10 Worst things about a WWE contract

4: WWE sometimes takes money from independent projects

John Cena and Tina Fey in a still from the film Sisters

The WWE encourages Superstars to take part in independent projects outside the WWE. Sometimes this isn’t just because the WWE has the wrestlers’ interests at heart – apart from the publicity the WWE receives, they sometimes also keep a portion of the money the wrestler earned from the project.

Under the common WWE contract language, these earnings which are handed over to the WWE from independent projects are shown as administrative costs. This payment only takes place if WWE’s administrative cost is more than 10% of the wrestlers earning from the project.

We now know from Ryback’s recent revelations, that WWE sometimes stops wrestlers from appearing on things like magazine covers.