Jeff Jarrett And Sean Waltman Discuss Their Payout For WWE SummerSlam 1998
On the latest episode of Pro Wrestling 4 Life, two-time WWE Hall of Famer Sean "X-Pac" Waltman sat down with fellow WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett. As they were reflecting on their 1998 SummerSlam "Hair vs. Hair" match, Waltman asked Jarrett if he remembered their payout for the match. Jarrett admitted he didn't, but Waltman recalled his conversation with Vince McMahon about his.
"I wasn't happy about it. As a matter of fact, I think I called you just to make sure we got the same, and we did," Waltman assured. "First, I called Vince, and I was like, 'Vince, hey man, when did you start paying by the pound?' And he was like, 'Well, if that's how this conversation is going to go, then this conversation's over. You need to talk to Jim [Ross] about this.' So I used the same line on JR. I got $5,000 extra for that. Every time I complained they would send me an extra five grand to shut me up."
Jarrett recalled his own disputes with pay throughout his career.
"I can remember having a conversation with Dustin Rhodes, and it wasn't to compare notes," Jarrett noted. "It was I had a couple of loops with him, and I'm thinking to myself, oh boy, oh boy. So I did a little chirping but knew that I was — it's no secret. We went in depth on it. I wasn't in the greatest of footing as obvious it may be. I left three, or four or five months, but it was a slippery slope, but knowing that I was getting shortchanged on multiple house show runs and a couple of pay-per-views, that's what was sort of the impetus.
"If I didn't have leverage that night, I was never going to have leverage. I wanted to clean up everything because I knew I had been shortchanged multiple times. That's just the nature of the beast, and I'm not pointing fingers at Jim Ross. I'm not pointing fingers at Vince McMahon. They run a business. Squeaky wheel gets the oil a lot of times, that's just the beast."
"When I make a call like that, it's not because I think I got shorted by five grand," Waltman added. "Honestly, it was half of what I thought it should have been. I'll be honest, it was twenty-five grand, and I thought it should have been fifty for that match on that in that pay-per-view, that SummerSlam pay-per-view."
"My middle daughter, one time we were talking about this," Jarrett recalled. "A hair vs. hair match in Madison Square Garden on the biggest event of the summer, that's ranks up there as a high-profile deal. It's a huge milestone for my personal career."
A new episode of Sean Waltman's Pro Wrestling 4 Life drops every Thursday morning on all major podcast platforms and premieres in video form at YouTube.com/XPac on Thursdays at 3 pm EST!