Bryan Danielson vs Vince McMahon: The Truth About WWE’s Pay Problem

Wrestler pay in WWE has been a sore spot for years, and now one of the most respected voices in the ring just laid it out in plain English. Bryan Danielson, who won five world titles in WWE and now wrestles for AEW, says the money split still isn't close to what athletes get in the big U.S. leagues. And there's a real-world example on the table: a promising NXT talent just walked away from WWE over dollars and cents.

Bryan Danielson breaks down the money gap

On a September 2025 episode of the Kairouz Bros podcast, 44-year-old Bryan Danielson compared how AEW and WWE treat talent when it comes to pay. He credited AEW's rise as a legit competitor with forcing WWE to open the wallet more than it used to, but he also said WWE is still far from where other sports land on revenue sharing.

"In most major sports in the United States, the players get around 40 to 50% of the revenue. WWE was nowhere close to that. AEW does pay 40 to 50% of revenue to its wrestlers, even though it makes a lot less money. WWE has had to pay more because if they don't, talent will leave for AEW."

Translation: competition helped, but the TKO era hasn't magically fixed the gap. WWE isn't a league with a player union setup, so this kind of percentage talk rarely gets said out loud. Danielson just said it out loud.

The money picture at a glance

• Big U.S. sports leagues: roughly 40–50% of revenue goes to players, according to Danielson
• AEW: Danielson says it pays about 40–50% of revenue to wrestlers
• WWE: Danielson says it's still nowhere near that split, even now under TKO
• Historical context: in November 2021, Dave Meltzer reported WWE talent were getting under 10% of revenue

A rising NXT name just turned down WWE money

Jazmyn Nyx is out of WWE, and the way they wrote her off TV was classic wrestling weirdness: last month on NXT, she got jumped backstage by a mystery attacker, her teammates Jacy Jayne and Fallon Henley stumbled onto the scene, and instead of helping, they basically kicked her out of their group. That was the storyline exit.

Real life: Nyx, whose real name is Jade Arianna Gentile and is 27, decided not to re-sign. Her deal expires this month. WWE offered a new three-year contract, but she posted on Instagram that she turned it down because the money just didn't work for her. She called it a personal decision about her future and said the numbers didn't make financial sense.

Nyx also mentioned she was recruited by WWE while playing pro soccer in Iceland. She says she passed on other opportunities after signing, and now that she's moving on, she's open to hearing from other promotions. She thanked fans for sticking with her through the injury stretches, too.

What it looked like under Vince

Back in November 2021, Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE's talent pay was tiny compared to other sports. He used a pretty blunt comparison: a no-name NFL lineman was still making more than solid WWE hands like Drew Gulak, because NFL players as a group get about half the revenue. Meltzer pegged WWE's talent share at under 10% at the time and argued you could multiply wrestler salaries fivefold to reach sports norms and the company would still be highly profitable.

Ticket prices are up, pay isn't keeping pace

Another wrinkle: when Vince McMahon was running things, ticket prices for live events and pay-per-views were generally more reachable for middle-class families. Under TKO, prices have soared. Despite that, Danielson says the revenue split for talent still hasn't moved anywhere close to that 40–50% range you see in the major leagues.

The short version: AEW showing up changed the market and helped wrestlers get better deals. But even with record business and higher ticket prices, WWE's overall pay structure still lags way behind the sports-world standard, and wrestlers like Jazmyn Nyx are starting to say "no thanks" when the math doesn't add up.