10 Wrestlers Who Were BEGGING To Be Fired
Stories of WWE defiance, shockingly bad behaviour and beating up Vince McMahon.
Pro wrestling's landscape has always been filled with a bombastic blend of ego, pretence and behind-the-scenes drama. What's presented in front of the curtain is supposed to be 100% fiction, but lines are often blurred to add some sense of "reality" that'll (in theory, at least) captivate fans.
Incredibly, some performers use these moments to show their unhappiness with what's happening backstage. This, rather unsurprisingly, rarely ends well for them. Pushing the envelope too far can lead to contractual termination, but...what about those workers who were almost goading their boss into making a decision?
They were borderline begging to be fired.
This list has defiance by the bucketload. Some wrestlers went into business for themselves on pay-per-view, generally acted like a d*ckhead extraordinaire to peers, said controversial things promoters didn't want them to say on television, argued with powerful authority figures - one even kicked the crap out of Vince McMahon, and another lied so he could sod off to the competition!
One thing ties all of these men and women together: WWE and WCW couldn't tame them. What's that phrase about marching to the beat of one's own drum? Yeah, that.
10. Buff Bagwell
He's Buff, he's "the stuff", and the WWF front office...they'd had enough.
Bagwell's bullsh*t might've flown in WCW, but it was never going to endear him to Vinnie Mac, Jim Ross or other federation officials. In 2001, Buff managed to irk everybody by throwing his weight around like a diva and acting like he was the second coming of Steve Austin.
Some, like Shane Helms, stood up to this nonsense by getting into fights with Buff during training sessions. Meanwhile, JR claims that Bagwell's mother Judy plagued the company with tedious phone calls about her son's schedule, health and more. It was a nightmare Ross wanted to wake up from.
Worse, Buff failed to convince anybody that he was worth much in-ring with a disastrous match against Booker T on Raw. Being totally honest, the bout wasn't that bad - it did, however, oust him from McMahon's mind as a possible headliner, and Bagwell was released shortly thereafter.
So much for that.