Breaking Down The Myth: The NWO Saved The Wrestling Business

For the wrestlers to have followed in their footsteps, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were forerunners in making guaranteed contracts a regular part of the business.

Before departing WWF, Hall was only guaranteed a total yearly sum of $1,500 for working ten dates. Of course, there was the potential to make far more than that figure, but that was the basic foundations of Hall's deal. Using agent Barry Bloom to negotiate his move back to WCW in 1996, Hall was able to bag himself a hell of a deal.

Bloom was able to get Hall a favoured nations clause, which meant his contract would automatically be bumped up to match the pay of certain new arrivals in the company. Almost instantly, Hall received a pay hike after his buddy Kevin Nash signed with WCW, and then the duo were both given $400,000 raises after WCW got rattled by what would turn out to be the fake Razor Ramon and Diesel on WWF programming.

That took Hall's deal to somewhere in the region of a guaranteed $1.2 million a year to work a schedule that was half as hectic as his WWF one (for which he received in the region of $400,000).

To be fair, Hall, Nash and several other eventual nWo members were talent-wise worth the mega contracts offered to them. The problem came when complacency kicked in, performances waned, and it was just a case of phoning it in each and every week - all safe in the knowledge you'd be paid the same money regardless.

Then again, this was the same WCW who paid legit badass Tank Abbott a reported $700,000 a year to partake in a Leather Jacket on a Pole contest and twerk with 3 Count.