Orange Crush Allegedly Tried To Convince Marcus Mathers To Burn WWE ID Contract

Adam Abdalla - the man behind Orange Crush: The Journal of Art & Wrestling and the promoter of PRODUCE Wrestling - has been accused of trying to convince Marcus Mathers to burn his WWE ID contract in the middle of a pro wrestling ring.

Issues between Marcus Mathers and PRODUCE emerged in July when Mathers was pulled from a PRODUCE Wrestling booking by the WWE ID programme. Orange Crush then announced that he would terminate any wrestler's future bookings with PRODUCE if they decided to cancel a PRODUCE date for another independent contractor booking.

Joey Janela addressed the issues between Mathers and PRODUCE on Fightful's In The Weeds:

"This sh*t with Marcus Mathers is such bullsh*t. Marcus Mathers, he's the top of the top right now when comes to indies. Hardworking, no drama, never gets involved in any drama. Just goes and wrestles his f*cking ass off. To get brought into that like that is just such bullsh*t. It’s not even his doing. That’s someone that uses the WWE ID programme to his full benefit. He sends X-Pac his matches, AJ Styles watches his matches. He gets those critiques. He goes to Nattie's once a month when he's down there at the Performance Center, twice a month.

"That's just a hardworking guy, then you bring him into this f*cking bullsh*t because you're like, fight the machine, fight f*cking corporate wrestling and burn it to the ground. Indie wrestling forever. F*ck everyone else, don’t sign these contracts, but don’t prioritise a sh*tty 1 pm show the day before my 8 pm Monday pay-per-view. It's just whatever, dude. For him to bring that sh*t up, bringing Marcus into it, which is just bullsh*t."

Janela then alleged that Orange Crush attempted to convince Mathers to set fire to his WWE ID contract.

"There's other stories like him sending him like 30 text messages in a row trying to get him to burn the WWE ID contract in a garbage can in the middle of the ring and sh*t. Sh*t that Marcus would never even fathom doing, ever. This guy is that delusional or that hopped up on something that Marcus will be like, 'Hell yeah, let’s f*cking do it man, let’s burn that WWE ID contract. I don’t ever want to wrestle at WrestleMania, I just want to stay here with you Adam in f*cking Brooklyn, New York in a f*cking warehouse for the rest of my f*cking life,'" Janela added.

Joey Janela and Adam Abdalla have had their own issues this week, with Janela announcing that he would no longer be curating PRODUCE's September event and he would not work with the promotion in any form going forwards. Janela then posted multiple screenshots of text messages with Abdalla.

Marcus Mathers has been signed with the WWE ID programme since it was launched in November 2024, with the scheme effectively giving WWE the right of first refusal on signing any of the wrestlers contracted to the programme to full-time deals. Indy wrestlers signed to the programme are provided with support by WWE.

Mathers has wrestled on WWE EVOLVE on several occasions and he is also a regular for the likes of GCW and Beyond Wrestling. Mathers worked a Dragon Gate tour earlier this year as well.

PRODUCE Wrestling was launched earlier this year, with the new indy promotion holding their first show on June 29. The promotion sees pro wrestlers co-curate PRODUCE events with Orange Crush, with Jonathan Gresham, Lee Moriarty, and Rocky Romero curating PRODUCE's three events so far. The indy promotion's shows air on MyAEW.