>Mr. Kennedy
>Chris Masters
>Carlito
>Muhammad Ali
>Eugene
>the Basham Brothers
>Orlando Bloom
>Joey Mercury
>Paul London
>way more that I can’t remember

>cursed to wrestle bingo halls the moment they left WWE
>nowhere near as much money in indie wrestling then as there is now
>TNA was the only other option and they paid peanuts and in some cases didn’t pay at all

Before 2000 there was WCW and ECW and before that there was territories all over the country.
Right now there’s AEW, GCW, Japan and a bunch of other ways uncontracted wrestlers can make money.
The 2000s guys had literally nothing