10 Wrestlers Who Were Punished For Breaking Kayfabe
6. Paul London
On June 11, 2007, Raw played host to Mr. McMahon Appreciation Night, a special episode filled with interviews from McMahon's longtime coworkers and associates - most of whom insulted the WWE Chairman. At the end, a distraught McMahon took a long walk out of the building - receiving no comfort from his employees, who simply stared at him solemnly - and entered a limousine, which exploded. The whole "Who killed Vince McMahon?" storyline was dropped two weeks later after Chris Benoit murdered his family and killed himself, but some bad blood from the initial angle didn't go away. While all the wrestlers did their best to look serious as McMahon took his final walk down the hallway, Paul London - who smiled at the boss - was the exception. He soon lost his push, and by the next year, he was unemployed. In a later interview, London claimed that he was never told what the angle was all about, only that Vince was walking down the hallway and he was told to react accordingly. He didn't confirm punishment as a result, but when asked if he was approached by McMahon about his behavior, he said he had been confronted by the boss "several times."
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013