Scottish wrestler Grado said TNA once FedExed him a hand-drawn picture of a check for $4,600 instead of an actual check, and that when he brought it to the Bank of Scotland, the teller told him there was nothing they could do with it, a story that left Jim Cornette and Brian Last in disbelief on Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru podcast.
Grado told the story on the Mr. Anderson Show podcast. He said that because he was based in Scotland, he had to take his American checks to the Bank of Scotland to process them, which took about 45 minutes each time. The same teller would see him coming and dread the process.
Grado said he had been working with TNA for about two years when a payment was significantly delayed. He said he contacted the company and was told it had been FedExed and would arrive in a couple of days.
“I opened up the FedEx and I take out this bit of paper, and it was a drawing of a check,” Grado said. “If you could imagine a bit of paper with all the numbers up the top on the side in pen. $4,600. They sent that to my house.”
Grado said he initially assumed it might be a legitimate American business practice he was unfamiliar with and brought it to the Bank of Scotland. “I handed it over. And they went, ‘What the f**k do you want me to do? Are you at it?’ I went, ‘No, seriously. That’s what my employers in America have sent me. They sent me a drawing of a check.’ They were like, ‘There is nothing we could do with that.’ I was mortified,” Grado said.
Brian Last said he had never heard of anything like it in wrestling or any other industry. “I’ve never heard of anyone being paid with a drawing of a check. Not even in rock and roll, where people fight for their money and demand cash before they go on stage,” Last said.
Cornette speculated about whether someone at TNA was intentionally messing with Grado or if someone genuinely thought a hand-drawn check was a valid form of payment. “Was somebody trying to just fuck with him?” Cornette asked. He also wondered if the person responsible may have been one of “those goofy young interns that Dixie hired out of high school.”
Cornette defended Grado’s value to TNA, noting that Grado was a genuine star in the UK at the time who appeared on mainstream television shows and had elaborate entrances that got him over with audiences. “He was a personality, more so than the f**king supposed celebrities that TNA had used down through its existence, and they’re f**king him around,” Cornette said.
Last added that the UK market was TNA’s strongest territory at the time. “For a while, that was the only market TNA had. They were doing more business over there than they ever did over here,” Last said.
Cornette said he had heard stories of TNA being late with payments during his time there but had never heard of anyone literally sketching out a check. “I’ve never heard of actually sketching out a check. From the stateside TNA contingent, at least during my time there, I’ve heard of them being late or delayed, but I’ve never heard of this,” Cornette said.
The original story was told by Grado on the Mr. Anderson Show podcast and was discussed on Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru.
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