11 Things You Didn't Know About Diamond Dallas Page

2. A Hug May Have Sealed His WWE Fate

We've mentioned Page's poor WWE run multiple times so far, but why exactly did it go so amazingly awful? Strangely enough, it may have all come down to a friendly embrace.

When WCW was bought out by Vince McMahon, dozens of wrestlers’ contracts came along with it. However, he didn’t get any of the company's “big boys.” No Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Flair, etc., because their deals were with Time Warner (who owned WCW) and not the promotion itself. Basically, Vince had Booker T and a bunch of midcarders and rookies to work with.

DDP also had a Time Warner contract, but decided to take a buyout (losing a ton of money in the process) so he could finally get that WWF run. Since Vince now had two stars, you would think he would protect them both at all costs for the integrity of the angle. Nah. Booker did fairly well, but Page was buried out of the gate. Apparently he didn’t make a very good first impression.

In Ric Flair’s book, he said that after WCW shut down, Page ran into Vince McMahon at an airport and basically gave him a long, awkward hug and said “Finally, we’re together!” Vince wasn’t exactly enthused, and that initial impression doomed the former Heavyweight Champ. Well, actually, Page became further doomed due to The Undertaker not liking how he wrestled.

Taker liked to call his matches on the fly, while Page was meticulous in planning things out. He was known to approach wrestlers with pages worth of notes for how their match should play out. The Dean Man wasn't a fan of this approach. He believed it was his yard, and so he gave Page almost no offense whatsoever whenever they met up.

It was bad business, but Vince and Taker decided that Page just wasn’t cut out to be a star in WWE.