World Entertainment Series canceled their July 9 event, which was scheduled to take place at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham, England.
The cancelation came after multiple talents pulled out of the event, citing pay issues among other things.
Speaking to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, Dean Muhtadi explained that all talents signed to his Paragon Talent Group and had a contract with WES were paid the terms of their contract.
“As a talent you are always going to feel at least a sense of responsibility for a cancellation,” Muhtadi said. “Of course, decisions like that are completely out of our control, but you always, always want to make sure the fans that support you aren’t let down. In the end, I wanted to do everything I possibly could to make it right for the fans. All the Paragon Talent who had signed contracts were paid in full. Now they have additional flight credits, too. Afterwards, all the talent we don’t represent said they’d love to work with us for how the situation was handled.”
Muhtadi continued by saying, “Bottom line, there are promoters that take advantage of desperate talent who need these checks to survive,” Muhtadi says. “We know many promoters are very shady; they don’t believe in contracts, and some short the talent. We want our talent to wrestle only because they want to, not because they need to. We want to put them in a situation where we’ve secured them annual incomes comparable to or greater than their highest WWE salaries, and for several we’re doing exactly that. I don’t want to see my friends I shared a locker room with for a decade being cheated and shorted, and destroying their bodies in later stages of life because this is the only way they can pay their rent or feed their families. The brand deals and partnerships we have created for our talent are far more lucrative than wrestling show rates, so we hope it allows the talent to be more careful with their bookings. The primary motivation for Paragon was to show the outside world what professional wrestlers are capable of—to take our guys with their own unique abilities and talent for entertainment, and create a mainstream market for them. And the most important element of Paragon is to finally have someone to protect the talent.”
After the event was canceled, Muhtadi held a meet & greet in the UK for anyone who had a ticket or pay-per-view purchase to the WES event.100% of the meet & greet money will go to local UK talent who were booked for the show.
“Even though they aren’t clients of our company, I felt I needed to ensure these guys were paid,” Muhtadi said. “I recommended using local U.K. talent for half of the show’s roster. I introduced WES to a friend of mine, Declan Kellett, who is a local, trustworthy U.K. promoter, and he made his recommendations for fantastic U.K. talent. We thought it would be an awesome idea to have a roster comprised of half former WWE talent and half local talent. I actually went to England early to enjoy a vacation with my fiancé, and thought if we could make sure every single talent with a signed contract was paid, regardless of who they are represented by, that would be a total win. In the end, WES sent additional funds for the U.K. talent with signed contracts, and the meet-and-greet was able to sort out the rest.”
WES was originally scheduled for June 4 before it was postponed to July. The original event was to be headlined by Adam Scherr (Braun Strowman) against Alistair Overeem. The rebooked event was to be headlined by Overeem against Moose.
Fans can see the full statement issued by WES regarding the canceled event by clicking here. Fans can also view talent reactions by clicking here.
