10 Compensations Wrestlers Accepted As Payback
Sorry seems to be the hardest word, but these unique fixes were easier than apologising...
Remember when Vince McMahon started saying "it's all about the money" but put the most absurd inflection on that final sylable in an effort to make a catchphrase out of it?
You're better off if you don't. It was weird.
It was weird, but it was very Vince McMahon.
The Chairman probably thought he was reinventing the wheel, catchphrase-wise. That, if he worked it hard enough, the company would be selling "All About The MONAAAAAY" shirts quicker than they could make them, all as the line itself entered American pop culture as Hulkamania and Austin 3:16 had done before it.
It wasn't to be, of course, not least because to some fans and many wrestlers, the industry really isn't all about the money. If it was just a money thing, The Blue Meanie would have raced off with a bag of cash from WWE after John Bradshaw Layfield's unplanned attack on him during the ECW One Night Stand brawl. Instead, he took the chance to pin him on TV and let his friend Stevie Richards waffle him with a steel chair.
Because wrestling - like McMahon himself - is weird. That may explain why some of these unique offers served as welcome compensation...
10. The Ultimate Warrior - A New DVD
Even at the time of its release, The Ultimate Warrior sort of got the last laugh after the infamous Self-Destruction Of The Ultimate Warrior DVD due to the last frame featuring the detail that his name was copyrighted to "Ultimate Creations" rather than World Wrestling Entertainment.
But that minor win probably didn't feel like one after an all-timer hatchet job from the organisation that came before it.
When he came back for his Hall Of Fame induction in 2014, WWE had little option but to completely reframe his legacy entirely. The late-1980s icon they'd positioned as a painted up clown wouldn't have been worthy of their supposedly prestigious Hall. An all-new DVD and documentary was made before his untimely death that featured matches broken up by comments from Warrior himself.
His involvement stood as a monument to the supposedly legitimacy of this project, even if it put forth propaganda of a different kind.