WWE’s battle with AEW may be about much more than ratings, ticket sales and wrestling supremacy. According to Dave Meltzer, there could be a major financial motivation behind WWE’s aggressive approach toward Tony Khan’s promotion: talent salaries.

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio while breaking down TKO’s latest financial figures, Meltzer argued that AEW has given WWE wrestlers something incredibly valuable at the negotiating table: another major company willing to pay serious money.

With TKO focused heavily on maximizing profits, Meltzer believes removing or significantly weakening AEW could eventually allow WWE to regain greater control over wrestler salaries.

“They’re there completely to extract as much profit as they can from it, period. And I think that’s one of the reasons they’re fighting AEW so hard, is so that they can get back that control that they thought that they were going to have, and then they don’t have to be escalating salaries anymore and they’d have even bigger profits.”

Meltzer believes WWE could even accept short-term financial hits if the bigger objective is putting pressure on AEW. He pointed toward WWE staging a six-hour event in Edinburgh, Texas, on August 30 as an example of what he described as a “loss-leader” approach.

“That’s their loss-leader mentality. It’s like, yeah, we’ll take some short-term money losses, but if we can get rid of them, if somehow we get rid of them as far as being major competition to us, maybe we can start asking guys to take pay cuts because they don’t have the leverage of going somewhere else.”

That leverage is central to Meltzer’s argument.

WWE main roster salaries have climbed considerably, and while the company’s booming revenues are obviously a factor, Meltzer believes AEW’s arrival has played an even bigger role in driving up what wrestlers can command.

“The ones that we see on TV on Raw and SmackDown, the ones on the main roster, they’re all doing great, far, far, far beyond their dreams of what they ever thought they would make in pro wrestling, partially because revenues increased and more so because AEW exists and it’s raised everyone’s salary.”

Despite those bigger contracts, Meltzer maintains that WWE wrestlers and UFC fighters remain underpaid compared with the enormous revenues generated under the TKO umbrella.

“I never hear from wrestlers complaining about their money. I hear from fighters complaining about their money constantly. But they’re both underpaid and at around the same level. I think, realistically, both should make triple what they make.”

Meltzer said he has crunched the numbers and believes both WWE and UFC could triple talent compensation while remaining highly profitable businesses.

“I actually ran some numbers, and it’s like if they got paid triple what they made now, both companies would be super profitable. Super profitable. Not nearly to the extent they are, but they would be.”

If Meltzer’s assessment is correct, AEW’s importance to wrestlers stretches far beyond television ratings or attendance battles.

Having another major promotion capable of competing for established names gives wrestlers negotiating leverage they simply would not have in a one-company market. As long as Tony Khan remains willing to compete for talent, WWE has another bidder to contend with whenever major contracts come up.

What do you make of Meltzer’s argument? Has AEW’s arrival ultimately benefited wrestlers regardless of which company they work for? Leave a comment in our new comment section and join the discussion.