In Comparison To Other Sports, How Well Are WWE Stars Paid?

WWE is known globally for wrestling greatness and may be one of the more popular events for fans from all over the world to attend.

WWE, unlike every other sport, has no season, no breaks, no off-season, and no limit on shows.  They perform year round, and most of their stars travel to all of the destinations on their own dime.

So with that being said, are wrestlers paid appropriately compared to other athletes?

The answer to that question is not an easy one to determine.  Some people may say that wrestlers are overpaid because they only perform 20 to 30 minutes a night—if they're lucky—and because it is not real.

Some other people say that due to the hectic travel schedule, infrequent time off, and physical toll on their bodies that they are not paid enough.

Wrestlers have a very wide range of pay, especially depending on what company you wrestle for.  Indy wrestlers are lucky if they get a couple hundred bucks per show, and some make even less than a hundred dollars.

TNA is a company that has a huge range of pay-scales.  The women of TNA, despite being the highest ratings earners on most nights, are said to make as little as $400 per show.  That is nothing considering they have to pay for travel as well.  Taylor Wilde actually sells sunglasses at a mall to make extra cash.

TNA's guys make more but much less than when some of them were in WWE.  Mr. Anderson makes somewhere around $2500, and Jeff Hardy is paid a little higher than that.

The WWE is where the pay varies the most drastically.  Some people who are either new or just not used that often make somewhere in the $100,000 range, whereas the bigger stars who win world titles make in the millions. 

I read somewhere recently that Batista took home somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million last year.  I don't know how accurate that is, but I don't doubt the number.

Now let's compare that to some pro athletes.  Kobe Bryant makes over $23 million per year to play basketball.  He has a long off season but plays games for much longer than wrestlers wrestle matches for.

Brian Urlacher makes $15 million per year to play roughly sixteen to twenty games.  Matt Hardy, from what I read, makes somewhere in the $400,000 range to wrestle 200 days per year at minimum. 

Urlacher's transportation is paid for by the Bears, while Matt Hardy makes his own plane reservations and hotel accommodations. 

So with all that said, are wrestlers paid appropriately?

I ask because I want to know what the IWC thinks of this kind of information.  Do they feel wrestlers are underpaid or overpaid?  Do they think it's half and half or completely unfair?

Let me know, guys and gals, what you think about this.