10 WWE Wrestlers Who Were As Frustrated As The Fans

Haunted by potential but helpless on talk shows - the WWE Superstars begging for change from within.

peyton royce
WWE.com

There's something uniquely awful about the sensation of hating what you do for a living.

The travel from home to workplace becomes a resentment-driven slog. The small-talk with colleagues grinds away at your very soul as you do your own teeth during nightmare-filled sleeps. Sleeps that get shorter and shorter because you resent the time wasted in slumber with so many hours already taken up by what you're doing for a f*cking living.

And yet, it's a job. Loads of people don't have one, loads of people desperately want and need one, and you should thus be grateful for the one you've got, right?

Especially when it pays for the things you do enjoy in the scant hours you have distract yourself from work. And especially when that job is pro wrestler, the job we as fans are told is virtually impossible to get and the one that is the supposed dream one for everybody that gets it.

But the super-humans have the slogs too. And the grinding small-talk. And the lost hours. And in WWE especially it seems, the resentment. They are feeling what we - the frustrated fanbase - are feeling. Over the last few years, this has become more apparent than ever before...

10. Mustafa Ali

peyton royce
WWE

Virtually everything Mustafa Ali did in the second half of 2020 was related to how he'd been unfairly sh*t on by his employers up to and including then.

The formation of Retribution was, in kayfabe, in response to the myriad of ills within WWE. Ills he attempted to expose as the SmackDown hacker - a gimmick he took responsibility for once the company realised they could tie up a loose end. In character, he gaslit the audience for making light of the awful monikers WWE had given his sidekicks, and by the end of the year his group were the second worst thing on Raw above Ricochet, who they were actively trying to recruit.

He's been dealt an awful lot of bad hands, basically, and his January 4th rant spoke to that and several other systemic problems in WWE.

Raging at the latest Legends Night nostalgia-fest, he raged, noting that "we dedicated a three hour show to old has-beens, a night like tonight is exactly what is wrong with this company. I'm not bewildered, I know the generation before me paved the way but when the hell are you gonna let me walk on that path?"

When indeed? Retribution went back to losing every week as soon as the Ricochet programme concluded.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 7 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 30 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz", Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 50,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett