WWE have handed out an eye-watering fine to one of their superstars after he breached one of the company's 'unwritten rules'.
Tama Tonga, who part of the MFT group on the Smackdown brand, has found himself in hot water following an incident which happened prior to a recent show.
Tonga, the adopted son of wrestling legend Haku, posted a clip to his TikTok of rehearsals taking place.
In the 29 second clip was footage of wrestlers talking to one another, the stage set, arena and superstars in the ring. While there was not too much given away - and WWE have pulled back the curtain with their 'Unreal' series on Netflix, Tonga posting the video appears to be frowned upon as there could have been possible leaks.
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Andrew Zarian of Fightful was first to report the news and said that he was told the fine was a "significant" one. He also added that WWE "has an unwritten rule about not recording/posting during rehearsal".
The video in question was removed from his official TikTok but still did the rounds on other social media platforms.
In a follow up, Fightful did not reveal the exact amount but said that Tonga's fine came to five figures, which could vary between between $10,000 and $99,000.
Tonga did accidentally spoil a surprise for the Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia, posting a video of AAA wrestler Mr Iguana at a shisha bar without his face-pant on. The Mexican was then a participant in the main event match.
Despite the punishment, Tonga did feature on the latest episode of Smackdown, with he and JC Mateo losing the tag team titles to Damian Priest and R-Truth.
He has not issued any sort of statement in response to the reports of a fine, but he did post a standalone grimace face emoji on his X page.
WWE legend Batista was infamously fined $100,000 for blading during a steel cage match with Chris Jericho, later confessing to his opponent on his Talk Is Jericho podcast that
he was left "heartbroken" and that Vince McMahon "sucked the life out of me" as he didn't think the consequences would be as "harsh".
The record WWE fine is believed to be $650,000, handed out to the legendary 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin for breaching his contract when he walked out on WWE after disagreeing with the decision to book him to lose to Brock Lesnar on Raw.
Topics: WWE
Josh Lawless