10 Matches That Nearly Made Wrestlers Quit For Good
5. Luke Harper's Japanese Match (Dragon Gate The Gate Of Destiny - October 2011)
A current SmackDown Tag Team Champion he may be, but (Luke) Harper came within a hair of walking away from the sport entirely after concluding his last tour of Japan in 2011.
The former Brodie Lee revealed this in a recent interview with Rochester First. Though he was a decade into his career, he had yet to make a major breakthrough, and had to turn down his first offer of a WWE tryout as he was suffering from a broken leg at the time. Tired of the independent grind, and with his partner eight months pregnant, he was at his wit's end, telling his other half: "this is it, I'm done, I'm going to get a real job and we'll make do from there."
He arrived back on American soil days after competing on Dragon Gate's The Gate Of Destiny 2011 pay-per-view, where he lost a lower-card six-man tag. Poetically, WWE called him up with another tryout a few days later. Working that listless bout was not his last dance, and he signed a development deal the following year, saving him from obscurity.