Scotty Riggs was interviewed on “Eyes Up Here w/ Francine” to talk about a wide range of topics.
During it, the former WCW/ECW star talked about the low pay he received early on his WCW career.
“Here’s a little fact for you. I was in Memphis making a guaranteed $40 a night working 6 nights a week. If the houses were good, you got bonus money in Memphis. About 2 weeks later is when my first check came in. In the first month, I was in the first or second match. The fans didn’t know who I was because I wasn’t some major guy coming in.
When I went from Memphis to WCW, Janie Engle had been calling me up a couple times. I actually spoke to Kevin Sullivan on the phone. I said, ‘Kevin, you realize I’m here in Memphis making no money, starving. What kind of guarantee can I get to come to WCW?’ He said, ‘I’ll get back with you next week.’ Everything was a week, ‘I’ll get back with you in a week’ on everything that was happening. Janie called me up in Louisville and said, ‘We can get you a guarantee of $600 a week under a 90 day trial basis as Marcus’ (Bagwell) tag-team partner.’ I’m like, well, I’m making $200 a week right now, plus a little extra, so $300 bucks maybe every couple weeks type of thing, so $600 a week is better than making $200, and I’ll be with WCW and you never know what happens.
From August until December, I was making $600 a week. As one half of the World Tag-Team Champions, making every Nitro shot, making a bunch of house shows now because we were the World Tag-Team Champions, and I’m making nothing. The first four months, I wasn’t making squat. That actually went until March of 1996 before they finally gave me a raise which went to $50,000 a year in ‘96. Me and Marcus were on every Nitro and every house show because we were the only babyface tag-team they had until The Steiners came in, The Road Warriors came in, The Nasty Boys kind of worked heel and face with everybody, but we were the only good guys that they had. So they had us on every house show with Heat (Harlem Heat), Dick Slater & Bunkhouse Buck, and those guys. So, I wasn’t making any money for about the first year and a half I was with WCW, and then I finally got a nice 6-figure deal for the last 3 years I was there.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcript