In recent weeks, we've been hearing about WWE's plans to introduce a new policy which mean their Superstars have to turn over their third-party accounts - like Twitch, for example - to the company. That reportedly means they would only receive a small percentage of the revenue they earn, and potentially nothing at all.
It's a ridiculous, unreasonable move that's generated a huge amount of negative publicity for WWE, and now AJ Styles (who has 39,000 Twitch followers) has opened up about what's going on.
"I don't know what's going to happen," Styles admitted. "I don't know what they expect from us when it comes to our channel. I don't know if it's something that they're like, 'We just want you guys under an umbrella like a WWE Twitch and have a set lineup and here is who is on when'. If that's the case - great! Then fans would know where and when to find us."
"Unfortunately, I found out the same way a lot of you did — through the internet, which is a shame. You'd think it'd be better than that. For guys who are on here trying to, not only work for WWE, but get on here and Twitch and stuff like that, you'd think it'd be a lot easier to communicate with us and us alone instead of whoever it is behind the scenes and them going to Joe Blow and them having more information than us. Is anything set in stone? I don't think anything is. I think it's going to come down to communication."
"We don't get to see you; we don't get to talk to you; we don't get to do much," Styled added. "This is the next best thing. I don't know what they're hoping to get out of this. The communication has not been as great as we'd like. There's a lot of us who are all on the same page - we've talked to each other. We're facing the same thing. It's all doom and gloom or, 'Oh, that's all they want.' I feel like this is an opportunity for me and my channel to say, 'This is what's really going on' and debunk some stupid rumors that are going on."
With any luck, WWE will make their plans clear, but fans will not be happy to see these Twitch streams become sterile WWE productions like WWE's The Bump, and the Superstars making an impact there will almost certainly be left fuming if they're out of pocket for the hard work they do.
We'll keep you updated.