10 Wrestlers Who Always Followed The Money
The Ultimate Warrior didn't get into the business because he had a cracking space flying tiger drop.
Many pro wrestlers of this modern generation fancy themselves artists, as pretentious as that may read.
In a recent verbal duel with MJF, Darby Allin described himself as a terrible businessman. He said he would never entertain or leverage WWE interest to make more money because he feels valued by the creative freedom afforded to him in All Elite Wrestling. He also said early in his AEW run that, were he to have signed with WWE, they'd have made him "jack off in a boiler room". While that may read as much too cynical, have you watched NXT in 2023?
If he wasn't packaged as some little sicko, he'd have been a builder or a carpenter or some other occupational gimmick. It's 1995 again in Orlando, right down to the fact that nobody is watching.
The Young Bucks turned down WWE money, a lot of it, and the opportunity to leave after three months, no questions asked, were they unhappy with their creative direction. That is how much WWE did not want AEW to get off the ground.
This is slightly less romantic than the mythology of AEW suggests - Matt and Nick Jackson instead earned a great deal of money in the billionaire-backed start-up in addition to enjoying ultra-rare employee benefits - but still, the prospect of creative freedom led them to take what was a risk. Few expected AEW to soar as early as it did.
The older generation was not of this mindset...
10. The Ultimate Warrior
This list isn't a burial of the trad pro wrestling mercenary; if anything, the stars of yesteryear should be praised for working out that the industry was rigged in favour of the promoter, recognising their own value, and getting paid big to bump on ostensible concrete for a living.
That is of course the only thing for which the Ultimate Warrior, otherwise so revolting a piece of garbage that a dog wouldn't eat it, deserves praise.
He did not get into the business because he loved it, but because he was an insanely muscled gym rat who had the look. He had absolutely nothing else to begin with, entering disastrous performances as the Dingo Warrior, and was never good even in the WWF. He used to clothesline people with his armpit when he wasn't recklessly throwing them to the ground. Pat Patterson's match layout genius got a tune out of him every now and then, and Warrior was very much an "every now and then" wrestler.
He made Vince pay him the same rate as Hulk Hogan for SummerSlam 1991, and when making his second return in 1996 made Vine buy his insane comic books as part of the deal (!).
He knew what the business was; a terrible worker and one of the few to get it, at the same time.