10 WWE Punishments That Didn't Fit The Crime
If you can't do the time...
It's important to have standards in the workplace. Imagine if you went into Starbucks and the baristas were sitting on top of the counter, absently necking whipped cream right out of the canister. You'd probably just turn around and head straight for the competition.
In WWE, standards are slightly more arbitrary. Wrestlers only interact with "customers" (i.e. the fans) for a fraction of their working lives, with the remaining part spent in the company of their co-workers. As such, the onus is not so much on acting professional as it is on not acting in a way that will annoy one of the locker room leaders.
Unfortunately, not all of them have been successful in negotiating that line. The internet is awash with stories of WWE employees upsetting their backstage superiors, and more often than not they are met with the kind of punishments that probably wouldn't fly in any company with an effective HR department.
Sometimes, though harsh, they appear more or less fair. Baron Corbin being robbed of his push for being a possible jerk backstage, for example - you can get behind that. It's not like he lost his job or anything; he was just given a sharp demotion from the main event, to where he could yet return some time in the future.
And then there are those that seem ridiculously excessive....
10. Smiling
Most people are encouraged to come to work with a positive attitude, but it doesn't always pay if you work for WWE, as Paul London found out in June 2007.
In a backstage segment on Raw, the young high-flyer was one of several wrestlers tasked with standing in a corridor as Vince McMahon walked to his limousine (whereupon he would explode in a fiery inferno). While he nailed the standing part, he failed to convey the appropriate level of seriousness by momentarily grinning in full view of the camera.
According to reports, on watching the segment back after the show went off the air, the chairman of the board was said to be absolutely livid, so much so that London - once a promising up-and-comer - was booted out of the company altogether about a year later.
That seems ridiculously harsh. Wrestlers, after all, are just that. It's certainly advantageous if they can act as well, but you until you start recruiting talent from outside the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, you have to accept there's going to be a drop in quality from the silver screen.