7 Wrestlers Who Quit WWE Over Angles
"You want me to tattoo WHAT on my face?"
It might seem barmy from the outside that Mike Kanellis, who earlier this year more than doubled his deal with WWE, would be seeking an exit from the company over a silly wrestling storyline. That's precisely the case however, the Ring Of Honor man apparently fed up being cast as the cuckold throughout his on-screen relationship with real-life wife Maria.
There's no obvious positive to come out of the angle from Kanellis' end, besides earning top dollar in exchange for his professional prestige and dignity. On this occasion, the money simply isn't worth the embarrassment: you can't put a price on personal pride.
In Kanellis' case, it's unclear where exactly he'd go from here should WWE grant him his wish (they won't), but at least his reputation might be somewhat in-tact. It's very much an old-school mentality to protect your character at all costs - even if it seems a little unnecessary in this era.
Once over, it absolutely wasn't. Sticking the finger up to a fictional set-piece made all the sense in the world when it could impact your future earnings. How could anyone take the Road Warriors seriously once they'd been taking orders from a puppet, for example? They couldn't, so they hit the tarmac.
7. The Road Warriors
The spiky-shouldered double-act of The Road Warriors were such a popular pairing in the late '80s NWA that WWE created their very own version in response, in the shape of the equally dominant Axe and Smash of Demolition.
So what did the company do when they finally caught up with the face-painted pair on the Fury Road? For once, the obvious: matched the two colossal tag teams against one another. Unfortunately, fate intervened, forcing Bill 'Axe' Eadie to step out due to health issues, replaced with the much crapper Crush. The feud failed to ignite, and the newly-christened Legion of Doom were left something of a busted flush.
How could the NWA powerhouses' intensity be rekindled then? This is where things become more familiarly idiotic: a ventriloquist's dummy. Original segments involving 'Rocco', who had an arseful of manager Paul Ellering's arm, were such a disaster that they never aired. Nevertheless, McMahon persisted with the idea that Hawk and Animal were taking inspiration from a puppet.
It turned out to have the opposite effect. Michael 'Hawk' Hegstrand was so appalled by the angle, that he vanished from the company shortly after his hazy off-his-Rocco cameo at SummerSlam '92. In perhaps the finest piece of wrestling apocrypha out there, he was said to have subsequently joined a sect of the Hell's Angels with John 'The Berzerker' Nord in London.