Chiming in to note the difference of being on a card with a Rock or an Austin versus otherwise, Dreamer, who was never a main-event player in WWE, made the discrepancy very clear. “Checks-wise, if you were on, and listen, I’m working first, second, third match,” he explained, “and I’d look at my checks and I’d be like, ‘Oh, this is the show that The Rock was on. This is the show that Steve Austin was on’ and then you’d get your same checks in the same venues the next time and be like, ‘Oh, they’re not here,’ and your check is cut in half.”

Making the distinction that things are quite different, in terms of how wrestlers are paid these days (of which, he would have first-hand knowledge, as Head of Talent Relations for TNA), Dreamer noted that it didn’t even really matter where you were on a card with megastars at the top to notice the drastic range of paydays you might take home. “You could get as low as $1,500 for working the second match on the card,” he said, “or like seven or eight thousand for being the first match on the show that [featured] a Rock or Steve Austin as your champion.”

More importantly than the income at the time, according to Henry, was what he was able to take away from someone like Austin, who took the time to pass down the lessons that helped him financially in the long run. “It was hard for me, as a kid,” he said, “getting schooled and not knowing all of these things but Steve was one of those guys that helped teach you. There’s a lot of guys that didn’t give a s*** whether you knew but Steve was not one of those.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Busted Open Radio” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.