Vince McMahon allowed female WWE Superstar to leave after she demanded $1 million per year

Jim Ross has revealed that Vince McMahon left Chyna's WWE career in his hands after she asked to be paid a guaranteed $1 million per year.

Speaking on a Backlash 2000 edition of his Grilling JR podcast (via AdFreeShows.com), the former Senior Vice President of WWE’s Talent Relations department said Chyna felt that she should be paid just as much as the company’s top male Superstars, including “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.

“She wanted a million dollars guarantee because she felt like she was worth more being a female, being more unique, than Stone Cold, some of the other guys. There was only a handful of guys making a million dollars per year.”

Ross said McMahon ultimately left it up to him to decide whether he thought “The Ninth Wonder of the World” was worthy of being paid that much.

“I said, ‘Vince, if I can’t get a decent number, we may have to pass on it.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s your call.’ I couldn’t give her a million dollars a year. Could she have earned over a million dollars per year? She probably did a couple of times, if I remember correctly, but that guarantee was just too big.”

Please credit Grilling JR and give a H/T to Sportskeeda if you use these quotes.

Chyna’s WWE legacy

18 months on from her contract negotiations with Jim Ross, Chyna left WWE in November 2001 after spending several months off television.

In 2019, she was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame alongside fellow D-Generation X members Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, and X-Pac.