In pretty much every other job other than professional wrestling, retirement means you're no longer doing what you're doing for a living. However, professional wrestling is an industry where rarely anything is on the up and up, including retirements. More often than not, a wrestler "retiring" usually means they're taking a break for a while, only to return if the circumstances (and the paychecks) are right. Some fake retirements are more ridiculous than others, so we've compiled a list of 20 of the worst wrestling "retirements" that ended up meaning absolutely nothing in the long run. For the sake of this list, we will consider a "retirement" to also include a wrestler quitting or being fired on camera. Basically, anything that leads to a hiatus will be considered for this list. However, one "retirement" that will be nowhere near this list is the Macho Man Randy Savage's retirement in 1991. At Wrestlemania 7, he lost a "Loser Must Retire" match to the Ultimate Warrior, only to be reinstated later in the year to face Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who had terrorized his wife, Elizabeth. This is one of the best fake retirements in wrestling, as Savage would not have reunited with Elizabeth at Wrestlemania if his career wasn't over. Plus, it led to some great announcing stints on Superstars, the Summerslam wedding, and the aforementioned Jake Roberts storyline. Macho's fake retirement certainly meant something. But for every one good fake retirement, there are 20 awful ones, so let's get to it!
20. Chavo Guerrero - 2006
By spring 2006, WWE had already used the memory of the recently deceased Eddie Guerrero in a number of storylines. In the immediate aftermath of his untimely death, Rey Mysterio had dedicated a match against Big Show to Eddie where he would point to the sky and ask for help when he was in trouble. Other uses of Eddie in storylines included Rey dedicating the Royal Rumble to him, as well as probably the most distasteful: Randy Orton telling Rey that Eddie is in hell. The night after Wrestlemania 22, when Rey won the World Title, again in Eddies memory, Chavo Guerrero said he would do something similar by winning the Intercontinental Title from Shelton Benjamin. He lost the match, and then subsequently retired, feeling that he let Eddie down. This turned out to be a ruse, as Chavo turned on Rey Mysterio and caused him to lose the World Title to King Booker at the Great American Bash, ironically enough blaming Rey for using Eddies memory to succeed. It was yet another case of WWE having the bad taste to use a deceased wrestler to further its storylines.
