by The Miz is one of the prominent star in WWE right now. WWE signed him in 2004 and made his main roster debut in 2006. One of the important thing is, he was already making lots of money with reality television before signing with WWE.
The Miz recently was on Unbreakable with Jay Glazer podcast, where he talked about signing with WWE and talking a huge pay cut
“I was making a lot of money, I was making six figures. When I got to developmental, I took a pay cut, because I said ‘I can take a pay cut in this because I believe that I can make more.’ So I invested in myself. I’ve always invested in myself … I paid for acting classes, improv classes, and learning the art of professional wrestling, UPW, and wrestling classes. And then I also was like ‘Oh, where do all the big world trainers go? Gold’s Gym.’”
“I worked out there, got a nutritionist. So I invested all my money I would make into myself. I bought all these t-shirts ahead of time and got them at $3 a t-shirt and sold them for $15 a t-shirt. So I wouldn’t make money off them, but it wasn’t to make money, it was necessary to promote myself and get people talking about me … so WWE would see that. WWE would see that, they gave me a contract, I took a pay cut, went to McDonough, Georgia, went to Louisville, and then from Louisville, I got into WWE and started making the money I thought I could possibly make.” (H/T: EWrestlingNews.com)
