I've heard the arguement of wrestlers being on the road for too much time during the year, and how hard it must be for them.
Now, I can understand that arguement, but how many hours do you think these guys actually work while they are on the road? If they do three house shows plus a live show (if you say each show takes two hours), then they take an 8 hour day to plan live matches etc, then that suggests they work for 16 hours a week. To make their hours upto the average 40 hour working week, they would have to include travel time (which they already get compensated for).
Once someone reaches the level where they are on regular WWE TV, they are already earning over $100,000 per year(and that is the salary for a referee, not a wrestler, their salary is at least $350,000 per year)
If you think that your average office worker works 260 days a year, for considerably less than $350,000 per year, do you still think a wrestler is under paid for the number of days they spend on the road? Cause I don't
Seriously?
You think these guys only put in a few hours every week and get paid ridiculously high because of it?
Tell you what. Why don't you take a week off of work, do something physical that pushes you to the brink of exhaustion, then drive a hundred miles or so to another city to do the same thing the next day. Keep that up for a week and you'll get an ideal of a wrestlers life... only they're doing that year round with very little downtime.
The WWE's travel schedule has literally been killer since they went national back in the 80's. At one point it would be common for guys to work over 300 times a year... in different cities every night... sometimes in multiple cities a day.
The problems with painkillers. The cocaine issues. The drug related deaths. Blame the travel schedule. Guys felt it was necessary to medicate themselves continuously to survive this schedule. Too exhausted to continue. Take some coke to wake you back up. Aches and pains getting to be too much to handle. Pop some pills to numb that pain. Take some time off to heal your body properly? Forget it. If you did that, there was always another guy waiting to take your spot and you'd be out of a job. So you keep medicating yourself to get to the next town, work the next match, get your next paycheck, and eventually the body just simply can't take anymore.
Before in the territory days, yes they still were on the road a lot, but the travel was confined greatly because of the size of the territories, and it was a lot easier to live a relatively normal home life compared to post territory workers. A lot of the time, guys could be back in their own bed every night. The exception would have been the NWA champ who was expected to be in a different territory basically every week (before Crockett began monopolizing the belt). Then again, this was a main reason why the NWA championship changed hands more frequently than the localized WWWF or AWA titles. You ever wonder why workers from the territory days have been able to live long lives compared to their younger counterparts from the expansion age? There it is.
I've always felt that the WWE would be best served from a worker safety standpoint of adopting more of a Japanese tour schedule. Book 21 days in a particular loop, then give the guys 21 days off, with the exception of live TV on Mondays and Smackdown tapings on Tuesdays (fit the rest of their shows tapings onto these cards as well). Since a lot of the guys actually live (or at least used to) in Florida, have the tapings during the time off be somewhat localized. With two separate brands, you could even run the RAW loop while the Smackdown loop is off so you consistently have shows running, without killing the guys bodies while you do it. With roster sizes the way they are, guys don't even need to work the full 21 days of their loop. You can sub a few out here and there each week to keep the matchups more fresh.
The benefit would be healthier and more rested workers. Less need for guys to need pills and other drugs to get them from town to town.
I'd never expect them to do it though.
