As reported late last night, Vince McMahon has sent down an official order to the WWE talent will no longer be allowed to “engage with third parties”.
In an update from PWInsider, WWE (Various reports of Vince McMahon directly) has told talent that “if the company deems that the talents are using their names and likeness in ways that are detrimental” they will risk fines, suspensions or terminations going forward after October 10 2020.
In the wake of this announcement, both Paige and Mia Yim have changed their official names on Twitter and Twitch. Other talents are expected to change from their “WWE Names” to their “Real Names” before the deadline. There was information circulating re; WWE’s usage of talents “real name” also, but this has not been confirmed and the only proof was Stephanie McMahons contract which can be seen below:
PWInsider indicates that Twitch and Cameo will fall under this ruling, whilst Pro Wrestling Tees is also under this criteria. It seems that anything that talent is making money from is being ‘banned‘. There is no word on the usage of YouTube just yet, but Xavier Woods (Austin Creed) UpUpDownDown could potentially be at risk.
WWE’s defence on this so-called “edict” is that talents are being paid their downside guarantees regardless of however many dates they work and they actually are paying less for travel since they are not travelling as much around The likes of Xavier Woods, Zelina Vega, Cesaro, Adam Cole, AJ Styles, Drake Maverick and as mentioned, Paige & Mia Yim all started streaming careers or focused on that more so since they had more time away from the ring.