Ranking 10 Most Successful Wrestling Defections

While basketball fans buzz over trade rumors during the NBA’s off-season, especially Kyrie Irving reportedly wanting to jump from the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, wrestling fans are left to reminisce about one of their favorite pastimes. Before WWE conquered the wrestling world, becoming the only mainstream organization in North America, fans could speculate and fantasize over which WWE Superstars would jump to WCW or ECW, and vice versa. It was an era of unpredictability as fans never knew who would show up next on Raw or Nitro during the Monday Night War.

That period was great for viewers as well as industry players – the wrestlers had unprecedented leverage against promoters.

While performers could relocate to different territories back in the day, the territories were still controlled by the National Wrestling Alliance, a self-governing union of promoters who usually stuck together and could blackball wrestlers if need be.

During the 1990s, WWE and WCW were in competition, and either company was all too willing to scoop up a disgruntled performer from the opposition. This gave wrestlers the opportunity to negotiate higher-paying contracts or change their scenery, perhaps for the long-term benefit of their career.

On paper, WCW acquiring Bret Hart should have been the company’s biggest coup since signing Hulk Hogan. The Hitman was fresh off a hot anti-American heel run, and had lost the WWE Championship in controversial fashion at Survivor Series 1997. In theory, WCW had taken WWE’s main star, a performer regarded as a legend but who could still go in the ring.

However, as McMahon would reportedly tell Hart, “they won’t know what to do with you.”

Although he won the U.S. and World Titles, and regularly hovered around the main event scene, Hart went from a major fixture of WWE TV to just another name in WCW. Ironically, his departure from WWE actually boosted the company to its creative and financial zenith, as McMahon capitalized on the real-life animosity stemming from the Montreal Screwjob and let it play out storyline-wise between Stone Cold and him.