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From baffling creative decisions to unfortunate events, some wrestling careers come to a screeching halt. Join WhatCulture as we break down the ten precise moments that effectively ended these superstars' careers in WWE.
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00:00Do careers in wrestling really ever end? No, no they don't. That doesn't mean sometimes wrestlers
00:05aren't given the most ridiculous things to do though, which does significantly hurt their
00:08careers. Let's take a step back and look at these things with me. Simon Miller, let's go.
00:14Number 10, Gary the Goat Garbutt. This was so weird. It all happened in 2019 when Roman Reigns
00:20needed a partner to take on Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre. Despite being the guy at the time,
00:25he went and found the local janitor who was indeed called Gary Garbutt. I mean that just
00:31screams of Vince McMahon. Of course this man from nowhere was also a high-flying machine.
00:36This is because behind the mop was indeed Cedric Alexander. He didn't win although when he was
00:41defeated had a smile like, well I almost got him. And look, if that had been a one-off, fine.
00:46Sure,
00:46it's wrestling, have fun. Number 9, Vince McMahon doesn't get the revival. Which is mad really.
00:51The revival in WWE became FTR and AEW. And look what they've done since. They're an all-time tag team.
00:58This was true in NXT as well and was accurate on the main roster. As we just said, Vince McMahon
01:04don't get it. It's likely due to the fact that the then boss wasn't into tag team wrestling ever,
01:08with many a wrestler saying he sort of looked down on it from an old school mentality. Or at least
01:13a
01:13business one. Why would I pay for four guys when I can pay for two? It meant even though the
01:18now
01:18Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood were super good to go, they were even more lost on him. I mean they
01:22were a classic tag team trying to revive the scene, hence the name. It meant soon we had them doing
01:28ridiculous stuff like falling over, or having hot stuff put on their crutches. You do have to give
01:34them credit in the sense that the revival always did everything to 100% of their ability, and there's
01:39a reason they wanted to leave. This isn't what they wanted to give back. Much like before at first,
01:43WWE refused this until they were able to get out. And I think this is a thank goodness too. They're
01:49just so good, they deserve the best platform to show it on. 8. Hideo Itami
01:54This one just didn't work out. It's a shame today, because man, it would have been a different story.
01:59It is important to remember that this was Kenta we are talking about. Somebody who genuinely changed
02:04the wrestling game. A lot of your favourites right now were inspired by this guy. I mean, who came up
02:09with the GTS? The real issue was Kenta had given so much to the industry before he arrived at NXT
02:14that he was pretty beaten up, and some of his matches were brutal. When he did make the jump to
02:19WWE, he then suffered the horrendous shoulder injury that kept him out for a year. I can't
02:24pretend that hasn't played a part in all of this. It has. The two eventually parted ways,
02:28and while Kenta is still having a good run in New Japan, it's not the same guys before. And sadly,
02:33that's how the world works. When you've set your own high expectations, you become under even more
02:38scrutiny. You cannot take anything away from the man, however, because he is a trailblazer and a
02:43trendsetter. Basically responsible for why everybody does kicks today rather than punches.
02:48That was Kenta. 7. Nathan Jones is out of WrestleMania
02:52So this is a true story, but trust me, Nathan Jones wanted nothing to do with wrestling. He
02:57quickly worked out it wasn't for him. I'm not surprised either because he got Vince McMahon'd,
03:02or when the boss saw how big he was, they called him up to the main roster long before he
03:06was ready.
03:07That's never fair. It's basically a death sentence, you only get one shot. To try and get him up to
03:12speed, he was paired with The Undertaker, which was indeed smart. Here was a big man who also had
03:17mad longevity. If you can get any of that magic to rub off on you, you're probably golden. Sadly,
03:22the opposite happened and the planned tag team match at WrestleMania was scrapped with Nathan
03:26doing a run in instead. And then he fell over. Poor boy. The bad experience coupled with the travel
03:32saw Jones leave wrestling entirely and get into movies. You keep an eye out, you'll actually see
03:37him a lot too. He has done quite well for himself. 6. The Bark Gun K.O.
03:43I'm still mad about this. Gotta get over it. It's just so stupid. It does go back for the brawl
03:48for all,
03:48which means we have to discuss that again. Because yes, in 1998, the WWF thought doing a shoot fighting
03:55tournament was a good idea, even though it told you that the rest of the show was predetermined.
04:01So dumb. Even worse, the hope was Dr. Death Steve Williams would win the thing,
04:05and if that's the case, just work it. Then he definitely will be victorious. But no,
04:10we took the risk, and Steve got knocked out. Good grief.
04:13Bart Gunn was the guy who smacked him, and when all was said and done, he'd also finished off Bob
04:17Holly the Godfather and Bradshaw. And it was quite a good run. Instead of just going with it,
04:22management basically punished Gunn too, because he vanished from TV, until he returned at
04:26WrestleMania to face Butterbean, who yes, was an actual boxer. Guess what happened? Bart got rocked.
04:33It only took about 10 seconds, and the knockout is horrible, and that was that for Gunn. He was
04:37never given another chance, and soon was released from the company. So let's never do this again.
04:42Talk about being dealt a bad hand. 5. Buff Bagwell
04:46So this one was a big whoops. When WCW was bought by the WWE,
04:50everybody was on tenterhooks, because we didn't know what was next. That went for the wrestlers too.
04:56Vince McMahon's big original plan was to revive Nitro mostly to prove he was the best,
05:00hence why on the July 2001 episode of Raw, we got a world championship wrestling main event.
05:06It was Buff Bagwell vs Booker T. Now,
05:08immediately this wasn't very good, but the other issue is that the WWF fans crapped all over it,
05:13but of course they did. For years, they had been told that WCW sacked. That was a real kicker.
05:18The match really was actually kind of passable, but this reaction killed it.
05:22Instantly the powers that be were worried, and it got even worse when Kurt Angle and Steve Austin
05:26ran in to stop this. It just confirmed everybody's bias. The following week Buff went about causing a
05:31right scene backstage, even no showing an event, when apparently his mother called in to tell WWE.
05:37Then he got into a big old fight with Shane Helms. Hard to know exactly what happened here,
05:41but most agree it was Bagwell's fault. He was let go. It does seem like he had somewhat of an
05:46attitude, and as there wasn't many other options, we didn't really see much of him after this.
05:50Who does kind of feel like a wasted opportunity?
05:534. Hawk Falls Off The Titantron
05:55This was offensive. I'm not sure there's another way to put it.
05:59But Hawk from the Legion of Doom was going through some very real personal issues at the time.
06:04So what did the WWF do? They made it into a story. I'm not sure that's a good idea.
06:09It got so bad in November 1998 as the man in question was teaming with new LOD partner Droz
06:15that yep, due to his addictions and not being balanced, he climbed up the Titantron. Why did
06:21nobody stop him? We even treated this as some sort of must-see TV as Raw then cut to commercial
06:25as
06:25manager Paul Ellering begged him not to do it. Then when we did come back, Droz tried to save him,
06:30which somehow resulted in Hawk falling to the floor. This was horrible, especially because again,
06:36the real person was dealing with addiction issues, and now we were acting like Droz pushed him.
06:41Who was this for? It really did mean the story for a while was did Droz try to kill somebody?
06:46Poor
06:46Hawk. He never recovered from this, mostly because everyone should have been trying to support the
06:50guy instead. He never really found his momentum again, and even worse, passed away five years
06:55later. We really shouldn't have done this. 3. Mark Merrow's Big Contract
06:59So there was a lot of chatter about this. Mick Foley has summed it up many a time.
07:03Basically, Vince McMahon was a big fan of Mark Merrow, and to get him away from WCW,
07:08offered him a guaranteed contract. These are commonplace today, but in the 90s they didn't
07:13exist in the WWF. When Mick and the likes of Steve Austin found about this, they felt slighted.
07:19They'd also been brought in at a similar time, but there had been no mention of it.
07:23You can't get mad at Mark for accepting, but man, this did not work out. While he was presented as
07:28the
07:28Wildman, the agent era was slowly creeping in, meaning gimmicks like this weren't clicking anymore,
07:34and actually what was clicking was things like his wife. Now that sounds way too crass,
07:38and I don't mean it to, but it's just the truth. Sable at Merrow's side became a fan favorite
07:42instantly, which was the same for The Office. As the audience got younger and younger,
07:46it was basically an attempt to turn it into wrestling's Pamela Anderson. It worked. You
07:50could even say too well because it meant Mark became second fiddle in this pairing, and before
07:54long, Sable was a megastar. There was no going back. It was a shame for Merrow because he still
08:00had something to offer, but this was such a shift, his career basically came to an abrupt halt.
08:05Because he is the best dude, he spent his post-wrestling life trying to help others,
08:08and that really is what's important. All things considered, Mark sounds like a truly awesome guy.
08:142. Mohamed Hassan's Last Ride
08:16If you do want more context about this, go and watch Mohamed Hassan's interview he did with Chris
08:20Van Vliet in 2024. You get the whole story. The short version is WWE just started pushing
08:26the boundaries of more taste because man, this was not good. It didn't start that way as Hassan was
08:31meant to be a somewhat nuanced character that reflected people's own biases back on them. It did feel a bit
08:37too heavy for WWE, and yep, there was a reason for that. Simply put, as soon as they wanted to
08:42increase the boos, we just made Mohamed stare at typical foreign heel, and it was not good.
08:47Then there were those horrible incidences in 2005 which felt like we were trying to do a full-on
08:52terrorist angle. It was terrible. What made it even worse is that WWE aired these the same week of the
08:577-7 London bombings, and that was that. Everybody had no told WWE this had to stop. They were right.
09:04It brought us to the Great American Bash where Sam was already scheduled to face The Undertaker,
09:08and we basically used this pay-per-view as his funeral. Mohamed was chokeslammed through the
09:12stage at the end of it, and it was sold like that was it. He was gone. Over. He never
09:16returned to TV,
09:17and while Mark Capani who played the character deserved a round 2 playing somebody who wasn't
09:21this controversial, it never ever happened. Instead, he took all the heat, was released from the company,
09:26and unsurprisingly, decided he wanted nothing to do with the industry anymore. I wonder why.
09:321. The Public Enemy Get Tabled
09:35The Public Enemy were ECW's most over-team. While a lot of people deserved credit,
09:39they were certainly two guys who helped establish the new wave of wrestling.
09:43Rocka Rock and Johnny Grunge were also big fans of using weapons, and so did so as often as possible.
09:47It eventually led them to the WWF, and let's just say maybe they weren't ready for the backstage
09:52environment that awaited them. It all began in March 1999 where it was going to be the public
09:56enemy versus the APA. Rock and Grunge told Bradshaw and Farouk they didn't want to take a table bump
10:02because that was their gimmick. They'd gone over doing the opposite. Given that they had only just
10:06come through the door, the acolytes couldn't believe these words had come out of their mouth,
10:10so they went out onto Sunday Night Heat and killed these guys. Almost literally. You can see it today,
10:16and within a few seconds you'll notice this is a real beating. Some of the chair shots. My gosh,
10:21whatever was said, this isn't cool. It is the same with the still steps too,
10:25and by the end, it looked like we'd witnessed an actual war. As soon as word got back to management,
10:29public enemy were totally screwed, and yeah, they were let go. They did sort of carry on back in
10:34their old stomping grounds, but I don't know. Whatever they had beforehand never returned.
10:39These days, most people just don't want to talk about it.
10:42Not many other times where wrestlers careers really hit a brick wall? Make sure you let us know in the
10:46comments below before you like the video, share the video, and subscribe. Then make sure you click the
10:50video on the screen to get even more lists so you can increase your wrestling trivia.
10:54Thank you very much for joining me, my friends. I'll talk to you again the next time you hit the
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10:59button.
10:59I'll talk to you again the next time.
10:59I'll talk to you again the next time.
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