– WWE COO Triple H and Monday Night RAW Commissioner Stephanie McMahon are currently scheduled to compete in a Mixed Tag Team match against RAW General Manager Kurt Angle and ex-UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey.
This will be Rousey’s first match in her professional wrestling career. “The Game” took to Twitter to post the following video on he and Stephanie’s preparations for New Orleans, as well as what WWE means to them:
– Two-time WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair recently launched his own line of suits with Mr. Custom Made, and currently offers 12 items ranging from $595 to $795. The Ric Flair Collection can be found via this link.
TMZ Sports posted a video reviewing Flair’s suit line, and noted Flair has sent pairs to stars such as The Rock and Jamie Foxx, among many more. Check it out:
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Since the TMZ story broke about Sting retiring, he has on multiple occasions, since then, denied the report. Sting is set to enter the WWE Hall Of Fame this Saturday on The WWE Network.
Yesterday, we reported on how Chris Smith at Forbes had put together a list of WWE’s highest paid wrestlers. While lists of this kind have gone around for years, they’re usually of some nebulous origin or an incredibly unreliable source like CelebrityNetWorth. This is different, however: Not only is it from Forbes, the magazine of record for finance, but it’s also an actual Forbes staff writer as opposed to their larger contributor network. Nothing against them, but they weren’t hired with the financial angle in mind. Since it’s a Forbes article from a Forbes staffer, the list is being taken a lot more seriously than these things usually are.
In his article, Smith claims that “Over the last year we’ve pored over court documents, SEC filings and WWE’s booking contracts and spent hours speaking with industry sources, allowing us to construct the first ever FORBES list of WWE’s Highest-Paid Wrestlers.” Let’s take a look at the list again:
John Cena: 9.5 million
Brock Lesnar: 6.0 million
Triple H: 2.8 million
Randy Orton: 2.7 million
Seth Rollins: 2.4 million
Roman Reigns: 2.1 million
Undertaker: 2.0 million
Big Show: 1.5 million
Kane: 1.3 million
Dean Ambrose: 1.1 million
So, what do we know about the numbers on Smith’s list for Forbes?
The only one whose pay would come up in SEC filing is Triple H, since he’s an executive officer of WWE under his real name of Paul Levesque. This does appear to be correct: If you don’t include stock awards, and Smith didn’t, he made $2,812,629 in 2015. That’s broken down as $573,269 in salary for his executive role, $526,000 in incentive plan compensation, and $1,713,360 for his pay as talent, $1 million of which is his contracted downside guarantee. There’s a note that “Mr. Levesque has out-earned this minimum guarantee in each of the past several years.”
Randy Orton and John Cena both had divorces, though only Orton’s finances went public as a result. TMZ reported that at the time of the July 2013 divorce, Orton was making $291,666 a month, or just $8 short of $3.5 million in a year. It’s not clear if that was his total 2012 pay or what, as the belief is that WWE’s downside guarantees never top $1 million. Cena did have his annual earnings pegged as about $10 million by Wrestling Observer editor Dave Meltzer in January, while Meltzer has also reported Brock Lesnar’s pay in the past because he gets a flat fee per appearance. In the past, Meltzer has said something to the effect of how these days, it’s understood that The Undertaker’s $1 million guarantee is considered his WrestleMania payoff. With additional appearances headlining SummerSlam and Hell in a Cell last year, $2 million sounds reasonable.
It gets hazier after that as you move further down the line.
In a deposition that I cited in my January article for SBNation about Big Show’s flirtation with boxing, Big Show said that when he returned to WWE in 2008, he asked for $1.25 million and a $250,000 signing bonus…but that was eight years ago and it’s not clear in the public filings if he even got what he wanted. A deposition with his wife, who apparently handles their finances, had her testifying that she didn’t think he made any bonuses on top of his base salary. That would be unusual for a full time WWE performer, but it could also have to do with confusion over the nature of WWE contracts. WWE pay works two ways: You can just take your per-event pay and royalties as they come, or you can take your downside guarantee as a salary and get a balloon payment at the end of the year for what goes over the guarantee. Since he has little merchandise, $1.5 million doesn’t sound outrageously low, though.
Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Kane, and Dean Ambrose all have little to no information out there about their pay. Kane recently put his home up on the market and it was huge, sprawling property with a house customized to his specific needs as a very tall man, but because he’s based in Knoxville, Tennessee, the price was dramatically less than you’d think, coming in under $1 million. The rest seem realistic enough.
What do you think of the list? Let us know in the comments.
The latest chapter in the drama between Gawker and Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) came yesterday, with Gawker attempting to file a stay to block a judge’s ruling while they file an appeal. That’s the ruling from last week, when Judge Pamela Campbell ruled that a forensic investigator can be hired at Hulk Hogan’s request to search Gawker’s computers and phones. The goal? Discovering if Gawker violated a court order in their lawsuit.
Hogan is suing because Gawker published excerpts of a sex tape shot without his permission on a friend’s home security system, and insisting that Gawker is playing dirty. The allegation/ That the leak of Hogan’s racist comments that got him fired by WWE came from Gawker, and that they sourced sealed documents to facilitate said leak. While not the only sealed documents in the lawsuit, everything from the FBI’s investigation into Hogan being extorted via the sex tapes has been sealed from the public.
Gawker is arguing that there is little basis for such a wide examination of employees’ and in-house counsel’s computers. They also cite their earlier filings when they responded to Hogan’s attempt to get the investigation going, which shed more light on, among other things, exactly what Gawker received from the FBI. With the argument being that there’s barely even circumstantial evidence that Gawker was behind the leak, they state that:
* A timeline of what’s contained in the Hogan/Heather Cole sex tapes was circulating in New York and Tampa radio circles by March 2012.
* Other parties who were well aware of Hogan’s racist comments before this past July included Bubba Clem, Heather Cole, Nik Riichie of TheDirty.com, the source of an October 2012 item in the Philadelphia Daily News, Keith Davidson (the lawyer who tried to help a client sell the videos to Hogan or extort money from him depending on your view), Davidson’s client, numerous federal investigators, and TMZ’s Mike Walters,
* Gawker didn’t have most of what was released by the National Enquirer in the first place, with what they have from the FBI being incomplete. The audio of the FBI sting on Davidson (where Hogan, his lawyer, and Davidson watch the videos) “simply does not include most of the quotes reported by the Enquirer.”
The radio community timeline, which Gawker got in discovery, “does not contain the racist language published by the Enquirer. It also does not reference Bollea’s use of homophobic slurs, as reported by the Enquirer.” Davidson’s transcripts, which Gawker’s lawyers got from the FBI, also don’t match what the Enquirer published.
Specific examples of quotes that the Enquirer had that Gawker’s lawyers didn’t included some of the most damning ones. That includes “I guess we’re all a little racist. F**king n***er,” which is probably the most cited one because it’s used to refute people who say Hogan’s not a racist.
* Gawker never had proof of the racist comments “in large part because Bollea successfully thwarted Gawker’s efforts to obtain that proof or take any discovery about the contents of the timeline and transcripts.”
Hogan had, under oath, represented to the court and the Special Discovery Magistrate overseeing the sealed documents that he besides what Gawker got in 2012, he “had no knowledge of the existence of any other tapes.” In actuality, he watched all three (the one Gawker got, the one with the racist comments, and one more) during the FBI sting. He also claimed that any allegations of racist comments on the videos were lies fabricated by an extortionist.
In a hearing on July 1st, a few weeks before the leak, Hogan’s lawyers claimed that if a video with the racist comments existed, then the audio may be from an impersonator hired by the extortionist. They also argued that the rumors of such comments may have been coming from the extortionist. On top of that, it was argued that mentions of the FBI investigation shouldn’t be allowed in the case because it was “predicated on these tapes purportedly saying something that they don’t say.”
* The DVDs of the sex videos Gawker has are heavily edited. None of the racist comments were included. At the time of the leak, “reprocessed” versions of the DVDs (there were issues with the first one) had not yet been seen by Gawker’s lawyers.
— Lachlan Cartwright (@LachCartwright) July 24, 2015
* The Enquirer and its reporters have always claimed that Gawker was not one of their five sources for the articles. They also worded the articles to make it clear that the sources had access to the unedited videos themselves, or at least it seemed that way.
Regardless of your feelings as to the main case and whether Hogan should win that, it does seem like Gawker has a very compelling argument when it comes to this. While the appeals court itself has generally favored Gawker, this attempt at getting a stay is with the trial judge, who has seemingly favored Hogan. It should be interesting to se where this goes, and we’ll keep you apprised of any updates.
– TMZ covered a story involving TNA star Jeff Hardy’s dog breaking a bone in its’ foot last week. Those interested in the story can check it out at TMZ.com.
– TNA has added a new video to their official YouTube channel featuring footage of “The Icon” Sting backstage at a TNA live event this past weekend. The “#IMPACT365” video, which can be seen below, is accompanied by the following description: “Backstage at the IMPACT World Tour Live Event in McMinnville, TN on Saturday night, several lucky fans has the chance to meet the Icon, Sting! Here is the exclusive video!”
-The latest edition of “The Steve Austin Show” is now online. The latest episode of the show features actor and comedian Jay Mohr. You can check out the podcast online at PodcastOne.com.
-WWE Diva Tamina Snuka, who has been romantically linked to Darren Young in the past, recently responded to a fan on Twitter about their supposed relationship. Snuka simply wrote, “Fact NEVER dated.” You can follow Tamina on Twitter @TaminaSnuka.
-Speaking of Young, the openly gay WWE Superstar was once again the subject of much discussion on today’s edition of “TMZ Live” at TMZ.com. As noted yesterday, Young was scheduled to appear on the show on Thursday, however he did not appear due to connection issues. The TMZ Live crew fielded questions from listeners, as they typically do on the program, and a lot of the questions were in regards to Young’s coming out of the closet on Thursday. You can listen to future editions of TMZ Live online at TMZ.com.
TMZ.com is reporting the The Ultimate Warrior was named in a police report with the Sante Fe County Sheriff’s Department in New Mexico He is accused of scamming a wrestling merchandise collector out of $28k of merchandise, including ring-worn wrestling trunks.
Christopher Elias, a sports memorabilia dealer named claims he struck a $28k deal with Warrior, in which the wrestling legend agreed to send Elias a bunch of classic merchandise from his personal collection. Elias, also claimed that The Warrior was supposed to sign twenty wrestling belts & ten Wrestlemania posters of his.
TMZ.com and Batista announced Early Friday Morning that he will will make his professional MMA debut for the CES MMA league on October 6th from Providence, Rhode Island.
Batista’s MMA opponent will be Rashid Evans (not UFC Fighter Rashad Evans).
Batista attempted to join Strikeforce in 2010 however, they could not come to terms.