Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Edge, and Christian put themselves on the map in 1999 at No Mercy when they competed in a ladder match that would eventually lead to the famous TLC matches between them and the Dudley Boyz.
Though the two teams weren't on the marquee alongside Steve Austin, Triple H, and The Rock; they were arguably the most talked about four superstars coming out of the event thanks to their ladder match.
On the premiere episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, Matt revealed the payoff they got for the bout.
Matt began by noting that he talked with Jeff, Edge, and Christian Cage to make sure he had the numbers right as he couldn't recall the exact figure at first.
"Initially, in my mind, it was 10 grand. Then I thought, five more and maybe it was 15 grand. There was a number and then it was five grand more. This is per person. I started to rattle everyone's memories as I spoke to them. 'Does anyone remember exactly what everyone made?' Christian reminded me, 'Remember when Road Dogg pulled us aside and said, if you don't make 30K each for that match, I'm going to quit the business. You guys killed it,'" recalled Matt.
He then provided the payout figure.
"We got $5,000 for the match," he said. "I was like, 'come on guys, this was a show stealer and people were buying the replay for the match.' We knew it was special and we addressed JR about this. JR ended up bonusing us each $5,000. So we all make $10,000 on that night. That was the ultimate payoff after we question the $5,000 and we got a $5,000 bonus. We said, 'there is so much buzz and hype, people are buying the replay for this match.' JR's explanation was perfectly logical and he said, 'coming into this match, it was a big platform, but you guys weren't the ones selling this pay-per-view. You weren't Stone Cold, Triple H, Undertaker, DX. You weren't a main draw who brought the people to the show or made them buy the pay-per-view.' We did get highlighted with them so it was understandable. He did buy into our point of buying the replay because of the match and it created a buzz. So, they did bonus us."
Matt continued by discussing how contracts worked with WWE two decades ago, revealing his downside guarantee for 1999 and 2000, and how he went well above those numbers.
"Back then, we had downside guarantees. In 1999, my downside was $75,000. If you busted your ass, worked hard, and got over then you could make double, triple, quadruple the guarantee. In that year, we tripled our guarantee. In 2000, we made 13 times our guarantee," he said.
The Hardy Boyz would win the ladder match at No Mercy 1999, which gained them the services of Terri Runnels.
You can listen to the full episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, which is hosted by Jon Alba, in the video above.
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