How do WWE Superstars get paid? The ‘New Bucket System’ explained

WWE Superstars are highly popular, influential, charismatic, powerful and make a lot of money. It is believed that the WWE pay more money to the talents, as most of the stars live a luxurious life. We have seen WWE stars, who work all day and night to earn a marginable salary, whereas a few top stars just appear on a few occasions and earn more. So how does a WWE wrestler get paid?

To answer this, former WWE Superstars, Mansoor & Mace recently appeared on the Veteran Maven’s Youtube Channel, ‘Maven Huffman’ and discussed the pay system of the company.

Maven explains WWE old payment system

Maven worked for WWE until 2005. He explained the payment system during his time saying that if he was on the pay sheet, he would get a percentage of ticket sales for all the shows including non-televised live events. He gets paid every week and every check will be different from each Tuesday.

Mansoor & Mace explains WWE’s ‘New Bucket Payment System’

Mansoor explained that they do get a check every week, but with the same number every time. They claim that they get guaranteed money, whether they work or not.

“We do get a check in the mail every week, but it’s the same number every time, no matter how many shows you work, no matter how many times you wrestle, even if you don’t wrestle at all, you get the same payment every single week, we get guaranteed money no matter what,” 

“In a way, you’re actually not incentivized to work because when you’re working House shows, you’re doing all of these dates [and] you have to pay for your car, pay for your hotel, and the only thing we don’t pay for are the flights. If you were just sitting at home hurt, you’re just getting your weekly paycheck.”

They said that it is called the bucket list, where they do still have a downside, where they will get paid technically for everything they do, but it goes into the bucket list, until the bucket gets overflowed.

“It’s a little bit different now because what they have now is called the bucket system, which is completely different. So we do still have a downside, okay, and everything you do, actually, you get paid technically and it goes into this bucket. As long as your bucket doesn’t overflow, you just get your downside,” 

“It’s very complicated, but this is basically what it means. It’s every time you work a show, you get an invisible payment that doesn’t actually go into your bank account. It goes into a metaphorical bucket. The top of the bucket is your downside. So, if your downside is $120,000, and let’s say every time you work a show, they make an invisible payment of $1,000. Now you don’t see that $1,000 Until you make $125,000 worth of bookings on top of your downside. So anything above $125,000 that you made is extra as a bonus for you.”

“You get paid the exact same amount whether or not you’re on the pay-per-view,”

“Unless they decide to pay you more than your downside for our pay-per-view. If my downside was $125,000, and I work a Saudi show which is KA-CHING, KA-CHING, and they decide to pay you $150,000, well then you’re going to make a $25,000 bonus on top of your downside.”

“Get this. So, if you were working a lot of house shows, if you were on TV every week, if you were on every pay-per-view, and if you were selling a lot of T-shirts, something that happened pretty frequently is all of a sudden you stopped going on house shows,”

How do WWE wrestlers get paid?Mace and Mansoor explained how wrestlers in WWE get paid today, and it's through a Bucket System. Wrestlers get today get a downside guarantee + have an opportunity to earn more if there "bucket overflows".So unlike in the past, as Maven briefly… pic.twitter.com/96sKMitmI2

— AIR (@AIRGold_) May 7, 2024

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