WrestleMania XX was a memorable event; The Undertaker returned to his old gimmick, Chris Benoit won the World Heavyweight Championship, and fans in attendance booed Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg out of the building. Both Lesnar and Goldberg were leaving the promotion, and Vince McMahon didn’t want to make either guy look strong in their final match, so he opted to have special guest referee Steve Austin give both a Stone Cold Stunner on their way out. Now Jim Ross, who at the time was WWE’s talent relations executive, has revealed on his Grilling JR podcast that Lesnar called the company after receiving his WrestleMania XX payoff, as he felt he’d been screwed over.
I said, “What are you basing this on? Did you do a forensic study on the finances of this event, or did one of your buddies tell you that you got screwed on your payoff? What are you basing this on? You’ve got to give me something here. You didn’t like it?” And he said, “I just think you guys screwed me.” I said, “well, we didn’t screw you, and I’m sorry you feel that way.” And he hung up on me.
Look, I didn’t have a problem with him hanging up on me. He heard his answer “You are not getting any more money. We think we paid you fairly.” But it was not the phone call; I was thinking, thank god he was on the phone and not staring me down the gullet. He is a little intimidating. So, that’s how that worked out. We were really shocked that it had come to that.Jim Ross
WWE’s method of determining payoffs has always been questionable as talents can’t work out for themselves what they are owed, and it’s very much up to the company. Chris Jericho has been open about being disappointed that he only received one-fifth of what Triple H was paid for their WrestleMania 18 main event. McMahon’s opinion was that fans paid to see Triple H win the WWE Championship, so he was entitled to the bulk of the money.
It is hard to feel bad for Lesnar, having received $250,000 for such an awful match where neither he nor Goldberg put in much effort, and it’s understandable if McMahon underpaid them as he no longer needed to keep either man happy. Of course, both men returned to the WWE later and were well paid upon their returns. This is especially true in Lesnar’s case, with his UFC success allowing him to negotiate a contract ensuring him maximum pay for minimum dates.
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