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Report about WWE ID talent guidelines gets debunked by wrestling promoter

Aaron Rift

In November of 2024, WWE announced the launch of a new indie wrestling development program and multiple prospects were officially confirmed. In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com made the following claims about the guidelines…

“When it comes to the WWE ID talent, the deal according to a contract is that Gabe Sapolsky puts the matches together and gives the script to the promoter. The promoter pays the talent and can push that the talent comes from WWE. WWE covers the travel costs with a stipend an the promoter pays the difference if the travel costs are larger than the stipend.”

Game Changer Wrestling’s Brett Lauderdale issued a response to Meltzer’s report…

“My experience with WWE ID:

1. Gabe doesn’t put the matches together
2. I’ve never seen or heard of a script
3. We are ‘allowed’ to push ‘WWE ID’ on talent announcements (but we don’t)
4. Not aware of any travel stipend or travel share but that would be cool!”

Meltzer ended up removing the report from his newsletter. Lauderdale also noted the following…

“There has never been any discussion about winning/losing and they’ve never asked, dictated, requested or solicited anything when it pertains to WWE ID Talent. There is also no distinction or separate rules for ‘ID vs ID’ matches.”