How WWE Contract Negotiations Have Changed Over The Last Few Years

2021 saw some major WWE contracts expire in Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole, but a gigantic part of the roster is signed through 2024 after huge contacts were handed out in 2019. 2022 saw a major regime change, but an implemented negotiation method seemingly stick around.

In many cases, WWE would start to reach out to talent to extend their deals a year and a half before they expired, but we’re told that is already changing. Completely separate of the Adam Cole and Pete Dunne contract snafus in 2021 that saw deals expire without the company realizing, Fightful learned that a change in talent relations and a major turnover internally, in addition to some new faces at the top of the company had changed the way contracts were negotiated in the last year or so of Vince McMahon’s regime before he left. Fightful was told that the newer approach was to come closer to their expiration date before negotiations begin in many cases, a practice that was already in effect as of the Summer 2021. That wasn’t exclusively the case, but was a big adjustment from WWE looking to lock down talent way ahead of their deals expiring.

Under Triple H, it remains to be seen how things will change, but thus far, we haven’t heard of many cases where talent were negotiating deals way ahead of time, so it looks to so far be the same

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