When you’re the largest and most recognizable professional wrestling promotion on the planet Earth, you are inevitably going to burn some bridges. With the huge influx of talent constantly flowing in and out of the WWE, there are bound to be relationships that end on a sour note. Many times, the last fans will hear of such relationships is the now infamous “WWE wishes _____ well in all their future endeavors.”
Sometimes, however, that’s not the case. There have been several noteworthy cases throughout WWE history where a talent took their grievances to the next level, going out of their way to not only burn their bridge with WWE but slap the company in the face afterwards. Not surprisingly, multiple entries on this list involve WCW, WWE’s chief competition in the late 90’s and, to date, the only real organization to ever seriously threaten the WWE’s place atop the wrestling world.
1. Bret Hart leaves for WCW
Probably the most justifiable entry on the list, Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s journey to WCW wasn’t initially intended to be an insult to the WWE. Rather, a longstanding series of backstage issues between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels led to an ill-fated WWF Championship match at Survivor Series 1997.
This match would take place shortly after Vince McMahon himself would encourage Bret to sign with WCW after Hart allegedly began pushing for a very long term contract with an enormous price tag that would have cost the WWF far more than Hart would have brought back in.
The match would end with the infamous “Montreal Screwjob”, which saw Vince McMahon run to the ring and legitimately swerve the ending of the match without telling Bret beforehand, in fear that Hart would take the WWF’s prize possession to the competition to make a statement. Bret’s camp has always argued that he was pushed out of the company against his will, and simply wanted his last match to be a win in front of his fellow countrymen, who considered Bret a “hero”. People on the side of Shawn Michaels and the WWE counter that Bret’s refusal to drop the title, especially on his way out the door, was disrespectful and harmful to the company.
Both sides have valid points and thankfully, many years later, were able to bury the hatchet and resume a friendly, professional relationship. But the way Bret made his way from WWE to WCW will always carry a certain air of disrespect with it, to all parties involved.
2. Alundra Blayze trashes the WWF Women’s Title on Nitro
The reasoning for Vince McMahon’s paranoia over Bret Hart refusing to lose the WWF Championship becomes much clearer when looking back on this infamous moment during the escalation of the Monday Night Wars. WCW had successfully lured away one of the WWF’s most recognizable women’s wrestlers at the time, Alundra Blayze, who left the WWF behind and took her WWF Women’s Title with her.
In a brazen show of disrespect, Blayze appeared on WCW’s flagship show, Monday Nitro, and proceeded to drop the WWF Women’s Championship into a trash can on national television. She would go on to compete in WCW as Medusa and things between her and the WWE remained frigid until just recently, as the two sides made amends and Blayze was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
3. Hulk Hogan leaves for WCW
Of all the talent that WCW successfully wooed away from the WWF, there is no one acquisition that hurt Vince McMahon more, on a personal level, than Hulk Hogan. Hulk Hogan, to many, IS professional wrestling, in that he is the man most people in the world are quickest to associate with the industry.
Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan turned professional wrestling from a tiny, niche, territorial genre to a bonafide pop culture phenomenon. Without each other, it’s quite likely that neither man would have ever experienced the kind of success that they did. Hogan was more than just Vince’s most prized creation. He was also a trusted friend. As the years passed and Hogan’s star began to slowly diminish with age, the relationship between the two got rockier. Seeing the writing on the wall, Hogan would jump ship to WCW and reinvent himself, shedding his red and yellow superhero-like persona to adopt the rebellious character of “Hollywood” Hogan in one of the most infamous heel turns in wrestling history.
4. Jeff Hardy leaves WWE for TNA for the second time
One half of the most prolific tag teams from the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Jeff Hardy has built a legend in the industry all his own for the incredible risks he’s been willing to take and the incredible amount of pain he’s been willing to endure from some of the craziest bumps ever seen.
As beloved as the younger Hardy brother is, his personal struggles are well documented and in April of 2003, he was released as a result of tardiness, sloppy ring work and backstage issues that all stemmed from a combination of burn out and substance abuse. Jeff would go on to compete for TNA Wrestling for a number of years before eventually making his way back to the WWE, enjoying the most prolific singles success of his career by winning both the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships. Unfortunately, Jeff would end up leaving WWE for the more laid back atmosphere of TNA for a second time in January of 2010. While he was given time off from WWE in late 2009 to heal some nagging injuries, it was rumored that he was working on a handshake agreement with WWE, which he would end up breaking by making an unannounced return to TNA.
5. Brock Lesnar vs Bill Goldberg, WrestleMania XX
It’s been called the worst match in WrestleMania history, and it’s a match well deserving of that moniker. In 2004, at WrestleMania XX, a dream match was booked. The greatest destroyer WCW had ever seen would face off with the greatest destroyer WWE had ever seen. On paper, it was a match to be drooled over. Fans fantasized at the carnage they would witness, and were even more hyped when it was announced that the legendary “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was going to be the Special Guest Referee. Unfortunately, word got out not long before the event that both Lesnar and Goldberg were walking away from WWE, with Lesnar wanting to try his hand at pro football and Goldberg being unhappy with the handling of his character in WWE. The notoriously rambunctious Madison Square Garden crowd proceeded to heckle the ever loving hell out of both men for it, cheering and chanting exclusively for Austin, who was doing his best to not be the center of attention, to no avail. In a less than professional response to their reception, Lesnar and Goldberg, for whatever reason, had one of the most lackluster, disappointing, flat out embarrassing matches in WrestleMania history, taking a prolonged amount of time to lock up, phoning in their signature maneuvers and abandoning any pretense of entertainment before Lesnar finally dropped the match to Golberg after a Spear/Jackhammer combination.
Lesnar flipped Austin and the live crowd the double birds, Goldberg drank beers with the Rattlesnake, both men ate Stunners and it would be 8 years before we’d see Brock Lesnar in a WWE ring again.
We’re waiting on you now, Goldberg.
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