Maven reveals how much he was paid for his time on Tough Enough and in the WWE.
The inaugural winner of WWE’s Tough Enough was Maven, he would go on to earn a contract to officially become a WWE Superstar where he had one of the craziest moments in WWE when he eliminated the Undertaker from the Royal Rumble.
Maven would reveal what he was paid for both his time during Tough Enough and when he signed his first deal with the WWE.
“Although Tough Enough was a WWF production, their partners were MTV and since Tough Enough was going to air on MTV, MTV was actually the ones that paid me,” he recalled. “Every Friday, I producer from MTV would walk up to every remaining house contestant and hand deliver us a check. This was long before the days of direct deposit and I remember, I actually kept every check. I never cashed any of them until the end. But how much was it?
“Well, on Tough Enough, we got paid, per week, $300, well $300 and a few bucks, but $300 each and every week,” he continued. ” Now. I know you’re probably thinking, ‘Oh, Maven, a lot of these a lot of these reality stars, they make so much more.’ Well, this was at the beginning of the reality show boom, this was 2001. This was back when people knew about reality shows, but not many people were making a living off of being on reality shows. That $300 I was happy to get each and every week. Now, that $300 went a lot farther considering MTV and WWF provided all of our housing, they provided all of our transportation, the only thing I was on the hook for was paying for my food. My food expenses [were] probably around $50 a week. So for being on the show, I was netting about $250 a week. Since I was on the show [for] the entire nine weeks, my entire payment for my whole time on Tough Enough was $2,700.
“So, for that first contract, my very first year as a WWF wrestler, I was guaranteed $50,000. $1,000 a week. I would go on to make way more than that,” he said.
Maven now has an incredibly success YouTube channel where he talks about his time in the WWE while giving helpful advice to those who choose to pursue a career in the business of professional wrestling.
h/t from Maven’s YouTube channel and Fightful.
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