The following was sent in by Chris Featherstone, host of the Pancakes and Powerslams Show:
Former WWE and TNA stars Ken Anderson and Shawn Daivari were the latest guests on the Pancakes and Powerslams Show. They promoted their new pro wrestling school. The Academy: School of Professional Wrestling, as well as shared interesting WWE and TNA stories, including the subject of WWE and TNA pay. Here are some highlights.
Daivari on why The Academy was created:
“This is what somebody needs to be a successful sports entertainer. “But, unfortunately, you can only go there if you already have a contract. So, what do all the people do who are trying to get that contract? Well, they can learn what goes on in the ropes, so they really can’t learn much else. And then we said, ‘Why don’t we do it? We can have our own facility. We can teach them everything that they need to know to be successful, to get where they want to be to make some money and have a good career, have a career more than just independent wrestling.’”
Anderson on Orton’s bad temper:
“He was definitely a character. You never know what you were gonna get. [There were] situations at restaurants where he didn’t get what he ordered, and everybody in the restaurant knew about it. I was in the car with him one time, late at night, one o’clock in the morning, and we had stopped at a roadside fireworks stand and got a bunch of Roman candles and bottle rockets. I’m driving, one o’clock in the morning, and he’s shooting a bunch of bottle rockets and Roman candles outside the window.”
Anderson when asked if he knows anyone who is still owed money in TNA:
“Man. I don’t know anyone who is owed a lot of money from TNA. Like, mid-five figures. There’s this guy that yells and screams his name a lot. I can’t [figure out] who that guy may be.” He added, “there was a time when I did not get paid for three months.”
Both on WWE stars net a small amount of money after paying for expenses:
Daivari – “I don’t believe that’s the case at all. I don’t know anyone that worked there [who] wasn’t living comfortably. The bottom guy lived comfortably, and then the guys above that lived well. I just know how comfortable I was and how much money I was making, and I was only somewhere in the middle going, ‘Man, if I made half this much, I’d still live really well, and if I made 10 times as much, I’d live even better. So, I hear a lot of guys say that, and I understand why they’re saying it. It is because when that phone call doesn’t come, ever, they can say, ‘Oh. I didn’t want to go back anyways, because I don’t get paid [anything].’ Whatever. You live in an apartment now, and you lived in a seven bedroom house then.”
Anderson – “Guys think that they are going to make that kind of paycheck forever, and they live excessively. Not only are they living comfortably, they are living excessively. I knew guys that had five cars, and a giant house, and a giant pool in the backyard, and a Gerardo. State-of-the-art camera system in their house, and all the newest gadgets, and the nicest clothes, and Louis Vuitton luggage, and Rolexes, and then the minute they get fired, they’re like, ‘What do we do now?’”
