WWE simply does not pay developmental talents as much as they do for the main roster Superstars. There was a time when the company offered very little money to newcomers. This includes Cezar Bononi.
The former WWE NXT Superstar spoke on the ‘Spark In The Dark’ podcast. In the interview, Bononi opened up about how WWE underpaid him. He was given so little money, that he could never afford to do anything at all.
He was also advised by others to stay away from fellow Brazilians in Orlando as he could be scammed by them.
“It was hard to adapt. It was really hard adapting. It’s just me and my wife and it’s nobody close. Everybody told us, ‘Don’t get close to Brazilians [in Florida] because Brazilians are gonna scam you,’ and we really believed that, even though we did not need to work with Brazilians so there’s no way we could get scammed by other Brazilians. We believed that so — that was a mistake that I did, because we were feeling alone.”
“We did not have money to do anything. It took me two and a half years to go to [an] amusement park, living in Orlando, because money was so short that I could not do anything like that. It took them [WWE] a long time for them to help me out a little bit. Like, ‘Hey, here’s a raise.’ It took me almost two years. So, I was getting $600 for like six months [per week] then, when I finally got paid off, it felt like a raise because I was getting $750. Oh cool, I can buy a TV right now, but I cannot get cable and that’s how it was. It was hard in the beginning but that also helped me build my character even more.”
h/t to Post Wrestling for the transcription.
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