Being a wrestler is an intense occupation. You’re on the road for 300 days a year, travelling, spending time with the same people day in day out. Then, on top of that, there are the overseas tours. All in all, you’re going to be stressed, tired and hurt. That just comes with the job.
With all this weighing down on the talent, it’s fair to say the odd lash out would be, if not acceptable, kind of expected. Silly spats that are over as soon as they’ve begun and everyone gets on with their lives.
However, there are some Superstars who just can’t seem to keep their anger under control and end up in backstage scuffles, creating social media embarrassment and causing a negative impact on the company, its employees and themselves.
Egos can also play a massive part and with dirt sheets as prevalent as ever in the world of wrestling journalism, a lot of what goes on backstage makes its way to the public eye. With the prominence of social media, it’s even easier to see when a Superstar is developing an anger problem.
This article will take you through 10 wrestlers that are in desperate need of anger management classes and why. I would strongly advise against creating beef with any of these Superstars as they are known to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat…
Honourable mention: Vince McMahon
If I had a dollar every time I read an article about Vince McMahon losing his mind over something I’d be as rich as he is. He gets an honourable mention here because he’s not strictly a WWE wrestler but more of an occasional on-screen talent.
However, it’s still well known that despite the number of people Vince hires, he is still the top dog and has the final decision over everything that goes on the broadcast. If anything goes wrong, though, you’re going to know about it.
Most recently, Vince has been reported to have been fuming at the crowd reaction to Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman as it resulted in a “Goldberg Sucks” chant, despite the WWE creative team working towards Goldberg being a face.
And that’s just one example. We’d never get to the rest of the article if I listed every moment Vince has been irate, but he has been known to be irritated by botched moves, crowd reactions, Superstar conduct and even breaking kayfabe. Yes, breaking kayfabe. In 2016.
Get to anger management Vince!
#1. Sin Cara
Sin Cara had to be on this list, as he is living it at the moment. After a recent scuffle with Chris Jericho on the most recent European tour, he is now being forced into anger management classes by WWE.
This makes it three incidents over the past few years that Sin Cara (formerly known as Hunico) has been involved in. The first came with Sheamus as the two got into a scuffle backstage, reportedly over the trainer’s table. Sin Cara was said to have got the better of this exchange. The second came with Simon Gotch of the Vaudevillains a little more recently. It is said that this fight was very one-sided in Sin Cara’s favour too.
The most recent included Chris Jericho and many sites reported that he was knocked out by Sin Cara. However, Chris Jericho himself dispelled this rumour over Twitter. However, looking at Sin Cara’s track record of his previous encounters with much bigger wrestlers, he’s always come out on top, so it wouldn’t be completely unbelievable if he did cause some damage to Y2J.
Nevertheless, three incidents in as many years are alarming signs and there’s only one thing for it…
Get to anger management Sin Cara!
#2. Adam Rose
Adam Rose was portrayed as a fun loving guy who just liked to suck lollipops, party and have a good time. However, outside the ring, it’s quite different as he was allegedly involved in a marital dispute that got so out of hand, the police were called and he was arrested.
Having been suspended by the WWE Talent Wellness policy already when this happened, it can only be assumed that his ultimate release was a combination of this and the anger shown towards his spouse on the night he was apprehended. He allegedly grabbed her face while screaming and shouting which of course, is not acceptable. It also doesn’t reflect well on a global company like WWE.
It has since been reported that they managed to sort out their differences and Adam Rose himself said law enforcement got involved a little quicker than they maybe should have done. However, that’s no excuse for flying off the handle.
Get to anger management Adam!
#3. Bo Dallas
Drinking was a massive part of the culture of a wrestler back in the olden days, with many a story from legends occurring in a bar and hundreds of bottles of beer being drunk by the big men such as Andre the Giant.
However, with the wrestling landscape changing, drinking is generally not the best thing to do, especially given the unbelievable media exposure Superstars get nowadays and how easy it is for a viral video to spread.
Bo Dallas managed to get himself in a drunken stupor at an airport before a flight to Mexico and got angry on the plane, yelling at the aeroplane staff. He was duly booted off the flight and arrested shortly after. However, he was cooperative with the cops, which goes to show the sudden burst of anger from Bo on the plane was probably just a minor hiccup. We’ve all been there, right?
Bo-lieve in anger management!
#4. Paige
Oh dear. What a disastrous year Paige has had. It’s a great shame really as when she was in NXT, I thought she would be doing what Charlotte is now – dominating the Divas division. However, a series of unfortunate events and she’s now nursing an injury.
Though her run hasn’t been successful, I can’t help but think that she brought some of this on herself. Firstly, she got into a relationship with Alberto Del Rio. This allegedly did not sit well with management and they tried to split them up, by allocating them to different brands using the draft as an excuse.
Paige was then suspended, twice, for taking substances banned by the Talent Wellness policy and it’s at this point, she lost her mind and went on a good old fashioned Twitter tirade.
She was that angry, she swore, despite the PG image WWE promotes, and was clearly asked to take the offending tweet down. She did do, but reposted, merely censoring the curse word. She must have been pretty angry to risk her career. WWE even had to release a statement refuting the claim that she was suspended for something prescribed.
Get to anger management Paige!
#5. Brock Lesnar
Brock Lesnar is well known to not like people or...well, anything quite frankly. Naturally, it figures a fella with that sort of attitude would be pretty angry. Let us not forget he is a legitimate fighter, having been UFC Champion at one time.
However, he really needs to contain his anger in the ring. In nearly every match he has, the other wrestler ends up legitimately injured. I think the biggest example of this has to be from SummerSlam 2016 where a wild elbow, thrown in what seemed like a fit of rage, connected with the Viper’s head.
Brock seems to tap into that zone when competing in the WWE ring and though it gives an air of realism to his matches, it can be quite dangerous.
And before you shower the heat at me, saying this was supposed to happen, there was also an incident when he made his return to WWE and carried the championship. He had a blazing row with Vince McMahon over wanting to appear at a UFC event to discuss contracts for a return. People backstage were apparently very worried for Vince as things got very heated.
I feel there’s only one way to mend iit…
Get to anger management Brock!
#6. Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho just made the list! He has been involved in many backstage fights and arguments over the years but two spring to mind that have happened quite recently.
He had a backstage fight with Sin Cara – which as mentioned earlier in the article – ended in forgettable fashion for him. And as a veteran, it could be argued that he should have let cooler heads prevail and avoided a bust-up with the luchador.
However, there was also an incident with The Beast, Brock Lesnar, for his conduct in the ring with Randy Orton. Again, this has been mentioned earlier in the article. Brock Lesnar left Randy Orton in a pool of his own blood at SummerSlam 2016 and this did not sit well with Jericho, who confronted The Beast in the back after the match.
A heated exchange followed with Chris Jericho squaring up to Lesnar accusing him of being unsafe with Orton. In what could have ended in an ugly fight, Jericho and Lesnar were split up by the boss, Vince McMahon. He stepped in and told Jericho it was a work in a bid to calm him down. Whether this was true or not is down to interpretation.
Get to anger management Jericho!
#7. Sheamus
Sheamus apparently has quite the ego backstage which doesn’t work well when combined with anger. It’s even worse when rooming with another fella that doesn’t take kindly to being treated like a second-class citizen.
An incident occurred when Sheamus was sharing a living space with Yoshi Tatsu. I’ve spoken about egos that a handful of Superstars have and Sheamus thought he was too good to wash out protein shakers due to his being a little inflated. When Tatsu confronted the Celtic Warrior about this, he was met by a flying protein shaker thrown by the former WWE Champion.
A scuffle followed and as the trend is in this article, the apparent underdog won and managed to beat Sheamus due to previous real fight training Yoshi Tatsu had endured. It’s Sheamus’ anger and ego that caused this argument and fight which can only mean one thing…
Get to anger management Sheamus!
#8. Goldberg
Goldberg is one of the most intense superstars the wrestling world has ever seen. He went on a 173 match winning streak and also beat Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania XX. I certainly wouldn’t want to make him angry.
Nevertheless, this did not seem to stop Jericho. Back in WCW, the two superstars already had some beef due to Goldberg not wanting to work with Jericho because he was from a smaller crop. When he came to the WWE, the two revived this rivalry and rage got the better of Goldberg as he wrapped his goliath hands around the neck of Jericho.
I bet you can’t guess what happened next.
Jericho took Goldberg down and put him in a front facelock and tried to calm him down despite being attacked. Goldberg got free but Jericho got the better of him a second time. It ended with an exchange of insults with Goldberg allegedly calling Jericho’s mother quite a derogatory name. Anger can do strange things to a man.
Get to anger management Goldberg!
#9. Ric Flair
The stylin', profilin', limousine riding, jet flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin' n' dealin' son of a gun can be quite an angry person at times. You only have to watch an episode of Swerved to figure that one out. Unfortunately, there isn’t a clip I can put here but if you go to the WWE Network, it comes in the second season.
He is told he can’t come in by the security guard on the door – one of the oldest ribs in the book. The security guard pretends not to know the man and this just incenses Ric Flair even more than he already is. He starts to shout and gives the security guard quite a lot of lip before storming off down the road.
Charlotte, quite clearly aware of her Father’s unstable temper, can’t hold back laughter as the legend literally gets so far away from the camera that’s filming, she has to shout and run after him.
He’s also had several run-ins with the law including a road rage incident in 2005 where he allegedly grabbed another driver by the throat and dented his car by booting it.
Get to anger management Flair! Woo!
#10. Randy Orton
The Viper Randy Orton is known for his anger in and outside of the ring. I believe he is a lot calmer now he is a veteran of the game and it appears that he is now on his best behaviour having matured over the years into the Superstar we know today.
However, a few years ago, he was involved in a few incidents that will tarnish his legacy for those who follow the dirt sheets for news of this nature. It begins with one that’s a bit personal to me. In 2008, Kofi Kingston went on a mega-push and it was the episode of Raw in Madison Square Garden where Kofi put Orton through a table that actually got me back into wrestling after a 6-year hiatus.
However, Kofi botched the ending of one of their matches on the flagship show which angered Orton to the point that he went to management and put a stop to the push Kofi had been getting, most likely advising that he wasn’t ready for that level. His anger at the botched finish is clear to see when he shouts at Kofi and admonishes him for being ‘stupid’.
Outside the ring, he was once reported to have been sent home from a European tour due to trashing his hotel room. You’re not ‘The Who’ Orton.
Get to anger management Randy!
Anger is one letter short of danger
There you have it, 10 superstars that should take a visit to Dr. Shelby or some other form of anger management class. They all have their anger issues and I certainly wouldn’t put them in the same group if they were to go for some counselling. As you can see from the list, a lot of these anger outbursts ended in fists flying!
Combine this anger with people who know how to fight and wrestle and you have yourself a big problem! It’s never nice to hear of backstage incidents like this as juicy as they may sound as ultimately, the decisions made by these wrestlers whether it be through anger or not, hurts the product and the overall image of the WWE. But most of all, it hurts the careers of these men that put their lives on the line for our enjoyment every day.
Who do you think needs to be booked into anger management classes? Leave a comment and let’s discuss!
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