Forbes estimates that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson earned $52 million from June 2013 to June 2014. Those sort of earnings are made possibly by his roles in major hollywood films, including the Fast And Furious franchise. It is the sort of money that WWE couldn’t dream of matching for a wrestler. He’s never going to come back to full time wrestling when he can be making forty million more in movies.

Instead, WWE utilise Rock on a part time deal. It is expected that he’ll headline WrestleMania 32 against Triple H, in a match that will be largely responsible for the show drawing. For that he could expect $5 million, maybe more. WWE are more than happy to do business on that part time basis at that level of money, as evidenced by the deal that they have Lesnar on.

But just imagine how big WWE would be if it had both Brock and Rock full time. It would be epic for the fans, but unfortunately the combined $72 million cost is something Vince McMahon would never pay for two wrestlers!

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Vince McMahon would love to have Brock Lesnar full time, but based on the market vale of his last two deals, Lesnar would cost around $20 million for a full year’s work.

That’s based on the idea that his current limited dates would add up to one WWE quarter, about four matches a year with regular appearances around them, which he earns $5 million for. Multiplied by four, that’s $20 million. So maybe McMahon could have Brock year round, but only if he was prepared to pay him a cool $20,000,000 – something which he can’t afford to do.

Indeed, he’s already arguably paying too much for the megastar. As big as Brock is, he’s a very expensive luxury. Five million for a few shows a year is the envy of the WWE locker room, and keep in mind that Brock’s presence barely impacted the SummerSlam Network subscriptions last year.

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When Hulk Hogan went to WCW in 1994, Vince McMahon actually had the contractual right to match whatever offer WCW made and keep his big star. The thing was, Ted Turner was offering $300,000 per a match, 25 percent of PPV revenue above the WCW average, 25 percent of house show revenue for the few non-televised dates Hogan would work, and 65 percent of all merchandise revenue. McMahon couldn’t afford to offer that, so Hogan went south.

Then in early 1998, he was considering jumping back to the WWF. There was an idea floated to him that he’d head up D Generation X and pass the torch to the mega hot Steve Austin at WrestleMania 14, according to Bruce Prichard and Eric Bischoff on Talk Is Jericho.

But to go to the WWF, Vince McMahon was going to have to pay Hogan astronomical money. The Hulkster’s WCW deal was complicated, with $600,000 per a PPV and $25,000 per a tv appearance. Linked to that were a whole range of bonuses for PPV buys and merchandise sales. He had creative control as well, which allowed him to be the top star in the company.

McMahon couldn’t offer any of that. All in all, Hogan was pocketing about $10 million in WCW, a sum that the WWF couldn’t and wouldn’t want to pay for one individual talent. Especially when that talent was already way past their prime. Hogan has claimed that the WWF offered him $5 million to return, but only he knows if that is true or not.

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You can bet that Vince McMahon wanted to get Bill Goldberg badly from 1998 onwards. When he then got that opportunity, in 2001 when WCW collapsed, he found that he couldn’t afford Goldberg’s contract.

The megastar of the southern brand was on a cool $2 million per a year, benefiting from the fact that he was the only real star WCW ever produced.

The other thing about Goldberg, is that he never wanted to take a full time schedule on. In WCW he had been used to a cushy schedule compared to the WWF’s regular shows. He was rich enough, and a big enough star, to reason that the WWF would only be worth it if the money was high and the dates were low.

As a result, McMahon and Goldberg didn’t get a deal done in 2001. McMahon couldn’t afford to pay a WCW guy $2 million, it would have created a riot in the locker room. Instead, Goldberg ended up taking time out from the business, then went to Japan to work a few dates for All Japan.

Eventually, WWE and Goldberg reached a compromise in 2003. He would come in for $1 million (half of what he’d been on in WCW) but would have a lighter schedule that was mostly television and pay per view dates. He signed, provoking a monstrous resentment in the WWE locker room! One year later, he was gone.

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The December 12th 1994 Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Macho Man Randy Savage signed to WCW for $425,000. He was also given assurances of a mainstream push that would include roles in Baywatch and other commercial endeavours.

He left the WWF in November of that year, with Vince McMahon taking the unusual step of addressing it on WWF television. He emotionally relayed the fact that the WWF and Savage hadn’t been able to come to terms on a new contract.

It was partly an issue of creative control, as Savage had wanted to work a major run with Shawn Michaels. But Vince McMahon didn’t want that, instead he wanted to head in a “new generation” direction.

Things became impossible when WCW came in and offered Savage $425,000 and a wrestling role. McMahon couldn’t afford to pay Savage that sum, not for what had become a mostly announcing gig

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Vince McMahon infamously couldn’t afford to pay Bret Hart his $1.5 million WWF contract in 1997. The WWF boss had also grown frustrated at the creative control element in Hart’s contract, which would later play a part in The Hitman’s insistence in not losing in Canada.

On September 22nd 1997, McMahon outright told Hart that he couldn’t afford to pay the deal. He actually encouraged him to contact WCW and see what he could get.

The rest is history. Hart got a $3 million a year deal out of WCW, which the WWF definitely couldn’t afford to match. The mutually agreed exit was all set, but then there was the issue of Hart being WWF Champion. You know how that story ends!

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Sting always attained very good deals from WCW. He was always even or ahead of the WWF pay structure and had little interest in going up north in the nineties.

Helping him stay so well paid was his close personal friendship with Eric Bischoff, who in that time was known as ATM Eric for the lavish contracts he dished out. Ted Turner was also a fan of the Stinger and appreciated him as a figurehead of major league southern wrestling.

Given how over Sting was as a star, it should be no surprise that Vince McMahon wanted to sign him at several points in his career. But WCW were paying him $750,000 in 1993, which was $1.25 million by the latter stages of that decade. McMahon’s pay structure simply couldn’t accommodate that sort of investment.

On top of this, Sting walked away from WWE negotiations in 2001 because he didn’t trust how Vince would book his character. He wanted some degree of creative control, in addition to a part time schedule. McMahon couldn’t offer $1.25 million, part time dates and creative control, so he let Sting walk away.

Finally, in 2014, the two sides worked something out, leading to Sting losing to Triple H at WWE WrestleMania 31.

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