Tag: SAG-AFTRA

John Cena says SAG-AFTRA strike end would call him away from WWE

Posted on by Ethan Renner

John Cena says that an end to the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike would call him away from WWE and back to Hollywood. 

Speaking at the post-Fastlane press conference on Saturday, Cena was asked directly if an end to the strike would have “Hollywood call you back and away from WWE?”

Cena responded:

“They do. And I’ve made it perfectly clear you can’t do both because of the liability insurance. And if I were to try and juggle both, that would be incredibly selfish because I’d put a lot of people in the movie business out of work if something happened to me.”

Cena also noted that he was in the middle of a project when the SAG-AFTRA union went on strike, halting production: 

“I stopped a project in the middle of it, I can’t even talk about the project because of the strike we’re in, but we’re in the middle of it. So as soon as we get back to work, I’ll get back to work. But I don’t control any of that.”

Cena added that he felt the best use of his time during the strike was to return to WWE: 

“I’m crossing my fingers and hoping we can find a resolve that everybody’s happy with. For right now, this is the best way I feel I can help is to come back home to my [WWE] family.” 

Cena returned to WWE for a run of eight SmackDown appearances beginning with the September 1 edition of the show. He also served as the host of the Payback pay-per-view on September 2, then teamed with LA Knight at Saturday’s Fastlane show. Additionally on this run, Cena wrestled in India for the first time at the September 8 Superstar Spectacle event.

The full Fastlane press conference is embedded below.

SAG-AFTRA president says group will ‘directly engage’ with wrestlers

Posted on by Josh Nason

Image: Variety

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.