6 Times Wrestlers Tried (And Failed) To Get Fired Live On Air
5. Ryback
When Ryback came into the main roster of WWE in 2012, he was sent on an unstoppable winning streak that catapulted him to the top. It wasn’t long before the Big Guy was given Vince’s special rocket boots to wear. They took him into the main title scene, even if he never actually captured the WWE Championship.
As is the way though, Ryback found himself sliding down the card over the next few years, competing for midcard titles and in a tag team with Curtis Axel. By 2016, Ryback had fallen from main event to curtain jerker and had a propensity for being a featured star but only ever on the PPV kick-off show.
As such, at Payback 2016, the former Skip Sheffield made a sarcastic joke about this by wearing a weight belt to the ring that read “The Pre-Show Stopper”. This might’ve been passed off as a slap on the wrists, but Ryback knew exactly what he was doing when he started wrestling without taking it off. Word from the back screamed in referee John Cone’s ear to get the one-time Nexus man to take the belt off, and Ryback shot back at the messenger: “Them them to f*** off”. Yikes.
However, his weight-belt stunt trick hadn’t been the ultimatum he wanted and WWE continued to book Ryback in a battle royal match as part of an upcoming show. He needed to be even more drastic, so the Big Guy instead decided to no-show and go home. A few months later, Ryback announced he had quit.