After the whole Matt Riddle/Brock Lesnar kerfuffle in the wake of the Royal Rumble, backstage reports came out of the WWE Performance Center in Orlando that the trainees and NXT Superstars there were being told not to call out main roster WWE Superstars without approval.
Apparently some people within WWE were unhappy with the way that story came out, because Fightful is now reporting that WWE called a meeting before NXT TV at Full Sail Studios last Wednesday, at which talent were told they should not talk to “dirt sheets” and wrestling news websites.
The meeting also included a reminder that talent needs to show proof of health insurance, something WWE does not provide. This prompted one anonymous source to tell Fightful:
They reminded me that I’m a contractor, then tried to tell me who I couldn’t talk to, so here I am.
Obviously it’s in WWE’s interest to control what information leaks out from backstage at the Performance Center and elsewhere. On the other hand, it’s been clear more than once in the past that WWE uses “dirt sheets” when it serves them, whether to work the public for an angle, or just to disseminate the version of a story they want told. So it kind of seems like they don’t mind leaks to the dirt sheets, they just want them to come from the top rather than the bottom.
