10 Wrestlers You Won't Believe Got The Better Of Vince McMahon
Vince McMahon is the ultimate alpha male - but Tay Conti, Jeff Jarrett and others went over him...
Vince McMahon cuts such a detached and terrifying figure of madness that it is said the independent contractors of WWE are too scared to even knock on his door.
They are instead made to wait, often weeks on end, for the privilege of pitching an idea to a man who in all likelihood isn't aware of their name, credentials, skills, anything. The man who finances a multi-million dollar training facility - with the express purpose of developing talent - doesn't read reports, watch tape nor use the knowledge they have acquired to gain "promotion" to the main roster.
As was the case with Shayna Baszler, he makes a snap judgment within seconds and orders them to calm the f*ck down - "It's only RAW, pal!" - before enlightening them in the WWE ways of the "headlock, takeover," thus creating yet more homogenised, soul-destroying content churn.
The man is notoriously bad-tempered. You could show him the next Stone Cold Steve Austin, and he'd be uninterested if not sufficiently full of ketchup-smothered feed. Well, he was uninterested when he saw the first Steve Austin, but you get the idea.
Vince McMahon is a daunting individual, and everybody - even the yacht he sails on the blood of so many workers - is his bitch.
Only real ones (and that d*ckhead the Ultimate Warrior) make him theirs...
10. Mercedes Martinez
In an era in which women are deemed worthless, having had the temerity to age - and are subsequently fired with a trash bag bestowed as a parting gift - Mercedes Martinez played the system.
Somehow.
Martinez, a great 40 year-old talent, debuted on the main roster as part of the atrocious RETRIBUTION stable as 'Retaliation'.
RETRIBUTION were formed when some WWE middle management pig looked at his telly in the soul-destroying summer of 2020 and wondered just who the f*ck those little f*ckers were runnin' around. He hated them, and in one of the dumbest lightbulb moments in wrestling history, thought it made for good heat.
'Retaliation'.
'Retaliation' carries a very similar definition to 'Retribution'. This was a bit like calling a member of the Four Horsemen 'Horse Man'. The entire bullsh*t ordeal - the group stopped destroying property the very second the expensive ThunderDome was introduced, WWE signed these insurgents to a deal, Reckoning won a match via night terrors - was dumb on top of dumb.
Martinez knew it, and requested to go back to NXT. Miraculously, the pitch was accepted. She wasn't punishment booked. She wasn't given a bin.
She simply went back down to the Capitol Wrestling Center and killed it in a featured upper midcard role.