8 Most Pathetic Examples Of Backstage Politics In Wrestling

To get ahead in this dumbass pseudo-sport, a wrestler must often rely on playing backstage politics. It would be nice - but also significantly less funny and fascinating - if this didn’t happen. But it does. A wrestler can’t rely on booking alone if they want to make it to the very top and hold onto that elusive spot. Have you watched WWE this year?!

To an extent, every instance of political gamesmanship in wrestling is definitionally pathetic. That is because the very idea of being desperate to win as many fake fights as possible so that one can ultimately only pretend to be a big tough guy is very childish. It is not unlike pretending that you beat up the hardest kid in your area, but you don’t know who it is because he goes to a different school. Some political power plays were very smart - much too astute to be labelled pathetic. Triple H knew what he was doing. That’s why he is where he is. 

Technically, he lost a trilogy to Brock Lesnar. He lost at SummerSlam 2012, and lost the big rubber match in a Steel Cage at Extreme Rules a year later - but he didn’t, did he? That wasn’t the big match. The only match people remember in 2026 - and Triple H knew this in 2013 - was the second match at WrestleMania 29. That’s because it happened at WrestleMania. Nobody actually liked it, but nobody emerged from the wider rivalry thinking that Triple H had truly, emphatically put Lesnar over. Lesnar only felt like the biggest heel in the game when he broke the Undertaker’s streak and squashed John Cena a year later. Incredibly, Triple H actually was winding his run down - the teased SummerSlam retirement was halfway legit - and he still wouldn’t go the whole way. That is because he mastered the art of protecting his character. 

His competition was a little less refined in their approach…

CM Punk knew that he was not long for AEW when he was asked by Tony Khan to be the face of Collision - he had already offered to leave and allow the Elite to win the civil war that had engulfed the promotion for a full year - but he gave it a shot. 

Entirely on his own terms. 

Punk was reported to have been very involved with the creative process, which was easily inferred. Despite his firebrand persona and ring name, CM Punk was more classic rock than anything else. He’s a staunch traditionalist. 

He liked to go long, he liked everything to breathe, and Collision, for a few phenomenally overrated weeks in the late spring of 2023, was a meat-and-potatoes pro wrestling show refreshing enough in its simplicity. Punk worked with guys he saw something in (Ricky Starks) and guys who felt like a night off (Samoa Joe). He did what he wanted, that much was clear. A lot of kids wanted to play cowboys or spacemen when they’re young. CM Punk and FTR wanted to play Bret Hart in 40 minute main events. That’s a bit sad and pathetic, no? 

This childishness extended to reports of Punk’s conduct backstage. Known apocryphally as ‘Collision Island’, AEW’s Saturday show was an exclusive super secret club in which Punk was allegedly allowed to choose who was allowed to join, and who wasn’t. One person who reportedly wasn’t allowed to join was Christopher Daniels, AEW’s Head of Talent Relations. The guy who pretty much had to be there just wasn’t cool enough to collide!

Yes: Punk and FTR coined the term ‘Colliders’, which was even more lame than the Kliq or the Bone Street Krew. FTR and CM Punk, grown, middle-aged men, might as well have said that all the Dynamite wrestlers smell.