Former NWA World Heavyweight and WWE Tag Team Champion Rob Conway was a recent guest on the Pancakes and Powerslams Show. Conway has much to share about his time in WWE and wrestling at Wrestle Kingdom for NJPW. He also had some interesting information to share about pay in the WWE. You can read a few highlights below, and listen to the full show in the above player:
Rob Conway talks about the difference in pay with title holders compared to non-title holders:
“Absolutely [there is a difference]. When you’re one of the champions, especially in a tag team. At the time, we had more tag teams than what they had in four or five years. So you’d only have so many tag team matches at the live events. Every live event, you’re gonna have the tag team title match. So if you’re the tag team champions, you’re gonna be at the live event, they find a spot for you on television, and generally at the pay per views. So the pay per views and the live events are where you make a bulk of your money, as well as being in video games and action figures. With a 30 to 40 person roster, you can’t have everyone that’s at television every week at all the live events. So, it was definitely a boost based on where you’re at on the card and the importance of your matches.”
Conway on why it is important being a top guy:
“Ultimately, the people that make the most money are the ones that were obviously the ones that people came to see. Right now, you’ve got your John Cena. I believe that if you took John Cena and Brock [Lesnar], and put them at one mall, and put the rest of the roster at the other mall, and you had an autograph signing, more people would go to see John Cena and Brock than the rest of them combined. Because they’ve been on TV for longer.“That’s not counting Undertaker and guys who’ve been on TV for a long time, but I mean ultimately, the guys in the positions that [WWE] know are drawing the money, they have a better understanding of why they’re making what they’re making. They’re all superstars, but there are guys that obviously sell more merchandise and put more butts in seats, and that’s what everyone wants to try to accomplish. When you put their name on the marquee, you know people are gonna buy pay per views and buy tickets.”
Conway comments on why La Resistance split:
“We were getting booed out of the building. We were getting more heat than anybody in the company the whole time that we were there. The heat never stopped. We could still be doing it, and we’d still get booed. They’re never gonna cheer guys that looked the why we did… We specifically don’t want to get cheered, so we are going to let the other guys do the cooler moves, and we’re gonna cheat.“What happened was, [WWE] had brought in Muhammed Hassan… and had him betray an Arab character. And they wanted his character to get all the anti-American, the USA chants, and to get that heat. What would happen was, because we were more established characters, we would go out in match five and get booed out of the building, and [the fans] chant ‘USA!.’ And then he would go on semi-main event, and the people had already chanted USA for 20 minutes, so it was harder for [WWE Creative] to get the reaction that they wanted. So, in turn, they could have just moved us to SmackDown, but they decided that it was time for us to kind of get our own singles careers. We never lost our heat, it’s just that they wanted it to go to him.”
