Former WWE NXT UK Referee Artemis Discusses Pay & Contract Issues

– Cultaholic on Desert Island Graps recently spoke to former WWE NXT UK referee Artemis, who discussed the issue with referee pay for the WWE NXT UK brand. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Artemis on NXT referee paying being an issue: “I’m going to be very blunt and very honest. The pay, the pay is a big issue. I’ve never earned as little money as I did in WWE, which I never thought I would say that. I thought it was going to be my full time job and that was going to be it and be great. I took a massive pay cut from being a teacher to being a referee, which is weird considering you’re on TV every week in several countries. During my two years under contract, almost a year without a contract and two years contracted, I offered to do other jobs to help and also to increase the pay, but I got told there was nothing.”

On what happened when she was offered a new contract: “Just before my contract expired, they offered me a new tier contract. When I asked what the pay was going to be, they said it was going to be the same. I said, ‘I can’t do it.’ I have a mortgage, I take care of my mom. I can’t stay on that little money. It’s a shame, but I need to take care of my family. They extended my contract for two months, hoping to be able to negotiate and then they came back to me, I was supposed to do one last camp, at the end of April and they called me just a few days before to tell me, ‘You don’t want to extend the contract, we have nothing better for you, there is no need for you to come next week.’ I thought that was really shitty. I had already told the wrestlers, the crew, my friends, my family, my referees, that it was highly likely that I wasn’t going to renew my contract, but we all knew we had one last camp to spend together, probably say goodbye to each other, and enjoy each other. Also, I was on 96 WWE matches. One last camp would have brought me to 100, at least, and I’m a bit OCD with numbers [laughs].”

Artemis departed from NXT UK earlier in April. She had previously worked with Prowrestling EVE, IPWUK, BEW, and Ring of Pakistan.