WWE News: Top Earners of 2016 Revealed
Forbes has revealed the highest earners of the World Wrestling Entertainment this past year, with some of the biggest wrestlers topping the list. The list shows how much the largest wrestling company in the world rakes in every year and how much it rewards its superstars for their hard work.
After WrestleMania 33 concluded last week, Forbes unveiled the salaries of Raw and SmackDown Live talents via the public filings of WWE, as well as booking contracts and pay documents. WWE fans may be surprised to know that the newly-engaged John Cena is not the highest-paid of them all.
Ranking the WWE stars based on their merchandise and live performance sales, Forbes has found out that Brock Lesnar was the top earner of the past year. Lesnar only wrestled a few times last year, yet he managed to earn $15.98 million.
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Next to Lesnar is John Cena, whose merchandise is always the top seller of the company. He may not have competed all year round in 2016, but he raked in a total of $10.65 million.
Coming in third is Triple H; nearly half of his 2016 income came from his job as an executive. He earned $5.06 million last year.
Landing on the fourth spot is Roman Reigns, who earned significantly less compared to the other three but is still the highest-paid full-time wrestler in the WWE. Last year, he took home $4.66 million in earnings. Following him is Dean Ambrose, who earned $3.59 million from his matches and merchandise sales.
Ranking sixth to tenth are AJ Styles with $3.2 million, Shane McMahon with $2.39 million, The Undertaker with $2.66 million, Seth Rollins with $2.66 million and Randy Orton with $2.53 million.
Apparently, many of the names on the list may come as a surprise for fans, but nothing is more surprising than Cena losing the top spot for the first time after so many years.
