10 Wrestling Icons That Were Humiliated On Camera

Typically, even your boss has a boss.

It's a realisation that doesn't justify or excuse said boss making your life harder, but does at least act as a leveller between human beings trapped within the mechanisms of capitalism. Hierarchies are a reality of the working world, but the knowledge that the person holding your whole world in their hands is also waiting for 4:59pm on a Friday to send that email to somebody else.

For the longest time, the biggest boss in all of wrestling used and abused his power and privilege because he appeared to think himself an exception to the rule. Vince McMahon was WWE's be-all and end-all from the day he purchased the company from his Father, up to and including the day the organisation floated on the New York Stock Exchange and theoretically became accountable to shareholders and others outside the auspices of Titan Tower. A life of the buck stopping with him, recrimination-free, so he thought.

We are thankfully in the timeline where we know how all that turned out, but it unfortunately perpetuated a culture of fear between performers and promoters that had already existed as long as the art form itself. As a wrestling booker, Tony Khan hasn't given into the flawed power dynamics just yet, but it hasn't stopped eruptions with his roster taking place.

Most notably over All Out 2022 weekend...

As of this writing, the biggest headlines from the explosive All Out 2022 press conference fallout were that The Young Bucks and CM Punk had a physical altercation and Ace Steel may have bitten Kenny Omega.

This was chaos before the physicality, with Punk verbally reducing Omega, the Bucks and Hangman Page to rubble in remarks that represented the boiling over of some long-simmering tensions between the AEW World Heavyweight Champion and his EVPs.

More than just dwelling on the rumoured physical impact on anybody that sustained injuries during the skirmish, it's a humiliating event for all involved at this point. For Punk selecting such a public forum to air significant in-house grievances, for Executive Vice Presidents for welcoming the violent escalation of said grievances, and for Tony Khan for allowing both situations to occur without getting across them enough in the first place. All of this leads to a perception problem that All Elite Wrestling as an organisation will be dealing for weeks if not months as it works to move forward as a scripted wrestling show instead of a backstage shoot fight one.

The story will surely be defined by its ramifications than original actions, but few could have forecast such fury four years on from All In's seminal and celebratory mood.