WWE star Cody Rhodes, known as “The American Nightmare,” appeared on FLAGRANT to discuss various topics, including the company’s current pay structure.
Rhodes said, “Well, the wrestling economy is different now because there’s other places you can go wrestle. No, it’s just the fact that the money — best way to put it, the money in wrestling and sports entertainment is very good. And I feel like if you were my dad or any of these wrestlers we talked about on that list, you’d be shocked. My mom didn’t get it when I said, ‘Hey, X amount.’ She legit like — [Andrew Schulz interjects, ‘Yeah. Well, your pops was grinding at a very different–.’] Grinding and grinding, and also but now the contracts are guaranteed, and all this very, very different time. All that means to me, and it’s like that’s a huge responsibility.”
On what wrestlers just starting in WWE get paid:
“Oh man, I don’t know what our developmental I mean, everything is six figures. You know what? I’m actually defer because Nick has a great — Nick Khan had a great quote about these guys are going to do well. These guys are going to do really well, and then these couple guys, he named a few guys, they’re going to do next level. And that next level pay is now comparable with sports. And that’s the part that I’m so proud of being a wrestler because when you’d hear baseball contracts and NBA contracts, and you know as a wrestler that you could go all over the world and be known and be seen, [clears throat] but you weren’t on that level. You were on the level of penetration but not that level of income. Now, Modern TKO and Nick have made it that you are.”
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