While speaking on The Takedown, Kurt Angle revealed how he secured a million-dollar guarantee in WWE after his first year, leveraging his position as world champion to renegotiate his contract.

>“What they did is, after my first year, I said, ‘I want a new contract,’ and since I was world champion at the time, they had to make my wishes come true. So, they gave me the million-dollar guarantee, which was the highest guarantee back then.

>Now they have higher guarantees, but at that time, only a few people—Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Undertaker, Triple H, a couple others, and me—had million-dollar guarantees. But I made a lot more than that. That’s just your guarantee; if you wrestle full-time at all the house shows, TV shows, and pay-per-views, plus with your merchandise, you can make three, four, or five times your guarantee.

>It all depends on who you are and what you’ve accomplished. Someone like Stone Cold Steve Austin was making $16 million a year. He was at the top of the heap because he sold around $13 million in merchandise each year. So, he did extremely well.”

>https://youtu.be/pU5jODOnVj8