Highlights
- Mace and Mansoor have broken down how WWE Superstars get paid, describing something they have dubbed the bucket system.
- Metaphorical money will be added to the bucket throughout the year, and wrestlers will earn more if their bucket overflows.
- WWE unfortunately has ways to make sure buckets don’t overflow, like keeping Superstars off live events.
How and what exactly WWE Superstars get paid is something we still know shockingly little about. Now and again information like Dragon Lee becoming the top-paid NXT star will leak out, but for the most part, how exactly WWE pays its Superstars is a closely guarded secret. Mace and Mansoor, who were released by WWE in 2023, have lifted the lid on how exactly getting paid in WWE works, breaking down the promotion’s somewhat strange bucket system.
How WWE Superstars Get Paid
Mace and Mansoor were guests on fellow WWE alumnus Maven’s YouTube channel. Maven explains that when he was in WWE, your pay would be dictated by the success of the shows they appeared on. Wrestlers would get a percentage of the money made from any shows they were on which meant competing on more shows would get you more money. Mace and Mansoor clarified that’s not the case anymore. WWE Superstars are guaranteed the same pay every week, even if they don’t appear on TV or at live events at all.
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The implication is that there’s no real incentive to be on as many shows as possible as you’ll get paid the same even if you’re sitting at home. However, Mace and Mansoor explain that’s not technically true because of what the team describes as WWE’s bucket system. Every time a Superstar competes on a show or sells some merch, the money from it goes into a metaphorical bucket. The capacity of that bucket is that Superstar’s downside guarantee. If your bucket overflows, then you make more money.
Explaining The Bucket System
For example, say a Superstar is earning a guaranteed $250,000 per year and they compete on 150 shows that year with WWE putting $1,000 into the bucket each time. That brings the bucket up to $150,000, so no additional money. However, if that same Superstar sells $150,000 worth of merch that year, their bucket will overflow and they will earn an additional $50,000 that year. The problem is WWE apparently has ways of making sure those buckets don’t overflow.
Mace and Mansoor add that if a Superstar is shifting merch and it looks like their bucket might overflow, they will suddenly stop being booked at live events. That means the bucket will start to fill more slowly and reduce the chance of them earning extra money. It’s an interesting system that has pros and cons. Obviously guaranteed money so wrestlers continue to earn a wage even when they’re hurt or not on TV every week is a good thing, but WWE actively trying to stifle its own bonus system so its employees can’t make more than that isn’t great.
