Everyone knows that The WWE is the #1 wrestling promotion on the planet and for a lot of young upcoming wrestlers, their goal is to one day be signed by The WWE.
But for some, once they’ve signed to the WWE and start wrestling for the promotion, they come to realize that not everything that glitters in the WWE is gold, so they try their luck elsewhere like on the indie scene and achieve bigger success on the indie scene than they did in WWE.
Here are top 5 wrestlers who hold personal grudges against The WWE.
1. CM Punk - It’s no secret as to why CM Punk out of all wrestlers holds the biggest grudge against The WWE because of how he was disrespected by the company, especially during his year long reign as WWE champion. Throughout the entire year of 2012, he was deliberately kept out of the main event to make room for Vince’s boys like The Rock and John Cena who he personally saw as not being on his level. Frustrated with how poorly he was being booked, poor medical treatment he received, and the frequent use of part-timers like The Rock, The Undertaker, and Brock Lesnar who he was booked to job out to for no apparent reason, he walked out on the company in January 2014 and was fired on the day on the day of his wedding to A.J. Lee in June of that same year which was clearly no coincidence.
2. Kenny Omega - Kenny Omega is considered by many as one of the best wrestlers in the world today achieving massive success during his time in New Japan Pro Wrestling as a member of the popular stable known as “The Bullet Club” and later “The Elite”. The reason why Kenny Omega has a personal grudge against The WWE because he didn’t like how he was treated when he was at their developmental territory back in 2006 by being creatively stifled and poorly utilized. He has said that The WWE offered him a contract several times in the past only to turn then down each time. He’s shown younger upcoming wrestlers that you don’t need The WWE to have a successful wrestling career.
3. Cody Rhodes - Much like fellow Bullet Club member Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes also holds a very personal grudge against The WWE because they refuse to let him have any sort of creative input while playing Stardust. Cody had the tools to become a big star in The WWE, but The WWE never saw it that way by deliberately keep him down on the midcard which prevented him from reaching his full potential there. The killer came when they gave him a gimmick that he personally hated called “Stardust” which ultimately stifled his creativity. Growing sick of his creativity stifled “Stardust” gimmick, he asked for his release from The WWE in 2016 and has since achieved the biggest success on the indie wrestling scene as well as self-funding the wildly successful indie wrestling show this past year in history with his personal friends in “The Young Bucks” called “All In”. In fact, most recently at Bruce Pritchard’s “Something To Wrestle” live show, Cody Rhodes was asked by a fan if he would ever return to WWE and Cody replied to the fan that he easily turned down their offer to return to the company a few weeks ago.
4. Austin Aires - Austin Aires has been in and out of Impact Wrestling since 2005 and has had the biggest success During his brief and very forgettable stint in The WWE where he was frustrated with being underutilized and booked very poorly, so he went back to Impact Wrestling for the third time in his career and immediately became the Impact World Heavyweight Champion for the second time in his career in Impact Wrestling this year before dropping the belt to Johnny Nitro. He’s also won the Impact World Tag Team Championship and The Impact Grand Championship making him one of only a few grand slam champions in the history of Impact Wrestling. He’s also won multiple titles for various indie wrestling promotions over the years making him one of the most decorated wrestlers in history. It’s safe to say that Austin Aires will never ever return to The WWE.
5. Gail Kim - I remember seeing Gail Kim being the only woman in WWE history to actually win The Women’s Title on her very first night with the company, but this achievement came during The Divas Era where females were only viewed as “eye candy” and not for their talents in the ring. She was badly mistreated and booked as a secondary star to the likes of Lita and Trish in the promotion, so she went to Impact Wrestling and became the very first knockouts Champion which ushered in the women’s revolution that was taking off and then when she came back to WWE for a second time, she was treated like shit so badly and seeing the knockouts division that was becoming hot at the time where the women were treated better, she decided to infamously walk out of the divas battle royal during the August 1, 2011 episode of Raw, went back to Impact Wrestling, and never went back. She also claimed in an interview that Jim Ross had convinced Vince McMahon to hire her because “people were into Asian skin flicks” and if that was insulting enough, despite being so talented in the ring, Gail Kim never truly got the respect or the big push that she truly deserved during her time with The WWE. She achieved the biggest success in Impact Wrestling and she is also in their Hall Of Fame. Her grudge against The WWE is so personal that she easily declined their invitation to make a one-off appearance at this past year’s “Evolution” PPV.
Notable Mentions: Brian Cage, Neville, Scott Steiner, Emma
The Conclusion - One of the biggest misconceptions that some people have about wrestlers nowadays is that “they all wanna go to The WWE”, but in reality not every wrestler wants to go to The WWE because of their concerns of how little they’ll be used and creatively stifled on the main roster.
By Kwame Shakir
