It seems as though a wrestler’s prospect can go in one of two directions once they hit retirement: they either fade into obscurity or rise to new heights. There’s not a whole lot of room for compromise. It must be tough! Sure, there are great resources out there, like this one, to aid in the transition to a new career path. But resources are just one ingredient for post-retirement success. After a career in one very specific profession, it’d have to be a challenge to find a career in an entirely new field of endeavor not involving the busting of heads. Here are five wrestlers who doubled down on their wrestling spoils once they hit retirement.
Kevin Nash
Originally billed with the WWE as Diesel, in 1994 Kevin Nash won all three titles, making up the WWF Triple Crown. And this has been just one gem in a resplendent wrestling crown of achievements spanning a career of more than a decade.
He has appeared in such improbable TV shows as The Love Boat, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and Nikki and has amassed quite an impressive filmography, including John Wick, Rock of Ages and Almighty Thor.
Today, Kevin Nash is worth more than $8 million. His lengthy career in movies combined with a natural talent for entrepreneurism has set him up for life. On top of his financial and performing success, Nash has announced he’ll donate his brain to science when he dies and he’s an outspoken advocate for gay wrestlers. All round, he’s a pretty nice dude.
Paul Michael Levesque
Paul Michael Levesque became a part of the World Wrestling Federation way back in 1995. He specialized in personas fans loved to hate, particularly his ostentatiously toffee-nosed and upper crust character, Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
Throughout his career, Levesque earned a tidy salary of over $1 million, but his merchandise haul off in excess of $2 million is what sealed his fate as a wealthy man of means. Heavily invested in WWE stock, Hunter’s net value only increases as the franchise grows in success and notoriety.
Now 49, Levesque is hovering on the edge of full retirement. He moved into the WWE offices in 2010 to work as an Executive Senior Advisor.
Diamond Dallas Page
Diamond Dallas Page was probably not a top echelon wrestler by most connoisseur’s standards, but he had a talent for popularity and self-promotion. A big talker and a mega mouthed minstrel of his own success, Page’s career was marked by an ability to draw crowds. He was a sure bet.
Page pivoted his success in wrestling retirement with something completely unexpected: yoga. He built his own brand of yoga practice and an accompanying powerhouse of merchandising, branding and social media hype. His empire is continuing to grow, with yoga products, expanding to an ever greater number of demographics. How a wrestler managed to pull off becoming the figurehead of a yoga empire is something of a mystery, but his personal wealth soars higher in retirement than it ever did in his wrestling heyday.
Hulk Hogan
Then there is, of course, Hulk Hogan. This wrestler and personality could be credited with crafting the genre, tropes, and the archetypes which guide wrestling today. No-one really comes close to Hulk Hogan as a self-made businessman with a cache that lasts to this day.
The man is aggressive, unstoppable and larger than life. In retirement, Hogan sits at the apex of a weird array of eclectic businesses, from pasta restaurants to beachfront hospitality enterprises in Florida to a fully fledged web-hosting service: Hostamania. His name is stamped, albeit subtly, on a diverse portfolio of money-earners.
Hulk Hogan remains a legend, and he has a legendary bank balance to back it up.
Dwayne Johnson
If Hulk Hogan is the Alpha of the wrestling universe, then Dwayne The Rock Johnson is the glittering, all-powerful Omega. Making Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of 2019 only scratches at the surface of The Rock’s business and financial successes.
He spearheads a strong man TV show, has been in a list of A-list movies as long as his (massive) arm and he’s even made it to the New York Times Best Seller list for his (critically highly regarded) autobiography.
He’s estimated to be worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars, and most of that will have been acquired once he stepped away from the ring to conquer the world at large.
Success is a complicated beast. Finding a new way to success after retirement is a challenge at the best of times, but after a career in such a specific and rarefied industry, wrestlers have their work cut out for them! These five wrestling heroes made it look easy.
