Aron Stevens On Challenges Of WWE Travel Schedule, His Stance On Potential Pro Wrestling Union

In a recent interview with VIBE 105, Aron Stevens discussed the challenges of the WWE travel schedule, his stance on a union in wrestling, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Aron Stevens on the challenges of the travel schedule when he was in WWE: “You have a day-and-a-half home. Your plane lands at 11:30 on a Wednesday. You’ve been up since 5 AM, you catch your flight, you do your laundry. Then Friday, you get up six in the morning, catch a flight, three house shows, then you do two TV shows, and then you do it again. Yeah, there was no time at home. It’s funny because I hear now how the schedule is and I’m like, ‘Oh my God”, but this is pre-pandemic too. That schedule is nothing compared to before for what they did and what they expected from us.”

On the holiday travel schedule: “The day after Christmas we’d leave. We’d get home New Years, which was a very lucrative loop which was cool. People were getting time off like “Oh, I need some time off.” We would never think about doing that. I think you know that with some guys, for some reason they were just more lenient, but I never ever got any special treatment from the office or anything like that. No one ever made an exception in my case and they would with some guys. But that’s what they do, and it’s like that in any business. This isn’t just ‘Oh, evil WWE.’ No, it’s just sometimes some people get breaks, sometimes other people don’t. That’s it. They compensated me for it and life goes on.”

On the scheduling and travel differences in wrestling and other industries: “Acting is a different deal because of the way you’re taken care of. They fly you first-class, put you up in hotels, and you don’t have to worry. With wrestling – I was 6-4, about 250 pounds when I was in WWE – you’re flying in coach. They fly you commercial and you’re flying in coach, and they expect to land overseas and go right to it. That’s so insane. You’re cramped, and it’s like, ‘C’mon.’ That’s just me. It’s classless on their part, and I’m sorry. I felt that way when I was there. They say, ‘We want to take care of our talent.’ No, then you know what? Charter a flight. At least let your talent – when you’re gonna be cramped up for hours and you break your back for that company – c’mon, a little respect.”

Aron Stevens on his stance on a potential union in pro wrestling: “Acting is just different, but again, acting has a union and wrestling doesn’t. I am not in favor of a union in wrestling because if wrestling were to unionize, you would have a lot of small promotions suffer and again, how do you structure pay? There are just so many things that it’s not conducive to pro wrestling. I’m not for a union in pro wrestling. However, I am for reform in terms of how they take care of their talent like that. When I was there, I was compensated, but in terms of the travel – nobody really was appreciated. Especially when people know what we go through day in and day out, I get it, it’s a publicly-traded company and everything like that. But I just thought it was classless how they treated a lot of their talent.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit VIBE 105 with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.