20 WWE Wrestlers Who Hated Each Other In Real Life

Professional wrestling is an industry governed by drama. Fans tune in not just for the outstanding displays of heart, skill, and athleticism, but for the stories, characters, and feuds that frame them. As exciting as the in-ring competition is on its own, a wrestling match is only as interesting as the circumstances surrounding it, and few things are more exciting than watching two rivals settle their differences following a long, gruelling rivalry.

Like all good TV dramas, pro-wrestling presents a series of staged dramatic movements laid out to engage and establish an emotional connection with the audience. Typically, this comes in the way of establishing a mutual dislike between two competitors, selling it to the crowd, and hoping you’ve done a good enough job to sell-out your pay-per-view at the end of the month.

Sometimes, however, the lines between fantasy and reality become blurred, and many pro-wrestling rivalries have been fuelled by real life bad blood over the years. Whether through backstage politicking, poor creative direction, or good old-fashioned ego, it starts with one party feeling slighted at the other’s expense, and it rarely ends well.

Social media, shoot interviews, and wrestler podcasts mean that it’s getting increasingly difficult for companies like WWE to hide such genuine drama. The most recent example came in the alleged Sin Cara/Simon Gotch backstage fight two weeks ago, but WWE history is littered with behind-the-scenes animosity.

Here are 20 WWE wrestlers who hated each other in real life.

Famed for voicing his hatred towards pretty much everyone in the wrestling business after retiring, The Ultimate Warrior reserved a particularly huge chunk of vitriol for Hulk Hogan. Through his own personal website, Warrior accused the Hulkster of everything from offering-up his wife Linda for a “sexual encounter” to deliberately sabotaging Warrior’s own wrestling career.

Things can be traced all the way back to 1990’s WrestleMania VI. In an event that later became known as “The Ultimate Challenge", Hogan, the WWE Champion at the time, faced off with Warrior, who was holding the Intercontinental Championship. Warrior emerged victorious and walked out with both straps around his waist, but after that, things were never the same between the two.

Throughout his retirement, Warrior would regularly speak out about Hogan’s allegedly toxic backstage presence, and routinely criticised him for holding other wrestlers back and making sure the show revolved around him. Beyond that, Warrior tried to expose Hogan as a coward who would back down any time he was confronted.

While it’d be easy to dismiss these as the ramblings of a madman, this wasn’t the first time we’d heard such stories about Hogan, with Randy Savage in-particular sharing a number of similar tales over the years.

It was alleged that Hogan and Warrior had buried the hatchet shortly before Warrior’s passing in 2014. We’ll never truly know all was well (despite WWE releasing footage showing the two shaking hands and talking) , but Warrior’s wife Dana didn’t exactly help matters by joking about challenging Hogan to a match in her husband’s memory at the 2015 Hall of Fame ceremony.