In a recent Fightful interview, CJ Perry shared her thoughts on how commerce motivates the wrestling industry. She explained that the bottom line defines the majority of decisions made backstage in terms of which stories get told at WWE and offered her perspective on the arc involving herself with Liv Morgan, Miro, and Bobby Lashley. You can find a few highlights from Perry and watch the complete interview below.
On the business considerations at promotions like WWE:
“If it’s Tony Khan or if it’s Vince, at the end of the day, they’re the directors and the producers and the CEOs of this story. It’s at least $100,000 per minute that they’re on television, maybe more now at this point. But I remember in 2020 hearing, I believe from TJ and Nattie, that Vince said that’s it’s $100,000 a minute to be on USA. So I think, again, this is where savage business comes into it. Are you worth that $100,000 a minute? This is a business at the end of the day. So Vince thought that was good business. It would be naïve of any of us to think he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Yes, we’re younger and we have a youthful opinion to bring to the table, but he has years of experience. So, look, it got me the biggest contract I ever got in my life and I’m very thankful for that. I think that, again, what the Bobby Lashley story taught me is scandal sells. So it doesn’t matter, it still sells. People might hate it, we still made WWE a lot of money. Like our YouTube videos made them a lot of money. This is a business at the end of the day. If it doesn’t translate into sales, if it doesn’t translate into subscriptions, ticket sales, all of that, viewership, then who cares? I’m just hired talent. We’re storytellers. We all know there’s been a ton of affairs and love triangles.”
On the genre of stories that market well:
“It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Relationship stories really sell. I know that’s not necessarily AEW’s story style over there, and I think that’s great how it differs. But everyone can relate to that. Most people have all been in love at some point, heart ache, maybe broken up with, backstabbed. So I think that’s all very relatable. I think it’s also really relatable, more gender fluidity right now in this time. Especially with Millennials and Gen-Z specifically. So I think I really resonated with that story. When they pitched it to me, I said, ‘Oh, this totally makes sense.’ I resonated with it. So I found it a little offensive that everyone found it so offensive.”
On if WWE could have run further with the storyline:
“Totally. I wish they would have followed up more on it, but again, I’m not the show runner and that’s not my [job]. I would love to be their show runner in the future one day. Or maybe I’ll be Larry, the digital producer [in] AEW. I want to produce and I love that stuff. Again, I take it as I’m hired.”
