8 Wrestlers Who Quit After Major PPVs
3. The Radicalz (Souled Out 2000)
With Vince Russo sent jabbering back to Long Island not long after the Bash at the Beach debacle, WCW's Executive VP Bill Busch decided a wrestling company needed distinctly wrestling minds, replacing the departed booker with a crack team helmed by veteran pencil Kevin Sullivan.
The move, though theoretically an upgrade on Russo, wasn't met with universal backstage acclaim. For all his faults, the New Yorker had been committed to pushing fresh talent, and many of the hungry upstarts in the locker-room feared the new committee would usher the old guard straight back in. A clutch of talent, amongst them Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Perry Saturn all handed in their notices.
Sullivan made desperate assurances to his crop of potential new stars. Benoit, the crown jewel, was also the hardest sell. There remained an air of mutual disdain between The Crippler and Sullivan after the former's affair with the booker's wife years earlier, and it'd take a drastic act to keep him on board. Namely: a WCW Championship.
It wasn't enough. The night after his big coronation at Souled Out 2000, Benoit walked out of the company, taking his buddies with him. They all showed up in the front row of Monday Night Raw a week later.