Steph De Lander Says Most Talent Are On Per Appearance Deals In TNA

As noted before, Mance Warner and Steph De Lander recently departed from TNA Wrestling over issues related to TNA refusing to clear De Lander to return from her neck injury and telling her that she would never be able to wrestle for the promotion again. De Lander had stated in a recent interview with Fightful that she believes that TNA does not have the budget for a proper medical team and that TNA did not cover her medical costs for her neck surgery and rehab.

During the same recent interview with Fightful, De Lander revealed that most talent in TNA are only under per-appearance type deals with the company and the financial difficulties it causes for talents who do not get booked that often for tapings. De Lander also gave her thoughts about how some talents might be under regular salary deals that were signed with the previous TNA management.

“As far as I’m aware, most talent aren’t on salary. They are on pay-per-appearance, which basically means if you get booked for this day, you will get paid whatever your rate is for that as a day rate. It’s great if you’re booked consistently and you’re working and you have a good rate and all of that, but then it is difficult for people if they are left off for a loop or a few loops in a row or if there’s only two tapings a month, that’s only two opportunities to get paid. So it’s not a conventional weekly salary paycheck. I know they did do that previously and I think there’s still a few people that might be on that kind of deal just from signing that with previous management. But from what I’m aware, for the most part, it’s moved to pay-per-appearance deals.”

De Lander also revealed that herself and Warner were originally scheduled for both of TNA’s upcoming tapings in New Orleans before being pulled from one of them.

“Yeah, you can go months without getting paid if they don’t book you. Even for the tapings next week for New Orleans, we were told we were on both of them, they booked the travel and whatever and then I got an email that we were only needed for one day. That was kind of part of what made me think like, ‘Okay, I thought I was gonna be wrestling at this show. Now I’m unbooked for one of the days,’ which again, also means that you’re not getting paid for one of those days. So you’ve planned your month around, I’m going to be earning this much per month. You also haven’t taken any bookings that day and then if you get told two weeks beforehand, it’s too late to pick up any indie bookings. So that part of the scheduling and everything being so last minute can definitely affect you financially as well.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com