Vince McMahon has a weird relationship with his wrestlers. There are some that he treats like his own child and even lets them slip up at times. But if someone rubs him the wrong way, their career comes into jeopardy. This has happened with numerous stars over the years.
One moment, they were riding high with great storylines one after another, but suddenly, they fall from grace. In most cases, this happens because McMahon is upset with that talent. As their punishment, they sometimes get taken off television and lose all of their momentum. The following are wrestlers who faced similar consequences from Vinnie Mac.
10 Zelina Vega
In 2020, WWE banned wrestlers from using third-party services (such as Twitch and Cameo), taking away potential additional income from the wrestlers. This was a controversial topic for a while around that time. Like many wrestlers, Zelina Vega wasn't happy with this policy. In retaliation, she opened up an OnlyFans account and got fired as a result. WWE did later apologize to her though.
9 Triple H
The Curtain Call incident took place on May 19, 1996, in Madison Square Garden. Following Shawn Michaels vs Diesel in the main event, Razor Ramon would come to the ring and Triple H would soon follow suit. The four men would then hug each other, do the "too sweet" hand gesture, and raise each other's hands in the air. At the time, HBK and Razor were babyfaces while Helmsley and Diesel were heels.
Diesel and Ramon were leaving WWE, so they couldn't be punished. Shawn was the WWE Champion, so he got away with it as well. But Triple H didn't have a champion's advantage. Vince punished Triple H by giving his King of the Ring 1996 victory to Steve Austin.
8 Sasha Banks & Naomi
Before a Raw in May 2022, Sasha Banks and Naomi walked out on the company, leaving with Women's Tag Team Titles in John Laurinatis' office. WWE didn't like this move, so they punished both wrestlers in multiple ways. They stripped them of their titles, edited them out of WWE's intros, and removed their merch on WWE Shop.
7 Lana & Rusev
On Chris Jericho's Talk is Jericho podcast, Lana opened up about her engagement to Rusev in 2015. At that time, both Lana and Rusev were working against each other in the storyline. On TV, Lana was supposed to be romantically involved with Dolph Ziggler while Rusev was linked to Summer Rae. After TMZ reported about their engagement, WWE abruptly ended this storyline. Before the news story broke, Rae had proposed to Rusev on the then most recent episode of Raw, only for Rusev to deny Summer because he was without a championship around his waist.
WWE blamed Lana for leaking her engagement picture and ruining their plans. They punished her for months by taking her off the television. Rusev lost clean to Ryback on the very next episode of Raw following the TMZ story. After the match, Summer Rae gave Rusev a verbal dressing-down before slapping him in the face.
6 Batista
In November 2008, Batista defended his World Heavyweight Championship against Chris Jericho inside a steel cage. WWE had a "no blood" policy at that time but Batista wanted to shed some blood.
During the match, he bladed himself and this made Vince furious. Later, Batista was fined $100,000 for this mistake, and Jericho (along with Mike Chioda and Dean Malenko) was fined $5,000.
5 Sami Zayn
During the early days of COVID-19, WWE was only using necessary talent on television. Many wrestlers were scared to come to work, due to the risk of being infected with the virus. Sami Zayn was one of the stars who chose to stay at home instead of coming for WWE tapings. He was the Intercontinental Champion at that time, and as his punishment, he got stripped of his title. A tournament was held for the title, which AJ Styles won.
4 Cedric Alexander
Last year, Kurt Angle revealed that Vince McMahon punished Cedric Alexander for around six months because he refused to do a task McMahon had given him. While Angle didn't know what Alexander had refused to do, he believed that Cedric shouldn't have said no. Eventually, he received another chance from Vince.
3 The Godfather
The Godfather once questioned Vince McMahon about his character not being on television. McMahon explained to him that "sometimes it’s better not to be on TV than it is to be on TV." But The Godfather didn't listen to him, so McMahon eventually agreed to put him on television. He was booked against Triple H, and as a form of his punishment for questioning Vince, The Godfather lost the match in a minute.
2 Bray Wyatt
On The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, the AEW wrestler recently talked about the relationship between Vince McMahon and Bray Wyatt. Hardy said that Vince looked at him like a son. So whenever he liked one of Bray's ideas, he would do everything in his power to accommodate him. But if Wyatt pitched something McMahon didn't like, then he would be insulted and punished.
1 Dawn Marie
Dawn Marie worked for WWE from 2002 to 2005. She was written off of weekly TV when she got pregnant. WWE told her that having a baby won't negatively affect her career, but sometime later, they punished her by firing her. This resulted in Marie suing WWE for wrongful termination. The lawsuit eventually ended in a settlement.