50 Fascinating Facts About WWE in The 1980s
46. Sgt. Slaughter Left The WWF Due To A Toy Dispute
Reportedly, Sgt. Slaughter left the company in 1985 because Vince McMahon wanted to trample all over his deal on G.I Joe action figures. That didn’t work for Sarge, so he bolted to the AWA and wouldn’t return until 1990. There are contrasting claims on this though, and even Slaughter himself has offered up a different story by saying Vince actually scrapped him due to his protest over a planned-then-aborted six-week vacation.
Interesting, but the G.I Joe thing has persisted over the years as the main reason for Sarge's dismissal. He fled to Verne Gagne's failing AWA, then penned a letter to McMahon saying he enjoyed the product and thought he could contribute. That, pretty bizarrely, led to the biggest run of Slaughter's entire career and an unlikely WWF Title reign in the early-1990s.
Back to the 80s we go.
Vince was ruthlessly headhunting his own toy deals for WWF stars at the time, so he perhaps didn't take kindly to a wrestler going out on his own with a third party. After all, that'd potentially take some cash out of McMahon's pockets, and he couldn't have that. This kind of legal jousting for control over a performer's complete working life became a WWE norm under Vince.
In the short term, Sarge didn't have much to worry about. He'd blown up as a pop culture sensation due to the G.I Joe links, and he figured that'd sustain him for a while. Besides, nobody knew for sure just how long McMahon's juggernaut approach was going to last for the WWF. Quite a while, as it turned out.