WWE and WCW stars who believed their own hype to the point that it ruined them.
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00:00 We've all got an ego, and in fact you need a solid one if you do want to make it in wrestling.
00:04 You've gotta believe you're the hot shib if you want to get to the top,
00:07 and many a performer has said exactly this. There is also a limit to this though,
00:12 and if you lose sight of where your brain is at, well you're gonna screw yourself.
00:16 So I am sorry for what culture, remember to always treat others how you want to be treated,
00:20 and hit the subscribe button, as this is 10 times egos, cost wrestlers everything.
00:25 10. Buff Bagwell Throws His Weight Around
00:28 We shall start off by saying there's always two sides to every story,
00:32 but these have all been backed up by multiple sources. Doesn't mean they're true,
00:35 but sometimes there's no smoke without fire.
00:38 So when the WWF bought out WCW in 2001, the big question was who was going to be brought
00:44 into the company. One such star was Buff Bagwell, who lasted about two months. Yep.
00:49 After a match so poorly received against Booker T on Raw it scrapped all of Vince McMahon's
00:53 World Championship Wrestling plans, Jim Ross of all people started getting phone calls from
00:57 an upset Judy Bagwell, or Buff's mum. She had made her way down from a forklift and decided
01:02 to tell the powers that be that she didn't like how her son was being treated, and this was a
01:08 really really stupid idea. You'd have to imagine this came from Buff as he assumed he would be
01:12 brought in as the man from day one, so when he wasn't, he wasn't happy. Apparently JR received
01:17 a bunch of these too, and unsurprisingly got so fed up with it, just decided to let Bagwell go.
01:22 And you can't blame him. What kind of way is this to conduct business when you've just started at a
01:26 company? Whoops. 9. Jean-Pierre Lafitte Says No
01:30 Sometimes you've just got to accept your lot. You may not have been selected to be the World
01:35 Champion, but that doesn't mean you can't make a difference. You still made it to the big time
01:39 and you're on TV wrestling, that counts for something. I don't think Jean-Pierre Lafitte
01:43 saw it that way in 1995. For you see, when he arrived for a house show in Canada and was told
01:48 he'd been losing to Diesel, he said he wasn't going to do it. Jean felt like his hometown
01:53 crowd would riot if this happened, and when Shawn Michaels found out, he told his friend not to go
01:59 easy on this guy. And although the first match did end in a double countout, 24 hours later Lafitte
02:04 was told he was getting pinned whether he liked it or not. Pierre still wasn't happy, so he was
02:08 let go in November 1995, mostly because by then he had made an enemy of the clique, and man,
02:14 you did not want to do that in the mid-90s. No one won that war. Quite literally no one.
02:19 8. Dr. Death Believes in Dr. Death Ego may be a little strong with this one,
02:23 but Dr. Death and WWE still dropped the ball with this. I mean, what were they thinking?
02:28 Because when Steve Williams joined the World Wrestling Federation in 1998,
02:32 he was likely on the back end of his run. That's fine, because he could still go,
02:36 and as he had a big fan in Jim Ross, a sizeable push made sense. If it worked,
02:40 he could go one-on-one with Steve Austin before moving on to something else, that's fine, yeah,
02:44 cool. Instead, somebody decided that Dr. Death could definitely beat up everybody for real,
02:49 so they threw him in the very legit Brawl for All tournament. I mean,
02:52 they were just asking for it. It started badly, because he took on our new favourite Jean Pierre
02:57 and scraped by, and then got absolutely wrecked by Bart Gunn. Now fair play to Bart, but he was
03:03 being presented as nothing at the time, so when he KO'd Williams, that was that, nobody was ever
03:08 gonna buy this guy against the Rattlesnake. So you'd have to assume the Doctor brought into
03:12 his own hype, which he should have done, but not in a real fight. Even if you are better,
03:16 it only ever takes one lucky punch, and this stopped his WWF run dead. So, so dumb.
03:22 7. The Dynamite Kid Won't Relent
03:25 It has been well documented that the Dynamite Kid wasn't hugely liked backstage during his 1980s
03:30 WWF run. He would perform a lot of pranks and seemingly straight up bully some people,
03:34 as he would often do in the ring. There is no denying, however, that he was a pioneer when
03:38 it came to wrestling, but his decision to continue his hard-hitting and flying ways,
03:42 even after Doctors told him wasn't the best plan, was ultimately his undoing. Years on,
03:47 he was wheelchair bound as he had given so much of himself to the sport,
03:50 and you can kind of understand why he didn't want to slow down. He was getting rave reviews all over
03:55 the place, and as a smaller guy in the land of the giants, had to do something in order to stand out.
03:59 It really did do a number on him though, which was horrible to see, and you'd have to imagine
04:04 while ego was pushing him forward, so was fear. What could he offer if it wasn't for this lightning
04:09 quick style? A very tragic story, Dynamite would pass away in 2018 at only 60 years old.
04:16 6. Vince Russo Runs Wild
04:18 Vince Russo had some good ideas. You do not become Vince McMahon's right hand man by accident,
04:23 and he deserved his Attitude Era praise. The real problem was when he went to WCW,
04:28 and was allowed to go nuts in 2000. You can see this for yourself right now by watching
04:33 it on the WWE Network, and seriously, he is out of control. Every episode of Nitro and
04:38 Thunder was like a car wreck, with stories making no sense, wrestlers jumping from heel to face on
04:42 a whim, and no DQ matches that ended in a DQ, I am not kidding. It was a major reason TV ratings
04:49 sank, and rather than realise what he was doing wasn't working, he just did it more, especially
04:54 that nonsense that bashed The Beach. I mean, we've already made a "Judy Bagwell on a forklift" joke
04:59 in this video, and that was down to Russo, as was Viagra on a pole, and I still cannot believe any
05:05 of this went down. If he had just allowed somebody else to steer him in a different direction, all of
05:09 this could have been fine, but I tell ya, it most definitely was not. 5. Ted DiBiase Lives the
05:15 Gimmick In Ted DiBiase's 2009 book, he goes in when it comes to his career. He talks about his
05:21 womanising, drinking and general behaviour as the high rolling million dollar man, that almost cost
05:26 him his marriage. In short, Ted actually started to think he was an untouchable rich top heel,
05:31 and when his wife presented him with some not so nice facts, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
05:35 He would be the first to admit he had lost touch with reality, and in 1993 this came to a head.
05:40 Desperate to sort it, DiBiase walked away from the industry and basically quit full time,
05:45 as he tried to rectify what he'd done. You can see how this would happen though.
05:49 Vince McMahon wanted the audience to believe he was a millionaire, so would fly him with cash,
05:53 and make sure he was always seen living the life of luxury. That got in his head and poof,
05:58 you are away with the fairies and you have no idea what reality is anymore.
06:02 It is a genuine risk of being a wrestler, that line gets blurred.
06:06 China Wants Stone Cold Money
06:08 I throw this one into the shades of grey category too, because I think you can argue it. But after
06:13 China had been through the personal ringer following the revelations that her beau Triple
06:17 H had been seeing Stephanie McMahon behind her back, she was not happy, because of course she
06:21 wasn't, who would be, she was but human. As her contract was coming due, as well as the fact she
06:26 was a huge star, the real life Joni Lawler asked Jim Ross for a bump of pay rise, one that Ross
06:31 compared to Stone Cold Money. There was no way Jim could sort that as Austin at the time was
06:35 breaking box office records, but did agree to try and increase her pay. Sadly that wasn't good
06:40 enough. China felt like she was a pivotal part of the company, which she was, and if she didn't get
06:45 what she felt she deserved, she would be done. It never happened, and the two walked away from each
06:50 other. It's only fair to say there are plenty of stories that the 9th Wonder of the World was also
06:53 pitching to leave women's wrestling behind altogether and exclusively take on guys, which
06:57 is also not an option. It's just such a shame given her contributions to the industry that the
07:01 pair never worked together again. It really should have happened.
07:04 3. Bret Hart - Canadian Hero
07:07 We all know the deal with the Montreal Screwjob and that Bret Hart got dealt a horrible hand.
07:11 For the sake of balance though, some do take the side of Vince McMahon and friends because
07:15 they believe no matter what, the Hitman should have done what the boss was asking for.
07:19 He definitely didn't. The reason for the Hitman's decision are plentiful,
07:23 and the major one seems to be the fact that Shawn Michaels looked Hart in the eye,
07:26 and said he would never lose to him, so why would Bret return the favour?
07:30 So you have to say the ego was involved here, because how could it not be? If somebody is
07:34 taking shots at you, you're gonna take some back. It's also fair to say Bret got in his own head a
07:38 little bit about this, which is the old ego again, but I think with the power of hindsight,
07:43 anybody could have understood his predicament. It'd have been a WWF rollercoaster for a solid
07:47 year where he didn't know whether he was coming or going. Really, it just would have been for the
07:52 best if none of this had ever taken place. 2. The Ultimate Warrior Is Business
07:56 The amount of fallings out between The Ultimate Warrior and Vince McMahon is legendary. They
08:00 could never get on for more than a few months when The Warrior would want more money, or there'd be a
08:04 disagreement about dates. It just did not work. When it was time to shake hands again in 1996,
08:10 this got even more weird, because the former Jim Helwig wanted a comic book he created to
08:14 be included in the deal. I mean, who has ever said that in a sentence? Plus he wanted the WWF
08:20 to sell them for him. The Ultimate Warrior also felt like he was being screwed on merch payouts,
08:24 and after he no-showed a bunch of events, he was out the door once more. As JR put it on his
08:29 podcast, "The man would just not meet anybody in the middle." It's why The Warrior's time in the
08:34 promotion is relatively short all things considered, they just fell out constantly.
08:39 1. Shane McMahon Rebooks The Raw Rumble
08:41 So as ever, let's take this one with a pinch of salt, but look, whatever happened,
08:45 it did cancel Shane McMahon's WrestleMania plans, so something went down, and it was not good.
08:50 The word was that during the 2022 Raw Rumble, Shane McMahon tried to rebook the whole thing
08:55 to benefit his own agenda. Okay then. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way as he shunned other
09:00 stories for his own benefit, and even him entering at number 28 was an error. This was meant to be
09:05 Randy Orton's spot, who was reportedly in hysterics about this, as he yelled at Shane to get out there
09:09 because there was no way he was going to go to the ring to here comes the money. Fans were also
09:13 confused when McMahon outboxed former MMA fighter Matt Riddle, and he threw Kevin Owens out the
09:18 match. There were even stories that said he wasn't overly cool about being eliminated by Brock Lesnar.
09:24 What is going on? It certainly sounded like Shane wanted to win the thing, even though that would
09:28 have ruined the man. The internet would have been after him, but I suppose if you are this far lost,
09:32 you wouldn't care anyway. Soon after this, he was told to go home, and given that Vince McMahon on
09:36 the Pat McAfee show said he was disappointed with some family members, well none of this sounds
09:41 very good at all. Know of any other times that egos cost wrestlers everything? Make sure you
09:45 let us know in the comments below, and don't forget to like the video, share the video,
09:48 and subscribe. And head over to whatculture.com where you can read articles like this with your
09:52 eyes. Make sure you click another video, and you know we're on social media, why not come say hello?
09:58 My name is Simon from WhatCulture, thank you for joining me as always,
10:00 and my ego is so big I can't get it in a hood, I don't even know what that means.