Alex Wright moved to the United States at 18 years old believing WCW was about to launch his career. Instead, he says the company left him sitting at the Power Plant for months without paying him.
During a conversation with Developmentally Speaking, Wright explained that he had a WCW contract but went roughly half a year without getting paid. That left him in debt, living alone in an airport hotel while his fiancée remained in Germany.
“The problem was that I actually had a contract, but they didn’t pay me for a couple months. I think it was a half a year. So I had a lot of debt. I owed a lot of money to a lot of good people, especially to my family.”
The situation got ugly fast. Wright said the isolation and frustration led him to drink heavily and gain around 40 pounds before Ric Flair stepped in and told him he needed to get himself back into shape if WCW was going to do anything with him. Wright responded by training twice a day and dropping from around 250 pounds to 190. Even after getting himself into television shape, Wright said he still wasn’t being paid, and that’s when he decided he was done asking nicely. According to Wright, that confrontation immediately changed things.
“I got really pissed and I went down to the CNN building in Atlanta, had no appointment and just rushed into the office from Eric Bischoff and said, ‘Hey, listen Eric, I can lose money in Germany also. I don’t have to be in the States for that. So either you pay me or I’m gone.’”
“I think that really impressed him because from that moment on they paid me.”
Even then, Wright said money remained tight because of his road expenses. He recalled sleeping on other wrestlers’ hotel floors and eating once a day just to stretch what he had. Wright eventually became a regular on WCW television, but his road there was a lot rougher than the flashy television character made it look.
What do you make of Alex Wright having to confront Eric Bischoff just to get paid under his WCW contract? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
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