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On-screen, Vince McMahon’s over-the-top heel character has fired several WWE Superstars over the last two decades, but did you know that he sometimes has the responsibility of personally firing people in real life?
In 2020, for example, over 20 Superstars were fired by WWE as a cost-cutting measure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of them have confirmed that they were informed of their release by WWE's Senior Director of Talent Relations, Mark Carrano.
However, in previous years, there have been plenty of stories from Superstars who have revealed that they were given the unfortunate news about their WWE futures by Vince McMahon himself – and some were even hired by the WWE Chairman after meeting him in his office in Stamford, Connecticut.
In this article, let’s take a look at four WWE Superstars who were personally fired by Vince McMahon and four that he hired.
#8 Vince McMahon fired Big Cass
Big Cass received the biggest push of his WWE career after he recovered from an ACL injury and moved to SmackDown after WrestleMania 34. Unfortunately, just two months later, the 7-footer was fired by Vince McMahon due to a series of mistakes that he made following his return.
Speaking on Booker T’s Heated Conversations podcast in September 2018, Big Cass said he “made too many mistakes in a short period of time” and, if he was in charge of WWE, he would have made the same decision as Vince McMahon.
“I definitely would have fired myself. If I was in Vince McMahon’s position, I would have fired myself for sure, one-hundred percent.”
Big Cass mentioned in a July 2019 interview with Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin that he had a 40-minute meeting with Vince McMahon on the day that his WWE firing was confirmed.
He also acknowledged that he made a “big mistake” when he went against Vince McMahon’s orders by going off-script in a SmackDown segment with a Daniel Bryan impersonator.
"It was the dumbest f***ing thing I ever did. So f***ing stupid. It was a mistake. And I knew it the second I came back. You know, I looked at the crowd and people were not reacting how I wanted them to. It was very stupid. I shouldn't have done it."
Big Cass spoke openly about his battles with alcoholism and depression during the interview, which you can watch here.
#7 Vince McMahon hired JBL
It should come as no surprise that Vince McMahon had a role in WWE hiring JBL. After all, it has long been rumored that the two men have a good relationship behind the scenes, and the WWE Chairman is unlikely to book a Superstar as one of his longest-reigning WWE Champions of the modern era (280 days) if he does not like him.
Speaking to WWE’s official website in 2014, JBL recalled that he had to go to the company’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut to meet with Vince McMahon for the first time in 1995.
Vince McMahon decided to tease JBL by suggesting that he could portray a “bad guy ballerina” character in WWE. Of course, it turned out that he was only joking around, but JBL did not know that at the time.
Once Vince McMahon reassured his future WWE Champion that he could keep his cowboy gimmick, the two men agreed on a deal that saw JBL – then known as Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw – sign for WWE “for virtually no guaranteed money”.
“He [Vince McMahon] threw this contract out there for virtually no guaranteed money and said to me, ‘That contract’s not worth the paper it’s written on. All I can guarantee you is the handshake behind it.’ And that’s all I needed. I could live with that.”
JBL was set to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2020 but the ceremony was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
#6 Vince McMahon fired Daniel Bryan
One of Vince McMahon's most controversial firings came in June 2010 after Daniel Bryan choked ring announcer Justin Roberts with a tie during The Nexus’ RAW invasion.
Speaking on Talk Is Jericho in 2014, Bryan said he had been reassured by some of his fellow WWE Superstars, including The Miz, that the backlash from the incident would blow over.
However, at the end of the week, Bryan received a call from Vince McMahon, who informed him that he was left with little choice but to release him.
“He [Vince McMahon] says, 'I'm sorry we have to do this,' and I say not to feel bad for me, because I'm going to make more money than I've ever had before just based on the independents. I knew that took him aback a little bit."
As it turned out, WWE rehired Bryan two months later and he made his return in the main event of SummerSlam 2010, where he was part of a star-studded group of WWE Superstars who defeated The Nexus in a 7-on-7 elimination match.
#5 Vince McMahon hired Marc Mero (and Sable)
Anybody who listens to Bruce Prichard’s Something to Wrestle With podcast will know that Vince McMahon was a huge fan of a particular WCW performer – Johnny B. Badd – in the 1990s.
The WWE Chairman enjoyed the three-time World Television Champion’s work so much that he agreed to every demand that was thrown at him during contract negotiations in 1996, including a big signing bonus.
Unfortunately for Vince McMahon, the Johnny B. Badd character was unable to be used on WWE programming due to a rights issue with WCW, so his new Superstar was renamed Marc Mero and given a ‘Wildman’ character.
Speaking on Steve Austin’s podcast in 2019, Mero revealed that he also wanted Vince McMahon to pay for his wife to travel around the world with him while he performed for WWE.
Although Vince McMahon agreed to that request, he rejected Mero’s pitch to have his wife support him at ringside as a valet – until, that is, the WWE Chairman realized that his wife was Sable.
“We fly in, and we walk into Vince's office, and he sees her. He goes, 'I've got to put her on television.' And that's how it started.”
Sable, who is now married to Brock Lesnar, went on to have two spells with WWE over the course of five years between 1996 and 2004.
#4 Vince McMahon fired Jeff Jarrett
One of the most memorable nights in the history of the wrestling business came on Monday, March 26, 2001 when Vince McMahon ran a simulcast between RAW and Nitro after completing his purchase of WCW.
This led to the ‘Invasion’ angle in the summer of 2001, with several WCW and ECW stars joining the WWE roster. Jeff Jarrett, however, was not one of them.
As he watched live broadcasts of both RAW and Nitro from the backstage area, Vince McMahon spotted Jarrett on WCW’s show and immediately made it clear that he did not want to work with the former Intercontinental Champion.
“As far as the Jeff Jarretts of the world are concerned, you know how Jeff spells his name: that’s J-E, double F. Well, you know what? I would suspect that we spell it a different way after tonight. That would be capital G, double O, double N, double E. Gone.”
The animosity between the two men stemmed from Jarrett’s WWE contract coming to an end in October 1999, just one day before he was set to defend the Intercontinental Championship against Chyna at No Mercy.
Vince McMahon had to pay Jarrett $300,000 to compete in the No Mercy match, which saw him drop the title to Chyna before departing for WCW.
#3 Vince McMahon hired Sharmell
Booker T achieved a considerable amount of success in WWE after Vince McMahon’s purchase of WCW in 2001.
The two-time Hall of Famer won almost everything there is to win in WWE, including the World Heavyweight Championship, Intercontinental Championship, United States Championship and Tag Team Championship, as well as the 2006 King of the Ring tournament.
However, as he revealed on an episode of his Hall of Fame radio show in 2020, Booker T tried to leave WWE in 2005 following his marriage to Sharmell, but Vince McMahon talked him out of it by agreeing to hire his wife.
“It was like, ‘What the hell, what’s going on? What’s the deal?’ And I was like, ‘Well, you know, I just got married and I don’t wanna end up [with] anything happening.’ And he goes ‘Well, let’s hire Sharmell!’ [laughs] So I’m like, ‘Oh, we get another check?’ [Vince McMahon said] ‘Yeah!’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, I can stick around!’” [H/T 411mania]
Sharmell, who previously worked in the wrestling business with WCW and WWE between 1998 and 2002, returned to WWE as Booker T’s valet in 2005 before joining Impact Wrestling with her husband in 2007.
#2 Vince McMahon fired Buff Bagwell
Former WCW star Buff Bagwell became part of Vince McMahon’s WWE at the start of the ‘Invasion’ angle in the summer of 2001, but the five-time WCW Tag Team Champion's only televised WWE match turned out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.
At the time, an attempt was being made to push WCW as its own brand within WWE. This meant the World Heavyweight Championship match between Booker T and the debuting Bagwell on a July 2001 episode of RAW had WCW branding, WCW commentators and a WCW ring announcer.
WWE fans hijacked the main event with chants of “boring” before Kurt Angle and Steve Austin put them out of their misery by attacking both men in the ring.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet in 2014, Bagwell (real name Marcus Alexander Bagwell) recalled that Vince McMahon made the decision to end his contract shortly after the match with Booker T.
“I walked into a room with Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Johnny Ace [John Laurinaitis] and it took me five minutes to realize I was getting fired. I raised my hand and I said, 'Are y'all firing me?' And Vince says, 'No, Marc, we're not firing, we're releasing you.'”
WWE director Bruce Prichard confirmed on his Something to Wrestle With podcast in 2018 that Bagwell quickly garnered heat due to his behavior backstage, which included a fight with Shane Helms.
#1 Vince McMahon hired Mark Henry
Anybody who has heard Mark Henry’s WWE story will know that he initially hung up on Vince McMahon because he did not believe that the person on the other end of the phone was really the WWE Chairman.
Once Henry realized that he was legitimately speaking to Vince McMahon, he agreed to have a meeting with his future boss in Stamford, Connecticut.
The Olympian explained to WWE's website that he was considering joining an NFL team after representing the USA as a powerlifter at the 1996 Olympics, but Vince McMahon had other ideas.
"He [Vince McMahon] said, ‘Well I want you to think about pro wrestling.’ I was just in shock. I didn’t think it was even possible. I didn’t know how it worked. That’s when we created the first developmental system. It was me and The Rock."
Henry signed a 10-year WWE contract worth $250,000 per year in 1996 and he went on to perform as an in-ring competitor until 2017.
Nowadays, the 2018 WWE Hall of Fame inductee talks about the current product on his Busted Open Radio show, while he has also worked for WWE as a backstage mentor.
