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Pro wrestling has dramatic storytelling at its foundation, but as hardcore fans have come to embrace over the years, the real life drama surrounding the business can be every bit as interesting as what happens on screen.
WWE and its iconic head honcho Vince McMahon are lightning rods for this kind of attention. For better or worse, McMahon is the definitive wrestling power broker of the last forty years and there’s no quicker way to destroy a national level pro wrestling career than to run afoul of the Chairman.
Still, if there’s one way of defining McMahon’s approach to talent relations, it’s through the lens of a man willing to swallow personal grudges and forgive past transgressions in service to giving the fans what they want or, more to the point, making money for his company. This article looks at eleven times when, against all expectations, McMahon made up with a major wrestling personality.
#11. Bret Hart
There are a lot of ways for a wrestler to leave WWE, but refusing to drop the world title on the way out the door and punching out the owner of the company backstage is about as ugly as it gets. Of course, to be fair, when Bret Hart took these two actions, he was also the victim of the Montreal Screwjob, not to mention that a year and a half later his brother died because of a stunt gone wrong while working for the company.
It seemed Vince McMahon and Bret Hart would never make amends. The unlikely occurred, however, when McMahon reportedly offered an olive branch after Hart had been hospitalized because of a stroke. That paved the way for Hart to collaborate with WWE on a DVD documentary about his life, complemented by a selection of mutually agreed upon matches. The ice broken, Hart would go on to accept a Hall of Fame induction, and later make a brief, highly protected return to the ring to wrap up his WWE legacy on a high note.
#10. Brock Lesnar
It’s rare for WWE to truly go all in on pushing a talent. With the possible exception of someone like Hulk Hogan, it’s difficult to remember WWE pushing anyone so hard, so fast, so comprehensively as young Brock Lesnar. His rookie campaign on the main roster included beating Hogan clean, winning the King of the Ring tournament, beating The Rock for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam, winning the Royal Rumble, and winning the main event of WrestleMania over Kurt Angle.
Lesnar wound up wearying of pro wrestling and the WWE schedule, and ultimately decided to leave to try out for the NFL, en route to his career in MMA. That he would take so much from WWE, at the risk of weakening everyone around him, and then leave before WWE could fully cash in was borderline unforgivable.
In the end, though, Vince McMahon is a businessman. He could have held a grudge but instead recognized an opportunity as Lesnar’ prime in UFC wound down, to bring back a familiar face to WWE, trained to wrestle at a high level, and with the legitimacy of MMA success behind him. It was a shocker when WWE re-signed Lesnar, but he has by and large been a successful attraction for over six years to follow.
#9. Kurt Angle
Kurt Angle soared to success in WWE, capturing every title available to him during his first full year on the main roster, and growing into one of the most complete performers in the company incredibly fast. Unfortunately, with the meteoric rise came a brutal collapse.
By 2006, Angle has openly admitted in interviews that he was not only suffering from nagging injuries but had a real problem with substance abuse. The story goes that WWE management saw he was in trouble and said he would need to take time off to get his life in order. Angle refused and wound up jumping to Impact Wrestling instead.
That Angle would become a wrestler in danger of seriously hurting if not killing himself made WWE wary of him. That he would be a key player in legitimizing Impact to the extent it would become a competitor to WWE only made matters worse.
However, a little over a decade later, with Angle cleaned up and a free agent, WWE did welcome him back into the fold for a Hall of Fame induction, only for it to give way to him becoming the kayfabe GM of Raw and returning to the ring as needed.
#8. Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan is a bedrock star for WWE. In many ways, Vince McMahon built his original national expansion on Hogan’s back, and there’s a real argument to be made that no wrestler has ever been more over than Hogan was in that original 1980s Hulkamania run.
If there’s one star who has proven to have nine lives when it comes to his WWE career, it’s Hogan. He testified against WWE in its 1990s steroid trial. Moreover, he jumped WCW in one of the key moves that helped WCW become legitimately competitive with WWE (and actually surpass WWE’s numbers for a time). WWE would bring Hogan back after the Monday Night War was over, in a big demonstration of McMahon putting business first. Accordingly, Hogan got very over as a nostalgia act in that era.
The years to follow saw Hogan purportedly create drama over how he would work high profile matches with Shawn Michaels and later Randy Orton. From there, the Hulkster jumped to Impact Wrestling, by all indications intending to help them compete with WWE. As if all that weren’t enough, a recording of Hogan using racial slurs went public, causing WWE to sever ties with him. Still, the two sides ultimately reconciled with Hogan reinstated to the Hall of Fame and charged with hosting the Crown Jewel event.
#7. The Ultimate Warrior
One of the cardinal rules of working with Vince McMahon is to never hold him up for money. There’s a long history of wrestlers making that mistake and winding up blacklisted for years to follow, if not their entire careers. By a variety of accounts, that’s just what Warrior did at SummerSlam 1991 before working a tag team main event alongside Hulk Hogan.
McMahon being who he is, he followed the money and let Warrior back into the fold in 1992 and again in 1996. Each time, the general consensus is that Warrior was difficult to work with and unpopular with the boys, even when he remained a star to fans.
It seemed WWE was ready to cut ties permanently from Warrior when the company released its Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD, embarrassing with a variety of wrestlers and backstage workers speaking poorly about him, and more contemporary stars doing impressions of him. In the most unlikely turn of all, however, McMahon and Warrior ultimately made up to get Warrior in the Hall of Fame. It turned out that the reconciliation didn’t happen a moment too soon—Warrior tragically less than a week after his induction.
#6. Eric Bischoff
Eric Bischoff was the face of WCW management throughout the Monday Night War era. Not only was he the lead player from a business perspective and a key figure creatively for WCW, but he put himself in the spotlight by going so far as to spoil pre-taped episodes of Monday Night Raw on his show and at one point challenge Vince McMahon to a fight.
When WWE ultimately acquired WCW, it was perfectly reasonable to think Bischoff would never be seen in nationally televised wrestling again. However, as Bischoff has recounted in numerous interviews, McMahon ultimately reached out to him to explain that, had the War gone the other way, he’d like to think WCW might have offered him a job, and he wanted to return the favour.
Whether McMahon’s motivations were as altruistic as Bischoff volunteered, or McMahon simply saw an opportunity to cash in on an easy to hate heel authority figure who might appeal to WCW’s loyal fans, Bischoff found himself presiding over Monday Night Raw for a period of years. Moreover, he has worked with WWE on a number of documentary projects since.
#5. Alundra Blayze
The Monday Night War saw a number of ugly defections between WWE and WCW, but few are nearly as infamous as that of Alundra Blayze. While she was a star at a time when WWE wasn’t focused on women’s wrestling, and ostensibly looked to phase it out altogether for a time, she was also a champion who held onto her WWE issued belt when she made the leap to the competition.
In an incident that became hugely memorable, Blayze dumped her WWE title belt into a trash can during her first appearance on Nitro. It was the ultimate insult to WWE’s legitimacy, which led to legal action and foreshadowed how WWE handled the prospect of Bret Hart jumping with the world title.
Blayze quietly retired from wrestling after WWE bought out WCW. In an unlikely turn, WWE ultimately forgave her, though, welcoming her back into the fold for a Hall of Fame induction, a Network special, an interview with JBL, and ultimately a one-night in-ring return at Evolution.
#4. Sting
For a time, it appeared that Sting would go down as the biggest star of his generation never to have worked for WWE. He was loyal to WCW right up to its end, and rather than jump to WWE, he dedicated the rest of his good ring years to working with Impact Wrestling.
It would be easy enough for Vince McMahon to shun one of the biggest stars to represent his competition, who had gone on to turn away opportunities to work with WWE. However, in the end, McMahon seemed to recognize the value of Sting as an icon to the WCW faithful, and a legitimate legend of the business on the whole. So, well past his prime, WWE let him in to be a featured special attraction from late 2014 through 2015, before accepting a Hall of Fame induction in 2016 to put a proper cap on an unforgettable career—despite the fact that most of that career was in competition to WWE.
#3. Jeff Jarrett
Jeff Jarrett was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Monday Night War from the perspective of hopping between WWE and WCW to better his salary and position on the card with each new deal. Things came to a rough end, though, when he made his final leap to WCW and reportedly held up Vince McMahon for money on his way out the door, in order to agree to put over Chyna for the Intercontinental Championship in his last match.
The way Jarrett made his exit stuck in McMahon’s craw enough for the Chairman to call him out personally in his monologue on the night Raw absorbed Nitro. It was clear Jarrett wouldn’t finish his in-ring career with WWE at that point, and to make matters all the more severe, Jarrett would follow up by founding the closest thing WWE has had to a US-based competitor in Impact Wrestling.
Against all expectations, as Jarrett hit a low point with substance abuse and falling out with every promotion he was connected to, WWE announced his induction into the Hall of Fame. Rumour has it that Triple H specifically championed his cause, perhaps to have him involved with his administration of the company when he and Stephanie McMahon take over. Regardless, Vince seemed to have signed off for an induction that focused pretty strictly on Jarrett’s WWE mid-carder career.
#2. Wendi Richter
Though she tends to get overlooked nowadays, during the original Hulkamania run, and specifically the Rock N Wrestling period when WWE co-marketed with MTV, Wendi Richter was a major star, representing a new generation of female talent when she unseated long-standing champion The Fabulous Moolah.
The generally agreed upon story goes that Richter recognized her own worth and wound up demanding greater compensation from WWE. In response, we got what has in retrospect been labelled “the original screwjob” wherein a masked Moolah pinned Richter down for a fast count that she did not cooperate with. Vince McMahon was reportedly sending a message to not only Richter but anyone else who thought to demand more money that they were replaceable. For her part, Richter reportedly left in a huff, not to be seen in a WWE ring again.
Against the odds, Richter and WWE had a degree of reconciliation over twenty years later when the company, at last, welcomed her back for the Hall of Fame—perhaps a harbinger of the Women’s Revolution that would take hold and more outwardly celebrate women’s wrestling a few years later.
#1. Bruno Sammartino
Bruno Sammartino is one of the biggest legends in wrestling. He held the WWE Championship for a record-long reign (and for a total of two reigns that added up to over a decade cumulatively), and was the face of the company in its nascent years, long before Vincent Kennedy McMahon took over from his father.
When McMahon got control of WWE, he made some big changes including edging pro wrestling away from the presentation of a legitimate sport, towards a business emphasizing colourful characters and storytelling, anchored around Hulk Hogan. Sammartino openly disagreed with these adjustments and was all the more vocal in condemning where WWE went from there as it headed into the Attitude Era.
Despite being an outspoken critic of WWE for decades, and McMahon saying he’d given up on rebuilding his relationship with the company, Triple H did extend the olive branch. In an unlikely turn, 2013 saw Sammartino make up with WWE as he accepted a Hall of Fame induction and conducted a number of interviews for the WWE Network.
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