10 Wrestlers Who DESTROYED Their Career In A Single Moment

The process of self-destruction usually takes a while.

A pattern of behaviour usually reveals itself very early. Euphemisms are bandied about.

Wrestler X is difficult to work with.

Wrestler X has maturity issues.

Wrestler X has locker room heat.

This is all code for 'Wrestler X most likely suffers from actual narcissism", and the reason why these talents don't suddenly vanish is because they are often very talented. Take CM Punk for example: he is the boogeyman of the AEW locker room, but is so great at what he does and is such a star that AEW would rather enter its terrible Ruthless Aggression brand split era than not book him at all. There are far, far worse people to have worked in wrestling than Punk. That cannot be stressed enough.

Somebody like the Ultimate Warrior - a friend of Punk's - revealed his true nature over time and did in fact self-destruct. That DVD was a hatchet job, but the title wasn't inaccurate. He also received opportunity after opportunity despite exposing himself as a pathological sh*t disturber increasingly more difficult to work with every time he resurfaced for a few months.

Sometimes, though, a meltdown is far more instantaneous and spectacular...

NB - It should be noted here that a lot of wrestlers deservedly threw their careers away in a single moment through being named in Speaking Out, but they won't get the publicity here.

Imagine it's your first day in an administrative role for a finance company.

Somebody higher up than you has obstructed a doorway chatting to their colleague. They didn't mean to get in your way, but you are annoyed - so annoyed, in fact, that you send a company-wide email expression your irritation.

"That Maureen is a right nattering harridan, isn't she? There's a time and a place to chat, and it isn't when I'm trying to get back to my desk!"

You have annihilated your reputation in seconds and, since you are effectively the most expendable employee in the entire firm and the firm has no idea yet if you despite a semi-decent CV can do the job, you're probably getting fired.

But all is well. This isn't a real scenario because nobody would actually be stupid enough to do that.

Except, in wrestling, this essentially happened.

Bronson Matthews won the sixth season of WWE Tough Enough, which was hardly likely to launch his career, but still, neither was burying the Social Outcasts on Twitter as "jobbers". This drew the ire of Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes, amongst others, and Matthews later revealed that he was banned from changing in the locker room despite protesting that he was tweeting in character.

The 2016 incident didn't directly lead to his release, which came a year later, but his career was finished while he was still there.