10 Wrestlers Plagued By Their On-Screen Self

Professional wrestling occupies a unique space by blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

When this line is treaded with finesse, it's one of the reasons we flock to sports entertainment. Fans know pro wrestling isn’t “real”, but we don’t want to be persistently reminded while we enjoy the product. This requires our favourite wrestler to stick to their character at all times, inside the ring and out, even if rigid adherence to kayfabe outside of work has gone the way of the dodo.

While it is confusing for some fans, it is even more taxing for the people tasked with playing a character in their everyday life. Unless they are behind a locked door, they are their gimmick to millions of people.

It can cumulate in the browbeaten wrestler resigning themselves to being a larger-than-life creation brainstormed in a chaotic writer’s room, regardless of personal unrest.

This has caused many problems with athletes acting in toxic ways to promote their gimmick, being a target for misplaced hatred for a character, or simply trapped in their gimmick – unable to move onto anything new.

When wrestler’s on-screen selves stalk them into their real life, they have quite the battle ahead...

It may initially seem odd that the gimmick of an extravagant millionaire would torment the man portraying the character. In a time when kayfabe was king, Ted DiBiase was financed by WWE to live the lifestyle of ‘The Million Dollar Man'. He travelled first-class, stayed in five-star hotels, and was even given an allowance so he could splash the cash in public. DiBiase lived a life of luxury yet he was not genuinely happy.

He found that loneliness on the road was compounded by the juxtaposition between having thousands of vocal fans enthralled by your every move and going back to a hotel suite alone. He dealt with this by drinking an increasing amount of alcohol. This enabled him to live the gimmick while damaging the person behind it.

The playboy lifestyle required to upkeep the character ultimately resulted in DiBiase cheating on his wife. She discovered his infidelity the day after WrestleMania XIII. DiBiase recalled:-

“That was an enormous wake-up call. In an instant, I realized that I had put at risk the love and devotion of a committed wife, as well as, the future, the stability, and the wellbeing of my kids. And for what? To satisfy an ego? To fill a void in my life? You don’t get any more selfish than that. It was a defining moment in my life because I felt dirty.”

In the wake of his wife’s forgiveness, DiBiase began his path towards becoming a Christian minister. In embracing family and faith, DiBiase dodged becoming another pro-wrestling cautionary tale.