WWE Accused of Blocking Talent Growth to Avoid Paying More

Jonathan Coachman just threw gasoline on the WWE conversation—and lit the match himself.

The former WWE personality took to Twitter/X on July 7 and made a bold claim: TKO, WWE’s parent company, allegedly doesn’t want him helping wrestlers improve their promos because it would make the talent “more valuable,” meaning they’d need to be paid more. It all started when Coachman fired off a critique of WWE Raw star Lyra Valkyria’s promo delivery:

“I don’t believe a thing Lyra says on the mic. I am begging WWE to start working with some of these talents on delivering promos. It has to go both ways and Bayley and Becky are light years ahead of Lyra. There are levels on the mic and if you are going to be on Raw you have to be at the highest level.”

Fans didn’t take kindly to the comment, especially given Coachman’s vocal past about moving on from WWE. One user fired back:

“For someone who wanted nothing to do with WWE you sure talk about em a lot coach.”

Coachman responded with a dig of his own:

“Charles thank you for your time. Quick question. Are you the same person at 30-40-50? Or have to pivot and evolve in your life to lean into things that match up professionally at certain times. I have admitted many times since we started @BehindTheBuckle that I would be doing things differently.”

Another fan, Billy, pushed harder—accusing Coachman of doing nothing to help despite his critiques:

“Right but u will do nothing to change it cus u won’t go and help them out, u THINK u could do better. Go do better!! But u won’t.”

That’s when Coachman dropped the hammer with a major accusation:

“I spent over 10 years working with talent back stage and character development. I rarely say no when asked to help. But I am quite sure that TKO doesn’t want me helping their talent with promos. Because that would make them more valuable and ultimately they’d have to pay them more money. And we know that’s something they don’t want to do.”

Whether this is a personal gripe or a hard truth, Coachman’s claim cuts to the core of a long-running issue: how WWE handles talent development and who gets the tools to grow.