10 Wrestlers Who Learned Important Lessons The Hard Way
School of hard knocks.
"Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes" - Oscar Wilde.
"He'll learn" - Andre the Giant
Andre the Giant's succint summation of Wilde's aphorism was the result of an in-ring incident between himself and the Ultimate Warrior. In WWE's since-cancelled "The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" DVD, Bobby Heenan tells the story of how Andre, sick to the back teeth of being stiffed by the Warrior every night, finally retaliated by sticking his colossal fist out to greet the face-painted lunatic just as the latter came charging off the ropes. The resultant collision sent Warrior's head blasting off to Parts Unknown, and from that point on he treated Andre with kid gloves.
This type of story is far from unusual in the wrestling world. No wrestler arrives fully formed, and many of them learn their lessons the hard way. The wrestling industry is full of stories of talent who have been yelled at, humiliated and beaten up for their failure to adhere to wrestling's unwritten rules, and we've collected ten of the most notable incidents in this list. Some are funny, some are tragic, and all of them show just what a minefield the professional wrestling industry is.
10. Alundra Blayze Learns to Respect the Title
Titles in wrestling should be held sacred. Each belt is a symbol of the esteem its wearer is held in by the company, and should be treated with all due respect by its owner. Unfortunately, this lesson was lost on Alundra Blayze when she agreed to throw the then-WWF Women's Championship in the bin on an episode of Nitro.
This act completely killed the belt's credibility, undoing all the hard work that Alundra herself had put in to build the title back up through her series of matches against Bull Nakano. WWE responded in kind by blacklisting Blayze for 20 years, a ban that cost her many a royalty fee due to her mandated non-appearance in any of the company's multimedia ventures.
It's fitting that the WWE forgave Alundra in 2015, the same year that saw the emergence of WWE's current crop of female super-workers (Asuka & The Four Horsewomen). Blayze was a good worker, and her fall from grace coincided with WWE placing its faith in Divas ahead of wrestlers, a decision that did near-irreparable harm to the company's women's division. However, since Alundra's induction into the Hall of Fame, WWE's women's division has been on fire, with the female superstars main eventing PPVs and putting on MOTY candidates. Here's hoping none of them inadvertently torpedo their entire division like Blayze did.