Former WWE announcer Jim Ross has revealed how much he and Jerry Lawler got paid to call XFL games.
The American football league, set up by Vince McMahon, is due to return next year following a failed spell when it ran for a solitary season in 2001. Ross and Lawler were part of the commentary team for a five-week period, prior to Lawler quitting as well as resigning from WWE in protest of Stacy Carter's release.
Ross, now a commentator for AEW, spoke about his short stint working games for the football league and says that he only did it out of love for the game as the money was peanuts.
“The money was never great. I did it because I loved the game and I always wanted to fulfill a dream as a bucket list," he said on the Grilling JR podcast. "Conrad, we made $1500 a game for this thing. Yeah, I’m serious. $1500 a game.
"They paid our T&E [travel and expense] and all that good stuff, obviously. But $1500, it was not big payday money here. It wasn’t a big deal, no.
"Everybody’s talking about Ventura making a million [dollars]. So you know, Ventura’s making a million for a little part of a season of football which is great. Good for him, he got a hell of a deal. But the rest of us didn’t do it for the money. And at that point, when Lawler saw that the $1500 was all we were ever going to get, it took another day away.
"He could have made more than that going to do an independent wrestling show in Tupelo.”
Nearly Time For Round 2
JR also admitted that Lawler knows a lot more about football than he lets on and disclosed that they were in charge of auditioning when things kicked off.
With a revival now in order, it's going to be interesting to see how things work out for the XFL the second time around. JR's probably not going to be on any team therein, so it's definitely going to be different.
Source: 411Mania