10 Wrestlers Who Blame Others For Failing In WWE
They couldn't click with the Kliq.
Failure is an essential component of life. It's only through learning what doesn't work that we can discover what does. When things finally pay off, we look back upon each setback as a paving slab on our road to accomplishment.
Learning from mistakes first necessitates learning humility: we have to own our failures before we can benefit from them. After all, passing the buck never made a man rich.
This sort of pseudo-philosophical b**locks is all well and good in a motivational self-help book, but it was of little relevance to any wrestler sharing a locker room with the dreaded Kliq circa 1995. No matter how over, how talented, or how many flames they had tattooed on their head, success or failure was strictly dictated by whether Sean Waltman let you have a good match, whether Shawn Michaels felt threatened by your ability, whether you'd chauffeur the drunken squadron home.
Failure, in other words, was seldom their fault. Unless it was a failure to toady up to the powerbrokers calling the shots. Look, it's no coincidence that one of the most powerful men in the business today was a glorified bellhop yesteryear.
Others? They blame The Game.
10. Shane Douglas (The Kliq)
Shane Douglas returned to WWE in 1995 as the didactic Dean Douglas, a professor who planned to teach the roster a lesson. Unfortunately, nobody taught him how to avoid incurring the wrath of dreaded backstage faction, 'The Kliq'.
In his prior professional engagements with their members - neophyte Sean Waltman excepting - Douglas had enjoyed a positive, even friendly relationship. But that was when he, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and in particular, Shawn Michaels, were still waiting for their big break. By '95, with the likes of Hogan shifted to make way for a 'New Generation', it was a different story. Suddenly, Douglas was a threat.
As The Franchise told Hannibal TV, he knew something was up when Scott Hall asked him to work as snugly as he'd done in ECW, only to loudly complain in front of the boys in the back the very next day. Douglas understood immediately that Razor was attempting to undermine him as an unsafe worker.
Michaels had similar tricks up his sleeve. During a dark match in Valparaiso, IN, HBK repeatedly tried to rib Douglas by bumping on his back at the slightest of contact, exposing the business in the process. Afterwards, a furious Franchise told booker Bill Watts to have stern words with the company's "Golden Boy".
Behind his back, The Kliq would constantly whisper into management's ear about Douglas' ineptitude, ensuring those in power knew he was "overrated". The Dean knew the bell had rung on his WWE run when, having took the IC Championship by forfeit from Michaels - who was exaggerating extracurricular injuries to avoid doing the job - he was humiliated by Ramon. His time in the company soon ended, and he'd never return.