10 Most Expensive Fines WWE Ever Gave Wrestlers For Breaking The Rules

2. Batista - $100,000 For Blading

Before he had all the Marvel money for Drax the Destroyer, Dave Bautista earned his living as ‘The Animal’ in WWE. And that living suffered a huge loss when he was fined by the promotion in 2008 for blading. Like Ric Flair and Bret Hart did in 1992, Batista went against WWE’s reinstated ‘no blood’ policy, after their content had recently switched from TV-14 to PG.

On the 800th episode of Raw, Batista defended his World Heavyweight Championship against Chris Jericho in a steel cage match, and believing the brutality of the match deserved some bloodshed, Batista bladed at the end of the encounter following a steel pipe to the head.

Batista and Jericho came back through the curtain to lots of yelling and screaming over the usage of blood. Vince McMahon, wanting to set an example for the ‘no blood’ policy going forward, fined Batista the following week unbelievably with a $100,000 fine. Not done, he also fined Jericho, the referee in the match Mike Chioda and the producer of the match Dean Malenko $5000 apiece, with Batista offering to pay their fines too.

Batista has spoken about the fines previously:

“This was a point where we weren’t shedding blood anymore. We were PG, and that didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t want to hear that, especially when there’s a title match involved. I knew we weren’t supposed to do it. I knew I would get consequences, but I didn’t think they’d be as harsh as they were.”