Why These 10 Wrestlers Quit Over Contracts
Scary situations and in-ring horrors that DIDN'T linger long in the memory.
Transcript
00:00But this all ties in, doesn't it? And before we get into the meat and bones, do not forget
00:04at the end of the day, you go to sleep and that wrestling is just somebody's job and
00:09sometimes you go to your place of work and you fall out with your boss. And maybe the
00:12employer is right, maybe the company is right, we don't know. But it happens at McDonald's,
00:17it happens at Nike, it happens at, I don't know, Barclays Bank. We're all just human
00:22beings trying to make our way.
00:23Given that we are talking about individuals that we do see every single week on television
00:27though, if there is a little bit of a controversy, everybody starts talking about it and when
00:32that happens, you can't get the cat back in the shoe. And you're looking it up now and
00:37no, that's not a saying. But the point is, these ten wrestlers did quit over their contracts.
00:42Why? Here's why.
00:44So we shall start at number ten with Sasha Banks and Naomi. And once again, nobody actually
00:54knows what is going on here. But when you do start to do some digging and you get into
00:58the rumour mill, not only does it sound like they stormed out because they weren't happy
01:03with creative, but it may have also tied into their contract situation.
01:06Because both are allegedly in the last few months of their contract, so I suppose if
01:10they weren't getting certain guarantees that they expected and they weren't happy with
01:14the storyline, then Boss Glow, whatever the hell they're calling themselves, decided,
01:19I don't really think this is working out, I'm going out the door.
01:22Now the real fascinating point, the real reason I wanted to put this in here, is that do not
01:26forget if you are a WWE contracted talent, that deal states that if you're not performing
01:32for one reason or another, WWE can freeze your deal, meaning until you fulfil your appearances,
01:39you just have to sit there and wait it out.
01:40So let's for argument's sake say the expiry date was July, maybe it would have been a
01:45little bit better to have done a Dean Ambrose and just wait a little while before you turned
01:50yourself into Jon Moxley.
01:52But once again, I just think we all need to calm down with this, and I hope Sasha Banks
01:57and Naomi could work out their differences and go back to doing what they're flippin'
02:02great at.
02:03But I ain't Stone Cold Steve Austin.
02:04Which ties into the main one that everybody is comparing this to, Stone Cold walking out
02:10in 2002.
02:11For those that don't know, Austin did indeed not turn up to Monday Night Raw all those
02:15years ago, because he was told the plan for the evening was for him to lose to Brock Lesnar
02:19in a King of the Ring qualified match, and understandably the Rattlesnake thought that
02:23was stupid, because the money isn't a random match on television, the money was in a big
02:28pay-per-view shindig that Brock Lesnar probably would have won.
02:31The real twist to all of this though, is that maybe, just maybe, WWE did this to be a little
02:36bit vindictive.
02:38Because weeks earlier, Steve Austin had been on the WWF Bite This show and said, well I
02:43tell you son, I don't really like the creative direction at the moment, and in fact I think
02:47the writing sucks.
02:48So the powers that be didn't appreciate that, and they wanted blood, and all of this went
02:52bad quickly, and given the relationship that Austin had with McMahon, and the fact that
02:56he felt like they weren't living up to the deal, or everything that he had crafted, he
03:01too got on a plane and went home, but we didn't see him for almost a year.
03:05Now Austin has admitted well after the fact that this was not the right way to handle
03:09it, and he should have been more professional, but again, can anybody actually say his way
03:14of looking at things wasn't the right way?
03:16I would say no.
03:17Great CM Punk.
03:18All it takes is five minutes on Google to make you realise, thank goodness CM Punk got
03:23out of WWE when he did, I mean we can get into the if, buts and maybes, but it is quite
03:28clear both his physical and mental health were taking an absolute kick in, and he needed
03:32some time to rest.
03:33And this is one big reason why he did quit, because if you're not aware, one of the things
03:37with WWE, especially back in the 2014 era, was that you were expected to return to work
03:42as quickly as possible, even if you had just had your knee reconstructed and you'd just
03:47come out of surgery.
03:48So Punk has told this story before, where he was essentially limping out of his local
03:51medical facility, where his phone rang and it was Vince McMahon saying, hey pal, need
03:56you at Raw next week, even though hours before this, he had been knocked out with anaesthetic.
04:01Now I don't think that's good for anybody's brain, especially when you are trying to heal,
04:05and the reason CM Punk continues to do this, as he has mentioned, is because his hero was
04:09Harley Race, and he wanted to tie it into that old school mentality.
04:12Given that eventually he did just become the Walking Wounded though, after the Raw Rumble,
04:16he went and found Vince McMahon and Triple H and said, I don't want to do this anymore,
04:19I too am going home.
04:22And yes, because this was a breach of contract, WWE fired CM Punk on his wedding day.
04:28Now we have talked about that a lot, but come on now, just don't do it.
04:337.
04:34The Rock
04:35Quit may not be the right word here, but all things considered, man, what were we doing?
04:39We all remember The Rock when he went off to be a movie star, and in 2022, don't forget
04:44that he's been an actor way longer than he was a wrestler.
04:47But when all this was starting and Hollywood came a-calling, everybody in WWE realised
04:51what was going on, so they tried to tie all this up in a nice little package so they'd
04:55have the rights to his name and they'd get some of that money from his films.
04:58What they did not anticipate though, is that Dwayne Johnson would find so much success.
05:03So when his WWE contract did come due in 2004, they just decided, well we're not going to
05:10renew it, we'll show him.
05:12This didn't set well with Mr. Johnson, because why wouldn't it, and he was more than up for
05:15trying to come to terms on something new, and this is why it would be seven years before
05:202011 rolled around and The Rock became the guest host of WrestleMania before he came
05:23back to the company.
05:24I mean, you'd think cooler heads would have prefailed with this one, and they did eventually,
05:29but yeah, WWE booted out who was going to go on to become one of the biggest stars in
05:37the world.
05:386.
05:39Cesaro
05:40I love this story, because good for Cesaro.
05:41His contract came due, WWE sat down to negotiate with him, he put a figure on the table, they
05:46said, well we're not going to pay you that, and he said, okay, I'm done.
05:49Now no matter what this must have been hard, because the Swiss Superman had been there
05:51for 11 years, but this is all about knowing your worth.
05:55If you'd seen a bunch of other figures being doled out to other wrestlers, and you weren't
05:59being treated the same way, you should stand up for yourself.
06:03We as a human race don't do this enough.
06:04It also shows that WWE still don't realise what they had with Cesaro, and while I say
06:10these words, he hasn't returned to wrestling, but believe you me, wherever he does lay his
06:14hat, he is absolutely going to smash it, because here's your homework for the day, go and find
06:19a bad Cesaro match, you can't.
06:225.
06:23Chyna
06:24The story of how Chyna and WWE fell out is actually quite sad, because do not pretend
06:28otherwise.
06:29During the Attitude Era, she was a super duper megastar, and she changed the business, and
06:34then when it was time to renegotiate her deal, these people could not see eye to eye.
06:39As told best by Jim Ross on his podcast, Joni Lawler's big request when it was time for
06:44a new deal, is that she wanted to be paid the same money as Stone Cold Steve Austin.
06:49Good old JR looked to her and said, well that's never going to happen, we were an impasse.
06:53It was also the problem that Chyna didn't really want to wrestle women anymore, and
06:56exclusively wanted to wrestle men, which is not what the company wanted to do.
07:01And this is why they did say goodbye, because Vince McMahon was like, well I'm not paying
07:05her that, and I want her to wrestle females, so we were done.
07:08The part that really sucks is that she never returned to WWE, and only really did a little
07:11bit more in wrestling when she went over to New Japan, but what will really break your
07:15heart is that she passed away in 2016, and never got to have that comeback that she so
07:21richly deserved.
07:22Now thankfully today she has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and all of this could
07:26have been so much more.
07:284.
07:29Bret Hart
07:30I mean, do we really need to go through this one?
07:31It's been talked about so many times, but seriously, how could I leave it out?
07:35Quickly though, back in 1997, Bret the Hitman Hart and Vince McMahon signed a deal, and
07:39a few weeks later Vince said, oops sorry I can't afford that, so I strongly suggest
07:43you go back to WCW and try and get a bunch of money from them instead.
07:46Bret has always said too that he wanted to stay with the World Wrestling Federation,
07:50but felt compelled to take World Championship Wrestling's offer, because it was so much
07:54though, and of course the way this all ties in is the Survivor Series 1997, when Bret
07:59the Hitman Hart had creative control, so Vince said, well I don't want you to have creative
08:04control, I'm just going to ignore it, and I'm going to take that belt off you.
08:08So the terms of the contract were not adhered to, and Bret did indeed leave and went to
08:12WCW, and they had no idea what to do with him, but that's a different video for a different
08:18day.
08:193.
08:20Ric Flair
08:21Picture the scene.
08:22New WCW head honcho Jim Hurd sits down the nature boy Ric Flair and says, I don't
08:26care what you've done in the past, I want you to cut your hair, and I'm also going
08:31to start calling you Spartacus, and I have not made any of that up.
08:35The real kicker is that Hurd also wanted to pay Flair less money, which was never going
08:39to fly, and the real issue here was that WCW had decided to put someone in charge who had
08:44no wrestling experience and was just looking at some numbers.
08:48However this was Ric Flair, so he told Jim Hurd to shove this contract and that he'd
08:52be leaving, and he did.
08:53Not only did he quit, he went across to the WWF and he took the WCW World Championship
09:00big gold belt with him, and my word this opened the floodgates because it was just
09:04Lawsuit Central.
09:05Somehow Flair returned to WCW after all of this to a hero's welcome, and you would
09:10assume I bet they never mucked him around on a contract again, but they did, google
09:14everything that happened with Eric Bischoff, all of this was nuts.
09:182.
09:19Brock Lesnar
09:20I mean seriously, the balls of Brock Lesnar.
09:22Because do not forget, in 2004 he was everything to WWE, he was the next big thing, he was
09:28the beast, he was our bright new star, and we were going to do everything we possibly
09:33could to ensure he got to the top and he stayed there.
09:35But there's only one thing that could have derailed Brock, which was him waking up one
09:39day and deciding, you know what, I don't like the wrestling lifestyle, and it actually
09:43happened.
09:44It was always going to cause a stink for obvious reasons, but they were able to come to an
09:48agreement, in the sense they said, okay Brock, we will let you out of your contract, but
09:51you have to sign this a seven year non-compete deal so you can't go wrestle anywhere else.
09:57Lesnar was so desperate to leave he probably would have signed his own mother away, but
10:01after he did try to get in the NFL and fail, he got offered a deal by New Japan Wrestling,
10:06and even though he did have this piece of paper, he ignored it and went to fight.
10:11This triggered a huge lawsuit and was Lesnar completely ignoring the contract he had with
10:15WWE, but surprise surprise he fought them through the system and judges went, haha WWE,
10:22you can't enforce this, why did you even come up with it?
10:25This meant that Brock was a free man and also underlines how big a star he came in UFC,
10:29because when it was time for him to make a jump back to pro wrestling, everyone was more
10:34than happy to work with him because they knew despite the past, they could do big things
10:39with the one and only Brock Lesnar.
10:42For one, Chris Jericho.
10:43This doesn't 100% tie into a contract, but it does sum up why Chris Jericho never returned
10:49to WWE, even though he had the chance.
10:52The big reason for this is because he felt shunned.
10:55Way back in 2016-2017, Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens were doing the best stuff in WWE, including
11:01the Festival of Friendship, and according to Jericho, during all of it, McMahon had
11:05sat him down and said, oh my gosh, this is great stuff, we're going to have you headline
11:09Wrestlemania for the big world championship.
11:11So naturally, anyone is going to get pumped for that, even though you know plans can change.
11:15And then we got to that night in April, and Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho was not for
11:20a title, and it was on second.
11:23McMahon also wasn't a fan of the match, and Chris Jericho was actually insulted, mostly
11:27because he had realised, it doesn't matter how many times I go away, it doesn't matter
11:31how many times I come back, I have been pigeonholed here.
11:35This is just my status in WWE, and I don't want that, so he left.
11:39I don't want to get into it here because we've run out of time, but The Wizard was correct,
11:43because instead he went to New Japan, absolutely blew up those numbers, and then helped start
11:48and cement AEW to the point today, he does feel like a bigger deal than ever, so you
11:54can say whatever you want about him, but he smashed it again.
11:59Now are there any other wrestlers that quit over their contracts?
12:01Make sure you let us know in the comments below, and don't forget to like the video,
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12:15My name is Simon Whatculture, thank you very much for joining me as always, I hope you
12:18have a lovely day, and try not to walk out over your contracts at work, it doesn't really
12:24work well in the real world, we all need that cash, goodbye.