There’s an old saying that you’ve got to spend money to make money, and WWE definitely did this, even if they spent money on crazy things.
MLW CEO and former WWE creative team member Court Bauer recently addressed on particular occasion on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, saying:
“There are times when Vince (McMahon) will try something and spend a significant amount of money.
“It doesn’t work and he just says, ‘All right. Well we tried it’, and you’re like, wow, that could have funded a half-a-year for my company back in the day.”
Recalling a particular occasion when an eye-watering amount of money was spent for a single moment, Bauer said:
“One time we had a thing where The Boogeyman, who loved to eat worms – not really but it was part of the gimmick and we had these worms fall from the ceiling in the arena.
“JBL’s rolling around in them because, of course, the heel’s terrified of the worms and Vince is laughing, going, ‘Oh, that’s great.’
“It’s raining worms in the arena and he turns to us and goes, ‘How much were those worms? That’s a lot of worms’
“We go over and get the production assistant or the writer’s assistant.”
The assistant would reveal what would be, for Vince, a jaw-dropping amount after McMahon asked:
“How much was it?’.
“He goes, ‘Well sir, that was $30,000’, and Vince’s jaw drops.
“He was like, ‘$30,000 for worms?’.”
These weren’t just any worms, it turns out, with the Bauer explaining that the assistant said:
“‘Well they were out of normal worms so we had to go organic’, and (Vince) just looked shocked.
“He’s like, I can’t believe we just blew $30,000.
“There’s John Layfield rolling in the worms and he’s crying and everyone’s laughing but, it’s like, he was shocked and I think that assistant was fired soon thereafter but the show went on.
“You think about a lot of companies are gagged to spend that kind of money, it’s excessive.
“At WWE, it’s on a totally different level.”
The worms incident would happen in January 2006 on WWE SmackDown.
Boogeyman last appeared on WWE television on the Raw Legends Night on January 4 2021.
Transcript from Cultaholic.
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