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Saying goodbye is hard to do, but even the brightest WWE careers end. Here's EXACTLY when.
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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. Sure,
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 a
01:13business one. Why would I pay for four guys when I can pay for two? It meant even though the now
01:18Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood were super good to go, they were even more lost on him. I mean,
01:22they were a classic tag team, trying to revive the scene. Hence the name. It meant soon we had
01:27them doing ridiculous stuff like falling over, or having hot stuff put on their crutches. You do
01:33have to give them credit in the sense that the revival always did everything to 100% of their
01:37ability. And there's a reason they wanted to leave. This isn't what they wanted to give back.
01:42Much like before at first, WWE refused this until they were able to get out. And I think this is a
01:47thank goodness too. They're just so good, they deserve the best platform to show it on.
01:528. 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,
02:09who came up with the GTS? The real issue was Kenta had given so much to the industry before he arrived at
02:14NXT that he was pretty beaten up, and some of his matches were brutal. When he did make the jump to
02:18WWE, he then suffered the horrendous shoulder injury that kept him out for a year. Can't pretend
02:24that hasn't played a part in all of this. It has. The two eventually parted ways, and while Kenta is
02:28still having a good run in New Japan, it's not the same guys before. And sadly, that's how the world
02:34works. When you've set your own high expectations, you become under even more scrutiny. You cannot take
02:39anything away from the man, however, because he is a trailblazer and a trendsetter. Basically
02:44responsible for why everybody does kicks today rather than punches. That was Kenta.
02:507. 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 was 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.
03:22Sadly, the 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,
03:36you'll actually see him a lot too. He has done quite well for himself.
03:406. The Bark Gun KO
03:42I'm still mad about this. Gotta get over it. It's just so stupid.
03:47It does go back for the brawl for all, which means we have to discuss that again. Because yes,
03:51in 1998 the WWF thought doing a shoot fighting tournament was a good idea,
03:56even though it told you that the rest of the show was predetermined. So dumb.
04:01Even worse, the hope was Dr. Death Steve Williams would win the thing, and if that's the case,
04:06just work it. Then he definitely will be victorious, but no. We took the risk, and Steve got knocked out,
04:12good grief. But Gun was the guy who smacked him, and all was said and done. He'd also finished off
04:16Bob Holly the Godfather and Bradshaw. And it was quite a good run. Instead of just going with it,
04:21management basically punished Gun too, because he vanished from TV, until he returned at Wrestlemania
04:27to face Butterbean, who yes, was an actual boxer. Guess what happened? Bart got rocked.
04:32It only took about 10 seconds, and the knockout is horrible, and that was that for Gun. 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 our big whoops. When WCW was bought by the WWE, everybody was on tenterhooks,
04:52because we didn't know what was next. That went for the wrestlers too.
04:55Vince 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.
05:06Buff 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. Instantly the powers
05:23that B were worried, and it got even worse when Kurt Angle and Steve Austin ran in to stop this.
05:28It just confirmed everybody's bias. The following week Buff went about causing a right scene backstage,
05:32even no showing an event, when apparently his mother called in to tell WWE. Then he got into
05:37a big old fight with Shane Helms. Hard to know exactly what happened here, but most agree it was
05:42Bagwell's fault. He was let go. It does seem like he had somewhat of an attitude, and as there wasn't many
05:47other options, we didn't really see much of him after this. Who does kind of feel like a wasted
05:52opportunity? 4. Hawk Falls Off The Titantron
05:56This was offensive. I'm not sure there's another way to put it. But Hawk from The Legion of Doom was
06:01going through some very real personal issues at the time. So what did the WWF do? They made it into a
06:07story. I'm not sure that's a good idea. It got so bad in November 1998 as the man in question was
06:13teaming with new LOD partner Droz that yep, due to his addictions and not being balanced,
06:18he climbed up the Titantron. Why did nobody stop him? We even treated this as some sort of must-see
06:23TV as Raw then cut to commercial as manager Paul Ellering begged him not to do it. Then when we did
06:29come back, Droz tried to save him, which somehow resulted in Hawk falling to the floor. This was
06:34horrible, especially because again, the real person was dealing with addiction issues, and now we were
06:39acting like Droz pushed him. Who was this for? It really did mean the story for a while was did
06:44Droz try to kill somebody? Poor Hawk. He never recovered from this, mostly because everyone
06:49should have been trying to support the guy instead. He never really found his momentum again, and even
06:53worse, passed away five years later. We really shouldn't have done this.
06:573. Mark Merrow's Big Contract
06:59So there was a lot of chatter about this. Mick Foley has summed it up many a time. Basically,
07:04Vince 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 wild man, 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
07:42favourite instantly, 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,
07:54and before long, Sable was a megastar. There was no going back.
07:58It was a shame for Merrow, because he still had something to offer, but this was such a shift,
08:02his career basically came to an abrupt halt. Because he is the best dude,
08:06he spent his post-wrestling life trying to help others, and that really is what's important.
08:11All things considered, Mark sounds like a truly awesome guy.
08:142. Muhammad Hassan's Last Ride
08:16If you do want more context about this, go and watch Muhammad 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 the
08:26boundaries 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.
08:36It did feel a bit too heavy for WWE, and yep, there was a reason for that. Simply put, as soon as they
08:41wanted to increase the boos, we just made Muhammad's stereotypical 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. That's terrible. What made it even worse is that WWE aired these the same week
08:57of the 7-7 London bombings, and that was that. Everybody of note told WWE this had to stop.
09:03They were right. It brought us to the Great American Bash, where Sam was already scheduled
09:06to face The Undertaker, and we basically used this PPV as his funeral. Muhammad was chokeslammed
09:11through the stage at the end of it, and it was sold like that was it. He was gone. Over.
09:16He never returned to TV, and while Mark Capani, who played the character, deserved a round 2,
09:20playing somebody who wasn't this controversial, it never ever happened. Instead, he took all the
09:25heat, was released from the company, and unsurprisingly, decided he wanted nothing to
09:29do with the industry anymore. I wonder why. 1. The Public Enemy Get Tabled
09:35The Public Enemy were ECW's most over-team. While a lot of people deserved credit, they were certainly
09:40two guys who helped establish the new wave of wrestling. Rocka Rock and Johnny Grunge were also
09:44big fans of using weapons, and so did so as often as possible. It eventually led them to the WWF,
09:49and let's just say maybe they weren't ready for the backstage environment that awaited them.
09:53It all began in March 1999, where it was going to be the Public Enemy versus the APA.
09:58Rock 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.
10:15You can see it today, and within a few seconds you'll notice this is a real beating at some of
10:19the chair shots. My gosh. Whatever was said, this isn't cool. It is the same with the still steps
10:24too, and 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 their
10:34old stomping grounds, but I don't know. Whatever they had beforehand never returned. These days,
10:40most people just don't want to talk about it. Know any other times where wrestlers' careers
10:44really hit a brick wall? Make sure you let us know in the comments below before you like the video,
10:47share the video, and subscribe. Then make sure you click the video on the screen to get even
10:52more lists so you can increase your wrestling trivia. Thank you very much for joining me,
10:55my friends. I will talk to you again the next time you hit the play button.
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