Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

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Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by cero2k » Nov 13th, '20, 17:47

src: https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/zeli ... ion-325086

Zelina Vega (Thea Trinidad Budgen) is no longer with WWE.

WWE announced this afternoon that they've come to terms on the release of Vega: "WWE has come to terms on the release of Zelina Vega. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors."

Moments before Vega's release was officially announced on WWE.com, she tweeted "I support unionization." Last month, Vega responded to a tweet from Paige about unionization with a thinking face emoji and "hmm.."

Post Wrestling reported that Vega's release was already known about internally before her tweet from today.

Vega and Paige are both prominent Twitch streamers who would be affected by WWE's recent Twitch edict and crackdown on talent third-party deals. Paige tweeted about Vega's release: "This sucks.."

Vega also recently launched an OnlyFans account featuring cosplay photos with a no-nudity policy.

Vega joined the SmackDown roster last month as a post-draft signing after not being selected in the WWE Draft. Vega formerly managed Andrade and Angel Garza on WWE television. Garza is on Raw, while Andrade hasn't officially been assigned to a brand yet following the draft.

On SmackDown last week, Ruby Riott defeated Vega and Natalya in a triple threat Survivor Series qualifying match. Riott submitted Vega to get the win.

Vega had been under contract with WWE since 2017.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 14th, '20, 20:41

This Twitch thing is probably going to turn out to be one of the most damaging decisions they've made in a long time.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 16th, '20, 10:56

Per Alvarez, Vega made her pro-unionization Tweet after they had told her she was being released, so she wasn't fired for the Tweet. The way Alvarez portrayed it made it seem like the release was mutually agreed on.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by cero2k » Nov 16th, '20, 14:07

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 16th, '20, 10:56 Per Alvarez, Vega made her pro-unionization Tweet after they had told her she was being released, so she wasn't fired for the Tweet. The way Alvarez portrayed it made it seem like the release was mutually agreed on.
Mutually agreed on as in Zelina quit, but she did it in order to protect her personal business that WWE was forcing her to shut down because they're control freaks.

I think the timing of the tweet confused a lot of people because the WWE announcement came after she had tweeted, but Zelina had already been fired by then. I think firing someone for promoting unions is kinda illegal.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by cero2k » Nov 16th, '20, 14:07

SAG-AFTRA PRESIDENT SAYS GROUP WILL 'DIRECTLY ENGAGE' WITH WRESTLERS
src: https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/sag- ... ers-325266


In the wake of Zelina Vega being released from WWE, SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris gave a statement Monday regarding how her organization is viewing those within pro wrestling.

Given to Spectrum Sports 360's Jon Alba, Carteris said, "Wrestling is as much about media as it is sports and we are going to directly engage with members of this profession to help find ways for them to protect themselves. As more people reinvest in unions and as more working people are harassed by employers who don't want to protect them, SAG-AFTRA is committed to doing what we can to help professional wrestlers secure the protections they deserve."

SAG-AFTRA has 160,000 "actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals." The group combines the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Carteris specifically didn't mention WWE by name in the statement, so if the organization follows through with their efforts, every major organization could be affected but how and to what extent remains to be seen.

WWE's practices with their independent contractors came under fire with their recent edict to talent about suspending third party deals with Twitch and Cameo. That got the interest of former U.S. presidential candidate and wrestling fan Andrew Yang who promised action if Joe Biden was elected president.

Shortly after Vega (Thea Trinidad Budgen) was released Friday, she sent out a tweet in support of unionization. Vega had to shutter her popular Twitch channel due to WWE's new policy, forcing her to abandon a major source of income which Dave Meltzer said was more than what she was making in WWE. She relaunched her Twitch channel over the weekend and also has an OnlyFans account.

Carteris tweeted to Vega on Friday in support and asked Vega to reach out to her.

Vega, who had been with the company since 2017, is married to WWE wrestler Aleister Black.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 16th, '20, 15:40

I want to say that this will be good if it happens, but it will be up to the wrestlers to be reasonable about what they want. Getting full insurance for people who take bumps for a living is going to be a pretty high cost. WWE and AEW can do it, but with the way contract values were going pre-COVID, my guess is that at least WWE (and possibly AEW in some cases) will wind up cutting people because they'd rather save the money to throw at key names when their contracts come up (and especially with the signs we were seeing before COVID that ROH was willing to pay big money to get/keep certain people (Scurll and Bandido being the two big expenditures, if I remember correctly, and with Rush and Dragon Lee getting very nice hauls as well), so we'll probably see some talented names like Gable, Nese, Chelsea Green... maybe even Gulak or Angel Garza or Gran Metalik go back on the market, which would be big for ROH/TNA/MLW.
When I say "it will be up to the wrestlers to be reasonable about what they want," I'm mostly talking about the ROH/TNA/MLW crews, where the companies don't have the deep pockets that WWE and AEW do. It might be that trying to get everyone health insurance in those companies (or, for TNA, for anyone who doesn't want to move to Canada) could mean big cuts in salary for talent (or in the case of a frail company like MLW, maybe even going out of business).

One thing I see possibly happening is a promotion like ROH, which tours a lot more than TNA does, cutting back on the number of actual contracts they offer, and working almost like the old days with a core of guys who get brought to every show that fills out, say, 80% of the card, and the other 20% being guys working on a per-night basis. Hopefully this would mean the end of sh*t like Vinny Marseglia's goofball entourage, Danhausen, and the pointless return of old-ass Dan Maff.

One other thing I could see promotions doing (especially WWE) is creating a more rigid distinction between managers/valets and wrestlers, so that they can essentially get the insurance premiums you'd pay for an actor rather than someone taking bumps every night. We've all been saying they should be doing this for years by this point because it eliminates bad workers while still letting those who are good talkers stick around and be useful, and this would give them financial incentive to do it.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by cero2k » Nov 16th, '20, 16:56

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 16th, '20, 15:40 I want to say that this will be good if it happens, but it will be up to the wrestlers to be reasonable about what they want. Getting full insurance for people who take bumps for a living is going to be a pretty high cost. WWE and AEW can do it, but with the way contract values were going pre-COVID, my guess is that at least WWE (and possibly AEW in some cases) will wind up cutting people because they'd rather save the money to throw at key names when their contracts come up (and especially with the signs we were seeing before COVID that ROH was willing to pay big money to get/keep certain people (Scurll and Bandido being the two big expenditures, if I remember correctly, and with Rush and Dragon Lee getting very nice hauls as well), so we'll probably see some talented names like Gable, Nese, Chelsea Green... maybe even Gulak or Angel Garza or Gran Metalik go back on the market, which would be big for ROH/TNA/MLW.
When I say "it will be up to the wrestlers to be reasonable about what they want," I'm mostly talking about the ROH/TNA/MLW crews, where the companies don't have the deep pockets that WWE and AEW do. It might be that trying to get everyone health insurance in those companies (or, for TNA, for anyone who doesn't want to move to Canada) could mean big cuts in salary for talent (or in the case of a frail company like MLW, maybe even going out of business).

One thing I see possibly happening is a promotion like ROH, which tours a lot more than TNA does, cutting back on the number of actual contracts they offer, and working almost like the old days with a core of guys who get brought to every show that fills out, say, 80% of the card, and the other 20% being guys working on a per-night basis. Hopefully this would mean the end of sh*t like Vinny Marseglia's goofball entourage, Danhausen, and the pointless return of old-ass Dan Maff.

One other thing I could see promotions doing (especially WWE) is creating a more rigid distinction between managers/valets and wrestlers, so that they can essentially get the insurance premiums you'd pay for an actor rather than someone taking bumps every night. We've all been saying they should be doing this for years by this point because it eliminates bad workers while still letting those who are good talkers stick around and be useful, and this would give them financial incentive to do it.
the conversation right now is not even about wanting insurance and such, but to properly agree that if the wrestlers are going to be 'independent contractors', then stop someone like WWE taking advantage of them, treating them like employees when they want to control something, and as contractors when they don't want to take care of them.

I do agree that most promotions would just be more careful with who they hire to a contract. I don't think ROH/AEW/Impact would suffer that much in the sense that they're already pretty cool about letting their 'contractors' work outside companies and have their own t-shirt stores and such. WWE would be the only one that would have to either stop hording people so that other promotions can't have them, or accept that they're contractors and let them have their own sponsors/venues and money incomes outside of the company. WWE can only limit the use of their own personal IPs in the sense of names and characters, but they wouldn't be able to control Claudio's Cafe or Saraya's whateverstreamname
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 16th, '20, 17:06

cero2k wrote: Nov 16th, '20, 16:56
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 16th, '20, 15:40 I want to say that this will be good if it happens, but it will be up to the wrestlers to be reasonable about what they want. Getting full insurance for people who take bumps for a living is going to be a pretty high cost. WWE and AEW can do it, but with the way contract values were going pre-COVID, my guess is that at least WWE (and possibly AEW in some cases) will wind up cutting people because they'd rather save the money to throw at key names when their contracts come up (and especially with the signs we were seeing before COVID that ROH was willing to pay big money to get/keep certain people (Scurll and Bandido being the two big expenditures, if I remember correctly, and with Rush and Dragon Lee getting very nice hauls as well), so we'll probably see some talented names like Gable, Nese, Chelsea Green... maybe even Gulak or Angel Garza or Gran Metalik go back on the market, which would be big for ROH/TNA/MLW.
When I say "it will be up to the wrestlers to be reasonable about what they want," I'm mostly talking about the ROH/TNA/MLW crews, where the companies don't have the deep pockets that WWE and AEW do. It might be that trying to get everyone health insurance in those companies (or, for TNA, for anyone who doesn't want to move to Canada) could mean big cuts in salary for talent (or in the case of a frail company like MLW, maybe even going out of business).

One thing I see possibly happening is a promotion like ROH, which tours a lot more than TNA does, cutting back on the number of actual contracts they offer, and working almost like the old days with a core of guys who get brought to every show that fills out, say, 80% of the card, and the other 20% being guys working on a per-night basis. Hopefully this would mean the end of sh*t like Vinny Marseglia's goofball entourage, Danhausen, and the pointless return of old-ass Dan Maff.

One other thing I could see promotions doing (especially WWE) is creating a more rigid distinction between managers/valets and wrestlers, so that they can essentially get the insurance premiums you'd pay for an actor rather than someone taking bumps every night. We've all been saying they should be doing this for years by this point because it eliminates bad workers while still letting those who are good talkers stick around and be useful, and this would give them financial incentive to do it.
the conversation right now is not even about wanting insurance and such, but to properly agree that if the wrestlers are going to be 'independent contractors', then stop someone like WWE taking advantage of them, treating them like employees when they want to control something, and as contractors when they don't want to take care of them.

I do agree that most promotions would just be more careful with who they hire to a contract. I don't think ROH/AEW/Impact would suffer that much in the sense that they're already pretty cool about letting their 'contractors' work outside companies and have their own t-shirt stores and such. WWE would be the only one that would have to either stop hording people so that other promotions can't have them, or accept that they're contractors and let them have their own sponsors/venues and money incomes outside of the company. WWE can only limit the use of their own personal IPs in the sense of names and characters, but they wouldn't be able to control Claudio's Cafe or Saraya's whateverstreamname
It's not about insurance yet, but that issue has been attached at the hip to the idea of unionizing wrestlers. It's the logical next step. And I do think AEW might have to drop some of their Dark crew from being under actual contracts.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 21st, '20, 20:44

Just heard Lance Storm bring up a big anti-unionization point which I hadn't heard mentioned before: If you're a union member, you can't work any non-union jobs... which means someone from WWE who gets released or otherwise leaves wouldn't be able to work indies, and wouldn't be able to sign with AEW/TNA/ROH/MLW if those promotions aren't unionized.
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by cero2k » Nov 22nd, '20, 16:22

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 21st, '20, 20:44 Just heard Lance Storm bring up a big anti-unionization point which I hadn't heard mentioned before: If you're a union member, you can't work any non-union jobs... which means someone from WWE who gets released or otherwise leaves wouldn't be able to work indies, and wouldn't be able to sign with AEW/TNA/ROH/MLW if those promotions aren't unionized.
You'd think WWE would love that
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Re: Zelina Vega released by WWE, tweets in support of unionization

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 22nd, '20, 16:40

cero2k wrote: Nov 22nd, '20, 16:22
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 21st, '20, 20:44 Just heard Lance Storm bring up a big anti-unionization point which I hadn't heard mentioned before: If you're a union member, you can't work any non-union jobs... which means someone from WWE who gets released or otherwise leaves wouldn't be able to work indies, and wouldn't be able to sign with AEW/TNA/ROH/MLW if those promotions aren't unionized.
You'd think WWE would love that
Yeah. The heiracrchy on something like that is pretty clearly best for WWE, by far second best for AEW, and then whichever of ROH/TNA is willing to spend the most.

It also raises some questions about if wrestlers would be able to work in Mexico or overseas (I don't know if the various unions have counterparts overseas). Actually... Mexico has it's own unique problem because they already have a wrestlers' union, so that could be a problem.
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