Mike Chioda says he was once making some pretty serious money from WWE video game royalties as a referee. Then the checks stopped—and according to Chioda, questioning John Laurinaitis about them eventually resulted in WWE finding a much cheaper solution.
While speaking on the It’s Not Our Fault podcast, the conversation turned to the money WWE talent could make from video games. Chioda remembered wrestlers joking with him about whether he had received his own check and credited Jim Ross with making sure he was compensated once his likeness started appearing in the games.
“Yeah, I know, man. Those video checks. The boys used to bust my chops all the time. ‘Chioda, did you get the video?’ Like I used to get them on SmackDown, right? And then I was—I was in a video and I remember J.R. hooked me all up putting me in.”
Those weren’t exactly tiny checks either. Chioda recalled one payment being somewhere around $25,000, although he wasn’t completely certain which royalty period that particular check covered. He also remembered the payments eventually disappearing after Laurinaitis took over.
“But when Johnny Laurinaitis took over, I stopped getting the checks and I said, ‘Johnny,’ I said, ‘you know, I’m in the video.’ I said, ‘I got a check.’ You know, it was like 25 grand or it was the small quarter, you know, it wasn’t before the—after the Christmas holidays or something.”
Chioda eventually decided to ask Laurinaitis directly what was going on. By his recollection, he had already spent somewhere between 17 and 20 years with WWE at that point. He knew his likeness was being used, so naturally he wanted to know why the royalty checks had suddenly stopped.
“And then, um—uh, then, um, I stopped getting the checks and then I’m like, ‘Hey, Johnny, like what’s up?’ Like I—I said, ‘Not getting any more royalty checks,’ you know. And at that point, I was there with the company 17, 18, 20 years, somewhere around there.”
According to Chioda, Laurinaitis initially indicated that referees simply weren’t getting those payments anymore. Chioda pushed back. As one of WWE’s longest-tenured referees and someone whose likeness was actually appearing in the games, he couldn’t understand why wrestlers could receive royalties while referees couldn’t.
“And he’s like, ‘Oh, sorry, Mike. Uh, you know, the referees, you know, we don’t get—’ I said, ‘Johnny, I mean, there—there hasn’t been any referees. I’ve been here for almost 20 years, or like, I’m on the video game. So, I mean, the boys get royalties, like, you know, the refs can’t get them too still, you know?’”
Laurinaitis apparently told Chioda he would look into it. What happened next was definitely not the outcome Chioda was hoping for. According to him, the next WWE video game simply didn’t feature his likeness anymore.
“And then he was like, ‘Oh, let me check into it.’ Next thing you know, f*** it, I got taken off the next year video game, right? And they put some guy in there from the office and they paid him like 2,500 bucks and they just used his likeness, and then boom, they took us off the video.”
Chioda spent decades working for WWE, but apparently asking why his video game royalty checks disappeared didn’t result in another check showing up. According to his version of events, WWE found a much cheaper solution instead—they took him out of the game.
What do you make of Mike Chioda’s claim about being removed from WWE’s video game after questioning his royalties? Let us know in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
