Chris Jericho has wrestled for a variety of different companies throughout his career, and in 2005 he decided to walk away from WWE after his contract with the company expired. Eventually Jericho returned to WWE in 2007, but not before he made sure he could get the money he wanted.
During a recent Dark Side of the Ring Q&A in New York, Chris Jericho explained that he met with TNA Wrestling in 2007, and he used the negotiations as leverage to get more money from Vince McMahon.
“We met at the Cheesecake Factory in Tampa, Florida. I was talking about going back to WWE. I’d been off for a couple of years. I think this was around 2007. At the time, Vince [McMahon] had the magic number for a salary. I won’t say what that number was, but it was the highest you could get, no matter who you were.
At that time, if you headlined and were a main eventer, you would make more money and so on, but there was a certain base number he wasn’t coming close to. I thought, ‘Well, let me see if I can arrange a meeting with Double J and have a conversation with TNA and see what happens.’”
My cousin was in town at the time, and I said, ‘Just go sit over there and comment on what you see. And here’s the email address of someone in the wrestling dirt sheet world who might be interested in what you see.’ I’m not saying I wasn’t entertaining the idea, but two days later, guess who came back with the magic number?”