers insult the intelligence of the WWE audience when they appear on the interview circuit, you should hear how their management handles consumer based questions and concerns. WWE executive Bruce Pritchard said he believes the four to five match PLE format works best for WWE. 

“I go back and watch; ten matches on a card is hard to watch,” said Bruce Pritchard on the Jan. 9 Something to Wrestle podcast. “When you look at the presentation, and you put so many things in a ten-match card, at the end of the night, what do you remember? You’re most likely going to remember the main event, the last match on the card. But there may have been an angle in the third match and a hell of a match, but you have forgotten because you have seen so much other s–t. Good, bad, or indifferent. I think less is more.”

One of the main issues with WWE PLE’s is the down time, which Pritchard didn’t address. If a WWE PLE is on for three or three and a half hours, there’s been times where there’s been over an hour and a half of wait time between matches with entrances, (tons of) commercials, and backstage segments factored in. 

The shows just drag on and on and although talent featured on WWE PLE’s gets more time in the ring to have a more memorable match, there’s just an inordinate amount of wait time between matches. It is really unsatisfying for a show in the three hour range, give or take a half hour usually, to have four or five matches. There’s no reason a WWE PLE can’t feature seven matches. I would rather see two shorter matches on a card than a never ending stream of commercials and WWE specific advertisements. 

Pritchard said one reason PLE cards are shorter is because wrestlers are no longer relying on a pay day from a PLE since WWE has moved from PPV to streaming. “Sometimes you have to battle that demon of, ‘We have to get more people on this,’” said Pritchard. “The PLE streaming aspect of the business has changed that completely. Talent is not paid on PPV buys. There is no time allotment. They don’t really want more than three hours.

What Pritchard said here doesn’t make sense to me because in order to make money, wrestlers have to get over and get on PLE’s theoretically to make the most amount of money they can even if talent is no longer paid based on PPV buys, they are paid based on their position in the company. So, if they are going to make more money they should  want to be on PLE’s, as the wrestlers in the most prominent positions on most PLE’s are featured more prominently on TV. 

“We live in a different time now compared to the past when longer cards were more prominent,” said Pritchard regarding PLE’s being shorter. “It’s a different time and a different way people consume. ‘I need my WrestleMania moment.’ You have a moment next month in the main event. ‘I want to be on WrestleMania.’ Where? It’s going to get lost here and we’re doing this here. There is a lot more territory and avenues. Plus, you’re doing television every week. Television is just as valuable as the PLEs with rights fees. To be on television to a huge number of people versus PLEs, that has changed. Every time you’re on screen is valuable.” Pritchard’s WrestleMania example was bad in this case because it is the one PLE where WWE expands the cards for two nights and the shows feel more like traditional PPVs than regular PLE’s. 

Pritchard’s argument that TV time is just as valuable as PLE time once again simply isn’t true. Wrestlers can be on TV every week, but if they aren’t on PLE’s consistently in prominent positions, it usually means they aren’t getting the chance to advance up the card. WWE does put big matches on Raw and Smackdown from time to time that are PLE quality, but fans are conditioned to believe that the best wrestlers wrestle in the most prominent spots on PLE events. 

Even if wrestlers aren’t being paid based on being on the PLE, their position on those cards usually is indicative of their salary. No matter how much time goes by the one thing that doesn’t change is that wrestling is designed to have the best talent appear on the biggest cards in the most prominent spots that only a select few have access to in WWE. Pritchard’s statements about PLE’s fail to take these things into account and his justification for WWE having fewer matches on their PLE’s doesn’t hold up well.

(Sean Radican has been contributing to PWTorch for over 20 years beginning as the WWE Smackdown reporter. He has focused on ROH and New Japan since then, including feature columns and podcasts. Follow Sean at blue sky at seanradican. You can email him with your thoughts on this column or send questions to pwtorchsean@gmail.com)