6 WWE Stars Who Got In SERIOUS Trouble With The Law

It took a remarkable amount of effort to get fired by WCW in 2000, but it might be even more impressive that Juventud Guerrera was able to ink a deal with WWE after the trouble he got himself into while working an overseas tour for the ailing Atlanta outfit shortly before it was shuttered. The company was already careering towards collapse when the former Cruiserweight Champion found himself going in the same direction, but a chaotic Australian adventure was enough to justify his dismissal just months before the promotion itself ceased to exist.

By the tale-end of the promotion's lifespan, virtually everybody in WCW seemed frustrated. Morale was through the floor, creative direction was abysmal at best and often changed up on the reg anyway, and the ratings domination that once defined all wrestling conversation had been replaced by constant stories of money being haemorrhaged in a haze of misplaced decadence, arrogance and decline. 

Only when the show left the United States did it even resemble the product of old. Domestically, WCW looked as finished as it actually was during every Nitro and Thunder taping, but when the promotion took the show on the road to the likes of the United Kingdom and Australia, there was a brief reprieve from the doom. Star-starved audiences were enthusiastically receptive to the attention paid to them by the company and its stars. "Number two promotion" was the perpetual death knell in a wrestling war, but to the Brits and Aussies that packed buildings in London, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham and Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne respectively, business was still booming.

Those conflicting reactions and emotions are going to do things to the mentality of a man. Those, and a cocktail of hallucinogenics anyway, and it was during the Brisbane leg of the tour that a PCP high sent the cruiserweight aerialist spiralling downwards rather than through the skies. Guerrera allegedly tore through the corridors completely naked, screaming incoherently and directing various threats of violence and murder towards selected WCW executives. When local law enforcement arrived to calm things down, he went for the police. Two of the impacted officers filed their own assault charges against him, which went on the long rap sheet with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, causing bodily harm and possession of a dangerous drug.

In the bleak and fractured environment World Championship Wrestling had become, disciplinary standards were frequently inconsistent based on any number of changeable factors. Many wrestlers' jobs survived similar or worse indiscretions, but on this occasion, Guerrera's behaviour (and it was a pattern, even if this was the peak) proved impossible to overlook. Legally, the consequences were relatively lenient. An $1800 fine would have stung, but he had the various convictions struck from his record and was able to travel freely - something that mattered all the more when he was done and dusted with WCW. He was going to be missed from the company even during its dying days, but there was great relief to many that he could at least be found running the ropes at indie shows rather than running a cup across iron bars in an Australian cell.