10 Worst Sacrifices In WWE

Real WWE is no Creed song - Hulk Hogan drops legs, but Vince McMahon drops entire characters.

Hulk Hogan Yokozuna
WWE

That's yer Fiend finished. Again.

If he's still even yours, that is. If Bray Wyatt's tweets or his fans' lengthy reddit reaches have somehow kept you on the hook over the last 8 years despite near-constant attempts to either undermine or flat-out humiliate, WrestleMania 37 worked harder than ever to remove the it from your cheek.

If it didn't, well then to be completely frank you're a dead fish deserving of its fate.

The "jack-in-the-box-like-structure" call from Michael Cole was pathetically naff to a uniquely perfect degree. The company that won't allow commentators to identify an object as the object don't stand a chance of being able to logically express what this unapologetically dumb gimmick is really all about.

If Wyatt's thought process really is as profound as many of his colleagues have suggested over the years, then the it's been sacrificed to the insanity of Vince McMahon, Bruce Prichard and whoever else has ever had anything to do with his multifarious disasters over a near-decade of decay.

It's Just What Happens In WWE, even to those that aren't pitched as incel murder clowns. And not even just the warped era that booked a guy that returned from death to stay down from an RKO...

10. Zack Ryder's Push

Hulk Hogan Yokozuna
WWE.com

A turning point in the minds of fans that still believed in the WWE brass ring principle and presumably in the minds of many wrestlers themselves, Zack Ryder's gift-wrapped money printer being tossed aside to toss him off a stage in a wheelchair was quite the act of bizarre malice.

Unwilling to stagnate and with a creative and switched-on mind, Ryder had spent much of 2010 and 2011 getting himself over to an audience of fans WWE didn't have the nouse to even explore.

His self-made YouTube show reimagined his gimmick, rebadged a ton of his previously-irritating catchphrases and reinvigorated interest his act from those in the audience that were far more switched on than WWE themselves.

It's presumably why they saw to it that the whole thing be sacrificed to John Cena and Kane.

Internally viewed as the people's project rather than their own, WWE seemed to build him only with the expressed purpose of breaking him. The wheelchair flashpoint remains the definitive takeaway, but just examining that scene finds a man literally and figuratively beaten down by a company that chose spite over piles and piles of cash. Or - based on how much merch he briefly shifted - both.

In this post: 
Hulk Hogan
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett