History Main / WrestlingDoesntPay

* Timothy Well and Steven Dunn, collectively Well Dunn, two male strippers.[[note]]Or in places where they weren't forced to have a stupid gimmick, Rex King and Steve Doll, collectively The Southern Rockers[[/note]] Notable for having some of the silliest ring gear ever, bright singlets with a black ''thong'' over the singlet.

* Despite not being Japanese, Wrestling/{{Yokozuna}}'s gimmick was a former champion Sumo Wrestler-- a respectable career in and of itself (one in which John "Earthquake" Tenta actually competed).

* [[Wrestling/TedDiBiase Ted [=DiBiase=]]]'s entire "Million Dollar Man" character.

This trope has long been a part of the wrestling landscape as it makes for easy gimmicks. In the days of Usefulnotes/CatchWrestling, most of the non carnie practitioners were miners who used wrestling as a quick income supplement or way of relieving boredom, but the gimmick was especially common in the [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} WWF]] in the early-to-mid-'90s. Some fans think it was a twisted sort of LampshadeHanging, as the WWF was in the process of going bankrupt at the time.

This is a case of TruthInTelevision, as any indie wrestler will tell you. It can take years to reach five figure income on the independent circuit and decades for six figures, which usually only comes with semi regular appearances in an entrenched regional powerhouse like WWC. Some independent circuit wrestlers do reach seven figure income, but this is almost always the result of notoriety and endorsement deals gained from a stint in a national promotion like Wrestling/{{CMLL}} or Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling in between indie dates.

Conversely, within the landscape of the WWE, wrestlers earn in the six figure range for even low level performances, while top tier stars are expected to reach high seven figures, plus perks. WWE wrestlers also tend to work too busy a schedule for a second job to be logistically possible... except the ones whose second job both pays more than what WWE is willing and potentially gives WWE more publicity, such as a movie actor, in which case conveniently-timed {{kayfabe}} injuries will allow them time to film.

A job-themed [[TheGimmick gimmick]] can remain [[TheArtifact even after the wrestler becomes successful enough not need to work a second job anymore]]. Wrestling/ShaneDouglas really was the dean of an elementary school, and Duke "The Dumpster" Droese was a garbage man[[note]]A popular rumor is that Droese was only signed because Wrestling/VinceMcMahon was claiming that he could turn ''anyone'' into a main event star during a meeting, someone (who that someone was depends on who's telling the story, but Wrestling/JimRoss and Wrestling/GorillaMonsoon are the most common names to come up) produced a copy of that year's ''PWI 500'', pointed to a guy calling himself "Garbage Man" ranked 500th, and told Vince to put his money where his mouth is.[[/note]]. Not to mention Dr. Wrestling/BrittBaker DMD, who really is a practicing dentist.

[[folder:WWF/WWE]]

* Wrestling/ScottHall said in interviews that Vince's original pitch for him was an army gimmick, playing off of Hall's past military service. Off the top of his head he started quoting [[Film/Scarface1983 Tony Montana]] to show he could play a range of characters, and the rest is history...

* Wrestling/ValVenis, a wrestling porn star, and his brief tag team partner, The Godfather, a wrestling pimp.[[note]]As noted in some of these other examples Vince liked to base a lot of these gimmicks on a wrestler's real life occupation before they became a wrestler. A common joke among fans was that since Vince doesn't actually check up on these things Val lied and said he used to do porn.[[/note]]
* [[Wrestling/TripleH Hunter Hearst Helmsley]] as a gimmick was originally a Connecticut Blueblood who was obviously rich before he ever entered a wrestling ring. Eventually he averted this trope when he joined Wrestling/ShawnMichaels to form [[Wrestling/DGenerationX DX]] and shortened his name to the well-known Triple H.

* The Wrestling/BigBossman, a wrestling prison guard. Nailz, his one-time rival, was a wrestling former prisoner, complete with orange jumpsuit, who claimed that The Boss Man and other guards abused him. Nailz (Kevin Wacholz) had never been in prison, but the Boss Man (Ray Traylor) [[RealLifeWritesThePlot actually was a prison guard in Georgia]] before becoming a pro wrestler. During later runs with the company, Bossman was dressed more like police S.W.A.T. personnel but still the same character.

* The Wrestling/{{Boogeyman}} actually used Wrestling Doesn't Pay as a LampshadeHanging for his "[[WrestlingMonster monster]]" character; his backstory states that he was originally an actor who was going to be the star/villain of a horror series titled "Boogeyman", but suffered a psychotic break during the shooting of the pilot and started believing he really was the character. ({{Kayfabe}}) Creator/{{UPN}} executive Palmer Cannon figured that, since they couldn't use him for acting anymore, and he was still under contract, they might as well throw him WWE's way and see what happens. Beyond that, his motives/goals were never explained and, leading up to his official TV in-ring debut on the December 2, 2005, ''[=SmackDown!=]''. He would show up randomly in unlikely places to scare/confuse people. However, while Kane and the original heel Wrestling/DoinkTheClown (there's another possibility for this page) also met this description, in that they would randomly attack people and explain it later, it was absolutely ''necessary'' for the Boogeyman to be presented this way, since the ''last'' thing Boogey should have been expected to do was "explain" himself.
* The Mountie combined this trope with ForeignWrestlingHeel, much to the disgust of the real-life RCMP, who threatened to sue the WWF and in fact prevented the character from being used in Canada. Eventually they teamed him with Pierre Carl Ouelette and named the team "The Quebecers", and changed their theme song to sing "We're ''not'' the Mounties" even though they still dressed as mounties.

* [[Wrestling/BobHolly Bob "Spark Plug" Holly]] (nee Thurman "Sparky" Plugg), a wrestling racecar driver. He eventually evolved into Hardcore Holly. However, he did continue to race in RealLife even after changing gimmicks.

* Single storyline example: In December 2008, [[Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield JBL]] offered Wrestling/ShawnMichaels a job at his company to make up for Michaels's recent stock market losses. Not a completely impossible storyline, but still fairly unbelievable due to Michaels' undoubtedly astronomical salary as a WWE veteran. JBL himself has done this three times: first as Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw (later Blackjack Bradshaw, while teaming with Wrestling/BarryWindham as the [[LegacyCharacter New Blackjacks]]), a wrestling cowboy; then as one of the Acolytes/APA (with [[Wrestling/RonSimmons Faarooq]], who were [[Wrestling/MinistryOfDarkness Undertaker cultists]] at first and then mercenaries after the Ministry of Darkness broke up; and then as JBL, a wrestling stock analyst - which is an example of the best gimmicks being those where you take the real man and turn the volume up. JBL wisely saved his money and invested it, instead of blowing it like too many others in his profession, and made himself a legitimate multi-millionaire.

* Steve Regal, the 'Real Man's Man'. He was a construction worker or a lumberjack or something, it was kind of vague. Later, Regal changed his name to "Lord Steven Regal" and later "Wrestling/WilliamRegal", and became 'the United Kingdom's Goodwill Ambassador'.

* Wrestling/JeffHardy, to a fan's extrapolation, a wrestling rave dancer.

* Wrestling/MichelleMcCool was first a personal trainer, a sexy teacher[[note]]Her team, the Teacher's Pets, [[BreakupBreakout produced]] [[Wrestling/DamienSandow Aaron "The Idol" Stevens, known today as "The Intellectual Savior of the Unwashed Masses" Damien Sandow]][[/note]], an AllAmericanFace, a badass powerhouse and then finally an AmbiguouslyGay ValleyGirl. She actually was a teacher before her time in WWE but hated the gimmick, terrified her old co-workers would see it. A rare case of a female wrestler not only having a gimmick, but evolving as a character a great deal over time.
* After a gimmick switch, Wrestling/DavidOtunga went from celebrity hanger-on to a wrestling lawyer. The former is based on being engaged to Jennifer Hudson (they were together for eight years, but split in 2017 without ever formally marrying); the latter due to graduating from Harvard Law School and working at a firm before becoming a wrestler.
* Wrestling/JillianHall was initially a "fixer" publicist brought in to help [[Wrestling/{{Melina}} M]][[Wrestling/JohnMorrison N]]M out and later worked as JBL's image consultant before becoming a HollywoodToneDeaf DreadfulMusician. Ironically, she got a real life album that sold well.
* [[Wrestling/MikeBucci Simon Dean]] was a wrestling infomercial salesman who was in several straight televised ads before being brought up to the Raw roster selling the weight loss "Simon System". His brief tag team partner Maven later became a real life wrestling infomercial salesman. He combined this trope with NoCelebritiesWereHarmed, as the character was based in part on real-life fitness guru Richard Simmons.

* Wrestling/BrayWyatt was a wrestling leader of [[Wrestling/TheWyattFamily a rural cult based in a commune]]. And after that went kaput, he took up hosting a kids show called the "Firefly Fun House".

* On top of being '''the''' most patriotic American wrestler in ''existence'', Wrestling/HacksawJimDuggan downplayed this trope, as he spent almost his entire career as a wrestling carpenter... minus the carpenter. His nickname is "Hacksaw" and his weapon of choice was a 2x4. He wasn't afraid to use that 2x4 on his opponents. Beyond those two connections to woodworking, he didn't really have a job gimmick, though during his brief time with the WCW, he was told by the [[Wrestling/VinceRusso Powers That Be]] that he wasn't marketable, and was demoted to a janitor.

* WebVideo/SouthpawRegionalWrestling pokes fun at this, with [[Wrestling/{{Rusev}} Big Bartholomew]] the farmer, [[Wrestling/TylerBreeze Mr. Mackelroy]] the banker[[note]]Who bought Big Bart's farm without his permission[[/note]], and The Butchers, a tag team made up of [[Wrestling/SethRollins "Dry Rub" Doug]] and [[Wrestling/{{Rhyno}} Frantic Frank]], who are butchers both in terms of [[TheButcher personality]] and in terms of secondary occupation (their promo is recorded in the backroom of a butcher shop, with the belts hung up on meat hooks, and they wear the proper uniforms). Apparently, this ''isn't'' just a gimmick, as they [[spoiler:end up having to vacate the tag titles after being linked to an E. Coli outbreak]].

* There is a persistent urban legend that ''Wrestling/AndreTheGiant'' was once a defensive end for the Washington Redskins (The Washington Commanders as of 2022). The truth is an aversion - what actually happened was that the 'skins invited him to go to training camp in 1975, but apart from a short visit which was little more than a publicity stunt, he did not attend the camp or play for them. As one of the first true superstars of professional wrestling, he was making twice what a star football player was making in those days, and his busy schedule didn't allow for him the opportunity to seriously try out even if he'd been willing to take a 50% paycut to give up wrestling for football.
* As "wrestling authority figure" is technically a job, Wrestling/VinceMcMahon has had occasional in-ring appearances as a wrestling billionaire wrestling promoter. (Apparently promoting wrestling does pay.) This extends to his family, as Wrestling/TripleH, Wrestling/StephanieMcMahon and Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon have had stints as wrestling wrestling executives.

[[folder:WCW]]

* Three Count was a wrestling BoyBand that consisted of [[Wrestling/GregoryHelms Shane Helms (better known to WWE fans as Gregory Helms aka The Hurricane)]], Wrestling/ShannonMoore (later known as the Prince of Punk) and Evan Karagias. Notably, they sang their own theme song. Future UFC fighter Tank Abbott, for some time, worked as their enforcer/groupie. Abbott later admitted to having really enjoyed the gimmick, and stated that WCW offered him singing and dancing lessons, which he turned down because he didn't feel like he had good musical talent.
* There was also the West Texas Rednecks, three wrestlers, led by Wrestling/CurtHennig, who decided to form a country band and record anti-rap songs when Master P started coming around WCW. The WTR were supposed to be heels, but because country was way more popular with WCW's audience than rap, and the WTR were rather badly outnumbered by Master P's No Limit Soldiers, and they were just genuinely charismatic and funny, the crowd treated them like faces anyway. And like Three Count, they performed their own song, "Rap is Crap".

[[folder:Other Wrestling]]
* During the [[UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling catch as catch can]] days, when most practitioners were miners or carnies, being a field worker, like Farmer Burns, was an easy way to stand out from the circus folk, carnival folk and miners. Although farmer gimmicks quickly became cliche, they never really went away.

* Wrestling/BruceTharpe, the real life lawyer, former president of the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance and thorn in the side of Japanese baby {{face}}s everywhere. Wrestling/VedaScott also practices law (but doesn't antagonize Joshis... as much). A more local example is Jeff G Bailey, [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed whose similarity to a certain someone banned in multiple states for misconduct is purely incidental.]]

* Storyline example from TNA. [[Wrestling/LisaMarieVaron Lisa Marie Varon (WWE's Victoria, TNA's Tara)]] lost her career in a match and disappeared for a few months before returning as the sidekick of Madison Rayne, who retired her. The storyline explanation was that Madison pulled some strings to get Tara reinstated but had a contract that stated she would have to be Madison's right hand woman. Madison would regularly point out that she could "fire" Tara and send her "back to the lipstick counter with minimum wage". Likely a bit of RealitySubtext since the reason Tara left TNA in the first place was low pay. Ironically behind the scenes she was still being paid more than Madison.

* Diana La Cazadora (de Noticias) was on tv for both Wrestling/{{CMLL}} and for traffic reporting.

* Ring Of Honor/Chikara (and others) wrestler [[Wrestling/LukeHarper Brodie Lee]] was a wrestling Truck Driver. Shaka El Truckero of the Dominican revolution (in Puerto Rican IWA) was also one, obviously.

* Also played for drama in FMW when Kodo Fuyuki stole the Hayabusa gimmick, gave it to Mr. Gannosuke and then cast Gannosuke in several pornographic films in order to taint the Hayabusa's name.
* While Wrestling/{{Jacqueline}} had long since accused them of being whores, dialog from Wrestling/AngelinaLove on an episode of Impact implied Wrestling/TheBeautifulPeople had the second jobs of being porn stars. Unlike with Val Venis, this lead all sorts of {{fridge horror}} and TNA decided to live up its acronym and prove those fears with bullied recruit Wrestling/MadisonRayne being whored out to referee Slick Johnson. Ironically, this was more obvious when they were still the baby face tag team Wrestling/{{Velvet|Sky}}-Love Entertainment.
* RPW, AWS, TNA and Ring of Honor star Kenny King, a wrestling erotic dancer who toured with the Chippendale troupe. Eric Young wanted to make jokes about his second job but said he couldn't tell them on television.
* As stated earlier, Wrestling/ElijahBurke became "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero in TNA, who was another swing at the "wrestling minister" gimmick. However his kind of made sense since he was played up as an inner-city street preacher, meaning his place in the wrestling business was just another venue for him to expand his flock for all the evils and debauchery that made up the wrestling industry.

* Very much TruthInTelevision for old-time wrestling stars: only a relative minority could make a living at the game as their only form of income. Even the UK wrestling circuit superstar Big Daddy, at least in his early days, had to do shifts as a coal-miner and as a part-time player for his local UsefulNotes/RugbyLeague club to guarantee himself a living wage.
** This caused a lot of hullabaloo when Wrestling/TaylorWilde of TNA was discovered working at a Sunglasses Hut just to pay the bills since, despite being a personality on a primetime TV series and holding (at the time) the TNA Knockouts Championship, TNA didn't cover her living expenses. Wrestling these days, especially at that level (being nationally televised), is usually regarded as a genuine occupation and having to pull odd jobs like that is seen as fairly shady on TNA's part (other wrestlers on TNA's roster also said they weren't making a solid income from wrestling either and had to do other work to get by; Jesse Neal in particular kicked up a shitstorm on social media when he tweeted that he qualified for food stamps despite working for TNA).

* [=YouTube=] personality and indy wrestler Milo Beasley has used a persona of a wrestling bum.

* Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling has Britt Baker, who was originally introduced as "Dr. Britt Baker, DMD"—which is exactly what she is outside the ring. She worked the indies while attending dental school at the University of UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}}, and has a dental practice on the side.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Used rather tragically in ''Film/TheWrestler'', where Randy "The Ram" Robinson is a former star from the 1980's who has descended into poverty as his star power has dwindled. By the beginning of the film, he is living in a trailer park, works a menial job in a supermarket and he is implied to now spend more money on his wrestling career than he earns from it. The Ram's actor, Creator/MickeyRourke, would later dedicate the movie to the real professional wrestlers who don't make much.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]

[[folder:Magazines]]

* ''[[WebComic/BotchedSpot Over Like Olav]]'' has a pair of wrestlers who work part time as dishwashers at a diner just to keep their wrestling ring going.