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00:00 Hi guys, I'm Adam Wilborn from What Culture and today's video is brought to you by Manscaped.
00:05 But more on that in a little bit.
00:07 They all come back don't they, tail between their bloody legs?
00:12 Alright, not all of them and not necessarily some of them with their tail between their
00:15 legs but the point still sort of stands doesn't it?
00:18 Also don't kick off in the comments, it's only a joke this, and the title's only there
00:23 to get you to click so What Culture can afford my lavish salary and I know it's not Simon
00:27 Miller but let's be honest, it could be a lot worse eh?
00:31 Anyway I'm Adam Wilborn from What Culture and these are 10 Wrestlers Who Came Crawling
00:35 Back To WWE.
00:37 10.
00:38 The New Age Outlaws
00:40 As of recording this in early 2022, WWE has spent much of the prior two years doing away
00:46 with around 150 contracts to make budget cuts arm in arm with record profits.
00:54 The heartless bastards.
00:56 Not impacted by this capitalist skullduggery, need only look to the 80s, 90s and now should
01:02 they want to vent their spleens on podcasts, Q&A evenings or, where they even still exist,
01:11 low budget shoot interviews.
01:13 As that cottage industry boomed with the birth of tape trading and the internet at large
01:17 in the mid 90s, so did the prevalence of stories that had only been shared in the likes of
01:22 the Wrestling Observer before then.
01:24 The New Age Outlaws crapped from every height, on to Triple H specifically, for how their
01:29 relatively short but hugely profitable runs hit the skids.
01:34 Those promos were popular enough that TNA made them impact canon, voodoo kin mafia existed
01:41 to neg WWE and DX before remotely concentrating on getting their own house in order.
01:47 Time heals all wrestling wounds that aren't fatal though, and Road Dogg and Billy Gunn
01:51 were both back in the fold and wearing gold by 2014.
01:55 9.
01:56 Shane McMahon
01:58 Shane O'Mac's 2016 return was an unusual case of the McMahon family accurately reading
02:04 the room when it came to outside takes on themselves.
02:07 The February 22nd edition of Monday Night Raw kicked off with Vince McMahon attempting
02:12 to present a Vince McMahon Senior Humanitarian Award to his daughter Stephanie.
02:17 Bulls*** on top of bollocks that wouldn't have flown had it not been for the blockbuster
02:22 payoff they had in store.
02:24 Landing back on screens for the first time in over six years, the money proved his worth
02:29 as the most popular member of the family with a monster pop and a posited match that sold
02:34 tens of thousands of extra tickets for that year's WrestleMania.
02:38 Absence makes the heart grow fondest in wrestling, and never has this been any clearer.
02:44 I mean, yeah, he overfed himself to the folk in the years that followed, but it was still
02:49 shocking to hear that his egomaniacal Royal Rumble 2022 performance had partially resulted
02:55 in his release.
02:56 Ah well, the 2028 comeback angle is probably already in the works.
03:02 8.
03:03 Hulk Hogan
03:04 The Hulkster refused to commit to exactly where he was going, what he was doing, or
03:07 indeed why he was going away in and around the time of WrestleMania 8 in 1992.
03:13 This was because doing so would have involved yet more speaking around an area he'd already
03:18 proven himself rather weak at.
03:20 A 1990 appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show was an exercise in media spin gone horribly
03:26 wrong.
03:27 By fibbing about the amount of steroids he'd taken in his career up to that point, Hogan
03:31 inadvertently opened up a Pandora's box that had been bursting at the seams for years.
03:37 Two years on and WWE was further engulfed in scandal, extending to lawsuits surrounding
03:42 drugs, death and sexual assault claims.
03:45 As the front-facing company representative, when times were extremely good, it looked
03:49 like he was going to have to eat crap during the dark timeline too.
03:53 But that didn't work for him, brother, and off he popped until some of the dust had settled
03:57 in early '93.
03:58 7.
03:59 Hulk Hogan
04:00 Again, and again, and again.
04:04 This was the story of Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon once the genuine and box office magic
04:09 of his 2002 return had well and truly worn off.
04:13 Back when discerning booking choices still had to be made based on things like buy rates
04:17 and gate receipts in WWE, Hogan's value was fairly easy to gauge.
04:23 His WrestleMania 18 return was an undeniable show-stealer, and his championship victory
04:28 the following month felt like the way to capitalise.
04:31 As numbers plummeted, McMahon quickly realised the thirst was for nostalgia, or what about
04:36 the Attitude Era, rather than the little and often doses of The Hulkster.
04:40 Hogan, of course, didn't completely agree and stepped away when requests to "defeat
04:46 Brock Lesnar at November's Survivor Series" were rebuffed.
04:50 All was made well for a WrestleMania bout with McMahon himself the following spring
04:54 though and a Shawn Michaels story in 2005, and a Summerslam time filler against Randy
04:58 Orton too.
05:00 Each run felt more of a mutually beneficial offering than any kind of creative impetus,
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06:58 Number 6, Brock Lesnar.
07:00 Okay, let's just get this out the way early because I'm a little bit terrified of Brock
07:03 Lesnar.
07:04 Brock Lesnar crawls nowhere unless he wants to, but his ability to extract money from
07:09 Vince McMahon's pocket for his services stretches beyond almost everyone else's on this list.
07:15 Scouted young by Gerald Briscoe and Jim Ross and pushed hard when he finally hit the main
07:19 roster in 2002, the next big thing was a can't miss that eventually just elected to stop
07:26 firing.
07:27 Three WWE Championship runs, two years and one WrestleMania main event were enough for
07:32 him to announce that he was leaving shortly before only his second show of shows appearance
07:37 in 2004.
07:38 By the time he returned in 2012, he'd wrestled elsewhere in spite of a court order not to,
07:44 had that overturned, and upped his value by orders of magnitude thanks to an even more
07:49 financially fruitful run in the UFC.
07:53 A decade into Lesnar being WWE through and through has now made the original stint look
07:57 like that was the dalliance, but none of this felt plausible during his time away.
08:03 It's perhaps why McMahon appears to bend the knee for the beast more than anybody in
08:08 company history.
08:09 5.
08:10 Shawn Michaels
08:12 Right apologies in advance Mr. Editor, but Shawn Michaels did not give a f*** in 1997.
08:20 It was the amount of not giving a f*** where you've got to pronounce a f*** with 17 u's
08:25 or do away with f***s altogether because he didn't have any left to give at all.
08:30 The Heartbreak Kid was losing a battle with his personal demons and his professional life
08:34 had never been more fraught as a result.
08:37 Trapped in a philosophical war with Bret Hart that sprawled between their on and off screen
08:42 lives, Michaels' other click pals beyond Triple H were making fortunes in WCW.
08:48 Whilst he bounced in and out of speculative retirement, a search for a smile and a changing
08:52 television product he was trying to figure himself back into.
08:57 All of this converged to chaos about once a week, but never more so than when he scrapped
09:01 with the Hitman for Real over the old "sunny days" comment he peppered a promo with the
09:07 week prior.
09:08 Swarming out of the building on that wild July, he swore allegiance to his mates and
09:13 to WCW.
09:14 After all the requisite toing and froing, he was back by August.
09:18 4.
09:19 Sable
09:20 There was a lot of speculative ugliness around Sable's 2003 return.
09:24 It was, let's be honest, unexpected in the extreme, but what she was asked to do as a
09:29 character following her comeback really shouldn't have been.
09:32 The former Women's Champion returned following WrestleMania 19 as a big post-show of shows
09:38 story, caught a cold from all the lesbian pollen flowing around, and spent months in
09:43 a strange, strained and then completely friendly relationship with Torrie Wilson.
09:48 It fell off for good reason, or more good reasons than usual.
09:53 When Sable had left the company in 1999, she had done so under a cloud of grim acrimony.
10:00 Millions of dollars were being fought over in court, including allegations of involvement
10:03 in storylines not too dissimilar to the ones I just mentioned.
10:07 After all, she'd become one of the company's biggest stars during their improbable second
10:11 boom.
10:12 The run was short enough that it almost became forgettable, which is probably for the best.
10:17 When she wasn't kissing Wilson, she was necking on with McMahon himself.
10:20 I can think of one person right now who probably doesn't want to think about that.
10:25 3.
10:26 Jerry Lawler Jerry Lawler did a very honourable thing in
10:30 2001.
10:31 It's not very often you hear those words in a sentence, eh?
10:34 Upon learning that his real-life wife, Stacey 'The Cat' Carter, was to be released, he
10:38 upped and left with her.
10:40 The two were in very different positions at the company at the time, though, and perhaps
10:43 Lawler believed that a move away from the prestigious Monday Night Raw broadcast booth
10:47 alongside Jim Ross would convince Vince McMahon to change his mind.
10:52 When he didn't, the King was well and truly without his crown.
10:56 Things got worse that year, as the relationship between Carter and Lawler dissolved, the one
11:00 between Ross and newly hired commentary replacement Paul Heyman re-blossomed, and things looked
11:06 bleak for the Memphis Icon's return prospects.
11:09 McMahon and his inner circle obviously missed the King's squealing musings.
11:14 When a Survivor Series loss for Heyman's Alliance necessitated Heyman's on-screen firing in
11:18 November, Jerry was jetted straight back in with all former ills forgiven.
11:23 2.
11:24 Eric Bischoff Easy E was extremely easy going during his
11:28 2002-2005 run as a performer with WWE.
11:32 He probably knew he had to be.
11:34 Eric Bischoff, the EVP, had briefly forced Vince McMahon's nose right into the crap
11:39 in the mid-90s, so when the winner of the Monday Night Raws doubled the dosage on the
11:43 loser, he was mostly written off as fair game.
11:46 Not least because Bischoff seemed to come out of the experience in one piece.
11:50 He'd enjoyed his run, got out before the whole thing got to him, and managed to continue
11:54 working in wrestling without ever falling under the corporate thumb of McMahon.
12:00 All until 15 years later, he somehow ended up doing just that.
12:05 The strange spell in 2019 he spent as Smackdown's Executive Director was eventually defined
12:11 more by what he allegedly did behind the scenes - sat in catering - than any major changes
12:17 that happened on screen.
12:18 Bischoff affected just about zero change before he was let go in October.
12:24 1.
12:25 Cody Rhodes For the fat end of a year, Cody Rhodes'
12:29 AEW arc seemed destined to end in a formal, in-character heel turn.
12:34 He'd been getting the dreaded 'mixed reactions' ahead of eventually just soaking up most of
12:39 the booze in any building, had been a pretty convincing piece of crap on television behind
12:44 the insincerity of the odd forced smile, and most tellingly made it clear that he would
12:49 not turn.
12:50 If we're honest, it got too clunky for its own good, and a few too many viewers were
12:54 reaching a little too hard bro for something bigger than it ever was, but his return to
12:59 the dark side was imminent.
13:02 And now, it's complete.
13:04 On February 15th, 2022, Rhodes broke any remaining hearts left intact by Valentine's Day and
13:10 parted ways with the company he's embedded in the DNA of.
13:14 Immediately news broke of a potential WWE return, and a potential signing was at long
13:19 last reported as a done deal on March 18th.
13:23 It is, without doubt, one of the biggest stories of the year, one of the biggest stories of
13:27 the decade, and it will only get bigger pending his actions on screen as well as off.
13:33 That it's happened at all is a stark reminder of what really drives the industry.
13:39 Jim Ross reckons it's cash and creative, but the former always trumps the latter.
13:45 And that's our list.
13:47 Did we miss any out?
13:48 Let us know in the comments section below and don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
13:51 And subscribe to What Culture Wrestling, wherever you get your podcasts from, for daily wrestling
13:55 podcasts.
13:56 You can also share your thoughts on Twitter @WhatCultureWWE and you can find me on there
14:01 @AdamWillbaum.
14:02 Thanks for watching, I've been Adam from What Culture and I'll see you soon.