Salaries for WWE Execs and how much Triple H made

Below are current base salaries for WWE executives:

* CEO and Chairman Vince McMahon – $1,184,500
* Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer George Barrios – $700,000
* Executive Producer Kevin Dunn – $700,000
* WWE Studios President Michael Luisi – $600,000
* Executive VP of Talent, Live Events and Creative Paul “Triple H” Levesque – $550,000

It should be noted that Triple H also has a $1,000,000 per year talent contract.

Actual compensation for 2013, including stock grants, was $1,724,958 for Vince. Vince doesn’t get additional stock grants since he owns so much stock to begin with. His earnings in 2012 were $2,456,359 and in 2011 were $1,111,395. The difference there is no money from profit incentives in 2011. They lowered the level of profits needed for incentives to kick in for senior management in 2012, so Vince made $1.3 million that way. Profits were way down in 2013 but they still paid executives some money because they had lowered expectations and don’t figure WWE Network start up money against them.

Other 2013 actual compensation numbers were $1,378,197 for Barrios, $2,511,331 for Levesque, $1,744,184 for Dunn and $1,403,228 for Luisi. With today’s stock price, Dunn would be closer to $2.3 million. Stephanie McMahon’s total earnings for last year was $778,394, of which $325,000 was as an on-air talent.

Triple H’s actual earnings in 2013 as a wrestler between match payoffs and merchandise licensing was $1,868,639. In 2012 he made $2,912,231, of which $488,482 was from salary as an executive, $305,000 was in profit sharing bonuses and $2,118,769 for being a wrestler. In 2011 he made $336,538 in pay as an executive, $74,100 in stock grants, no profit sharing and $2,074,042 as a wrestler for $2,484,680 total.

For 2013, Triple H’s $1,868,639 came from his role as an authority figure on TV, merchandise and five matches during the year – two matches with Brock Lesnar and three RAW matches with Curtis Axel, two which were on the same night. For 2012, his $2,118,769 in wrestler pay was a combination of his work as an authority figure and three matches – a Madison Square Garden live event match and pay-per-view matches with The Undertaker and Lesnar. For 2011, his $2,074,042 from wrestling came from nine different matches. Triple H’s downside as a performer for all of those years was $1 million, so the over and above is based on pay-per-view payoffs and merchandise.

It seems like Triple H does well with a £1m downside guarantee as a wrestler and he wrestled only 4 different nights in 2013 and 3 different nights in 2012 and granted he made more than that $1m downside guarantee for PPV bonuses as well, but not bad for technically just 4 nights work...  I say 4 nights work, because his $550,000 is his salary for his daily VP of Talent Relations Job etc...