WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross and Conrad Thompson recently discussed Stone Cold Steve Austin’s rise to the top in 1998, the year he captured the WWE Championship. A key element of that year was Mike Tyson’s involvement in the WrestleMania 14 storyline with Austin and Shawn Michaels. While reports at the time claimed Tyson was earning millions, Ross clarified the actual payment.
“I know that it was in the thousands,” Ross stated.
Thompson pressed, “It wasn’t millions?”
Ross replied, “I don’t think so.” He then explained the evolving financial demands of Tyson: “The original piece of business was Tyson needed “X” dollars or whatever it was, so many thousand bucks, but he kept coming back for more money. That was a little disgusting because you made a deal, but Tyson was needing more money. At the end of the day, he needed more money to buy a fu**ing motorcycle. That was Mike, and the irony was he got the money. We wanted to keep him as happy as we could, and in order to do that, we needed to make sure that we could continue to fill his pocket full of cash. As long as we did that, everything worked out just fine.”
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