10 Wrestlers Who Couldn’t Hide Their Anger At Bad Creative
When you either have to laugh or cry: featuring Drew McIntyre, Jon Moxley and more...
It’s genuinely miraculous that this list is limited to just 10 entries.
Across much of pro wrestling history - particularly the 1990s and 2000s, when puerile gimmickry ruled the world before a thoroughly past-it Vince McMahon monopolised it - garbage is strewn. Wrestling was very, very awful for a very, very long time. It’s easy to lose perspective on AEW, now that it’s ice-cold and Tony Khan scores baffling own goals creatively, but fans should be grateful. Remember watching the Guest Host Era and TNA at the same time?
The worst of pro wrestling would easily warrant the word count of David Foster Wallace’s borderline impenetrable ‘Infinite Jest’, and Vince Russo’s writing makes that novel read as easily as popular children’s title ‘Guess How Much I Love You’.
Vince McMahon, meanwhile, played a game called ‘Guess How Much I Hate You’ with his audience and talent on a nigh-on weekly basis. The answer was “a great deal”, as he imposed his antagonistic and embarrassing creative on everybody.
Somehow, despite it all - the Bobby’s Sisters segment, The Revival rubbing their red-raw asses on the ring canvas, the Last Rites match - the vast majority of underpaid and overworked pro wrestlers adopted a quite remarkable sense of professionalism and simply got on with the job.
Mostly…
10. Drew McIntyre Sings When He's Losing
At Clash At The Castle 2022, Drew McIntyre lost to Roman Reigns. That day was going to be the day, but they never actually strapped up Drew.
Drew might have thought, what with the show emanating two countries away from his birthplace, that WWE would put the belt on him. They did not. The main event, opposite Roman Reigns, was spellbinding, furnace-hot, trademark WWE Big Match Drama. It wasn’t ambitious or distinct in any way, and hardly faster than a cannonball, but they pefected the methodical playbook. Then, at the finish, as part of another Masterplan on the part of the Bloodline, a debuting Solo Sikoa removed the referee from the ring, leading to the distraction. Some Might Say that interference should have triggered a disqualification, but Whatever.
In the post-match, bizarrely, Drew was cast as a Rock N’ Roll Star when he was scripted to perform karaoke with Tyson Fury. What did Drew have to smile about?
He went All Around The World just to look like a balloon knot.
A clearly gutted Drew sang ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean and ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ by Oasis, and later confirmed to Cultaholic that he wasn’t happy about getting screwed and singing “that stupid song” afterwards.
It was quite obvious at the time. The awful idea made him look like he’d won a competition to appear at the show as a guest.
A glum competition winner who’d just been made to listen to ‘Be Here Now’.