10 Wrestlers That Vince McMahon Hasn't Forgiven

Considering, rightly or wrongly, the lack of respect that WWE afforded his actual wrestling talent, Brad Maddox did pretty well out of his year-and-change as a central character on RAW.

After all, the former OVW champion initially impressed WWE officials with his personality and character work, not his ring work - and character work is what got him on TV. But once the Brad Maddox character had run its course, he was always on borrowed time precisely because he didn’t have that in-ring cache with the company to back him up. Other performers could get repackaged, repurposed: Maddox would need to start all over again.

Perhaps he could have - maybe he could have returned to add some personality to 205 Live as a cruiserweight contender, for example - but then details of his affair with Paige back in developmental emerged, when multiple short clips of the two of them together were released online.

It’s never been clear where the clips came from, but given the number of videos involved, it seemed that the hacker had pillaged a single online stash, probably his - and it was generally considered that, as a married older man, Maddox had led Paige astray.

Added to that, however, was the disrespect shown to the NXT title, not just the sex scandal itself. Maddox, after all, is the only man in history to take a shot at the NXT Women’s championship.

A genuine wrestling superstar would have difficulty with McMahon after that came to light. Maddox has no chance.