YOOUU’RREE FIIIRRRREEEDDD!!

It’s the ultimate punishment in WWE, and long before a certain other WWE Celebrity Hall Of Famer co-opted the phrase, Vince McMahon was slinging it about with virtual abandon when he wanted to put someone in their place. It’s by no means the limit of his punishing powers either, nor is he the only one who can dish them out, with both Triple H and Stephanie able to sling reasonable powers into the fray when someone on the roster steps out of line and needs a correction by way of negative reinforcement. Alongside firings there are suspensions, Vince’s "club", losing the game to Triple H, getting buried by The Undertaker, getting hustled by John Cena and infinite more methods of WWE taking retribution for a wayward wrestler onscreen. Some wrestlers cop it on the chin and are none the worse for it while others never rise as they once did, the punishment sticking to them and forever tainting them either in the eyes of fans or WWE management. You need the latter more than the former to succeed the majority of evidence suggests, so a legitimate punishment in public means you’ve got to pull your head in or its curtains.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Some wrestlers do such stellar work with what they’re given or what they achieve that WWE takes them from their expected route in the company and actively lifts them into a higher stratosphere of exposure. A wrestler is indeed able to change their fortunes through hard work, however it still depends entirely on the McMahon seal of approval if that translates into direct rewards. Here we examine lots of punishments and a few rewards that have been publicly handed down over the years.

25 Reward: Randy Orton - Royal Rumble Win And Title Run

To many people, it was baffling to see Randy Orton win the 2017 Royal Rumble, then go on to WrestleMania 33 to defeat Bray Wyatt for the WWE Championship, when Wyatt had just won his first world championship weeks before at the Elimination Chamber event. Well, reports have suggested there was an underlying reason behind Orton needlessly winning the second Royal Rumble of his career.

Months before at SummerSlam, Orton took a brutal beatdown at the hands of Brock Lesnar, and Lesnar legitimately busted Orton open. Rather than complain to management, Orton was very calm and controlled through the whole situation. McMahon was said to be impressed and rewarded his long-serving veteran with a Rumble win and an eventual title reign beginning at WrestleMania.

24 Punishment: Enzo Amore - Shark Cage

Enzo made plenty of mistakes in and out of WWE before they finally cut him loose, but before his Cruiserweight adventure he was embroiled in a punishment feud with Big Cass and The Big Show that made him look pathetic and incapable. This was deemed necessary to try to humiliate him back into line but when Cass got injured it only ended up being the small bump between his successful tag team and his Cruiserweight Championship glory.

In the punishment feud he was insulted regularly by both faces and heels alike without fail, self-admitted he was ostracized as a matter of pride, and then was shown to be incapable when even if he escaped a shark cage during a match he received a big boot for his troubles. In hindsight WWE probably wishes they'd done more to punish him, but for a good month every Raw seemed dedicated to ritual Enzo humiliation theater.

23 Punishment: Mickie James - Piggy James

A thoroughly distasteful one where John Cena and Vince McMahon essentially tried to humiliate Mickie James for having the gall to feel slighted over her real breakup with Cena. Moving her firstly to Smackdown to separate the pair, they had The Undertaker's girl Michelle McCool and her Laycool partner Layla El spend months commenting on her "weight problem". Considering Mickie was as good looking as ever this felt as sad on it's face as it was beneath the surface. Petty punishment against one of their best women's wrestlers and attacking her weight was a very 'Diva' feud and WWE lived down to that label with this unwatchable series of segments. Mickie got hardly a moment of victory besides a short-lived title win between humiliations and the result was she soon found other employment.

22 Punishment: The Spirit Squad - DX/Sent To OVW

The Spirit Squad were an up-and-coming collection of potential superstars that Vince McMahon decided should have the most annoying gimmick of it's day, completely over-the-top male cheerleaders. There were some good wrestlers among the group too, most notably at the time Kenny Dykstra and in the future Dolph Ziggler. However, when WWE decided it wasn't succeeding the way they'd wanted it to they fed them to D-Generation X in short order. Shawn Michaels and Triple H took their tag team championships, destroyed them in a 5-2 elimination match and then they were literally put in a box and sent back to OVW (WWE's developmental division before NXT) with a sticker slapped to the crate. Not only did this punishment invalidate all the work put into the team's rise, and they'd been all over Raw during their run, but it undercut all of their legitimacy they'd built individually.

21 Reward: The Miz - WWE Champion

The Miz was at one time the most hated and reviled wrestler in WWE by both fans and his peers. He was a massively limited wrestler and so got no fan support and he was also kicked from the WWE locker room for an extended period over a minor infraction. He didn't let any of that stop him though, regaining his fellows trust backstage and displaying a talent for being a thoroughly annoying personality on ECW and then Raw. After several successes that always eclipsed their expectations The Miz won Money In The Bank and when it came tie for someone to share the WrestleMania spotlight with both The Rock and John Cena, The Miz was given the chance. He delivered by tapping into his own insecurity about being overlooked, often outshone both on the mic, and ultimately won his WrestleMania match with Cena. It's a reward The Miz still hangs his hat on today.

20 Punishment: Baron Corbin - MITB Fail/Cena

Last year Baron Corbin was in a roster meeting with WWE's medical head honcho, Dr. Joseph Maroon, and derailed a discussion over concussion protocols in front of management and talent. The disagreement was seen by the higher-ups as a 'wrong-time, wrong-place' engagement by the Lone Wolf and this reportedly led to his subsequent weeks of punishment on television. He achieved the worst attempted Money In The Bank cash-in of all time, losing his briefcase and an almost guaranteed WWE Championship reign in that year.

They followed that up with a John Cena match at SummerSlam '17 where he was unceremoniously outclassed and beaten in short order, furthering the point. While some thought Corbin's actions in the meeting were justified given his proximity to concussion discussion, and even a brave stance given Maroon's seniority, WWE didn't agree and this bad run was the result.

19 Punishment: Mark Henry - Joke Gimmicks

Being punished for someone else's perceived bad decisions is in no way fair, but that's what happened to The World's Strongest Man a long time before he proved his worth with his Hall Of Pain run. Floundering in WWE with gained weight and lack of improvement in his wrestling, WWE outright seemed to be daring Mark Henry to request a release from his lengthy, ill-conceived ten-year contract by trying to embarrass him into quitting. The way they tried to do this was by turning him into a sexual deviant during the Attitude Era, having him date a cross-dressing man, Mae Young, and having her give birth to a hand (it's too stupid to try to explain here).

Essentially, Henry was a continual brunt of jokes that really only amused Vince McMahon and played into out-of-date prejudices that would humiliate WWE today. Henry persevered though, finally making his 'mark' in WWE for positive reasons with his underrated ECW Championship reign and then the excellent Hall Of Pain World Title run. He did indeed have a lot left in the tank.

18 Punishment: Nathan Jones - WrestleMania Write Off

Half punishment and half saving grace, Nathan Jones' lack of skill and waning enjoyment for the travel schedule of WWE had them take away his planned WrestleMania match at the last minute. Jones was a behemoth Australian who looked every bit the McMahon fantasy of a man for his wrestling world. Fans took to him right from his earliest vignettes and promos and for his great entrance theme, but it was all in vein. Jones simply couldn't fit into WWE's enforced lifestyle so when he continued to show negative improvement as his tag team match alongside Undertaker at WrestleMania approached, he was written out of the show on the Sunday Night Heat that aired right beforehand.

He was only allowed a token appearance when he came up the long entryway to spin-kick Big Show and then give a big boot to A-Train before Undertaker finished the match for them. He was gone not long afterwards and it looks like WWE erred on the right side of caution here keeping his involvement to a minimum. He was good in Mad Max: Fury Road though.

17 Reward: Jinder Mahal - Modern Day Maharaja & WWE Champion

When you're in WWE you have to appear to please the fans but you primarily have to please Vince McMahon, Triple H, Stephanie, or all of them together. Evidently that's what Jinder Mahal spent the early part of 2017 doing, drastically changing his body into an impressively intimidating specimen that looked the part of a champion he wanted to be considered as.

By all accounts Jinder is well liked by his coworkers, and works as hard or harder than most, racking up a top tier amount of matches over the course of the year. All those factors together along with WWE's growing desire to see a greater share of Indian fans paying for WWE let Jinder Mahal receive a massive push that resulted in him becoming the most unlikely WWE Champion of all time. Fans may not have enjoyed it, and the Indian market may not have responded well (WWE had to cancel a second show there that tour despite Jinder's new role), but Jinder was rewarded for perceived work, and that's understandable.

16 Punishment: Brock Lesnar - Losing To Cena/Triple H

This one just stank of WWE getting their own back for Lesnar's 2004 walkout from WWE. Returning to huge fanfare and with a new reputation as a world-beating tough guy thanks to his run as UFC Heavyweight Champion, Brock nevertheless had to pay the piper upon his return. WWE had him brutalize John Cena in their match, and yet at the end he was felled by a few moves from Cena amid the chaos of steel objects in the ring, immediately crushing his mystique and giving Cena his umpteenth undeserved win when he should not have gotten it.

From this feud through his Triple H matches the following year where he lost at WrestleMania to The Game, Brock basically spent his first 18 months back in WWE being tested and punished. Not until he proved himself viable and loyal was he given the task of ending The Streak, which returned his aura for the payoff which looks to finally be coming with his impending match at WrestleMania 34.

15 Punishment: Daniel Bryan - Fired/Nerd

Sometimes you can be too good at your job to the point sponsors are uncomfortable with your brutality, and Daniel Bryan crossed two lines he didn't know existed during The Nexus' initial chaotic introduction to prove that fact. First he choked out ring announcer Justin Roberts with his own tie and then when it was his turn to get his licks in on WWE posterboy John Cena he spat in his face before delivering his patented kicks. When he got to the back, Bryan was admonished over both incidents and received a later call that WWE had to let him go due to sponsors' outrage.

Upon his return months later Michael Cole spent months calling him a nerd and a loser as well, but this was more of the same from his NXT days where he got the brunt of the 'anti-indie' vibe WWE had going. So two punishments for things outside of his control, and yet he's still the biggest thing in wrestling, and now that he's announced his return to the ring we're all cheering 'YES! YES! YES!' again. So it all worked out.

14 Punishment: CM Punk - World Title Loss To The Undertaker

CM Punk is someone known to be vehemently independent and individualistic. He marches to the beat of his own drum and his values feature prominently in his makeup. This can work for or against you, as he found out when WWE and specifically The Undertaker wanted him to conform more than he was willing to out of hand. Undertaker confronted him over his attire, stating he should present himself as a World Champion in and out of the ring, meaning he should wear suits and the like in public. Punk rightly pointed out that Cena and others didn't conform to this doctrine, and here his convictions ended with a rebuke.

The Undertaker was promptly scheduled to defeat CM Punk in a strangely quick Hell In A Cell encounter barely more than a month after he wrested the belt from Jeff Hardy in the first place. This did nothing to weaken Punk's convictions for fairness, but it did reek of petty punishment from WWE.

13 Reward: JBL - WWE Champion

A WWE journeyman onscreen and a respected larrikin backstage (and bully, but that's another story), Bradshaw had never sniffed the main events of WWE until he suddenly switched characters to the money-spinning JBL. With Eddie Guerrero having a crisis of confidence in his title reign and SmackDown short on top heels, JBL was rewarded for his consistent years of service with the ultimate opportunity.

With Eddie Guerrero's direct blessing and vouching for JBL, they found a way to get the title onto him so he could see out the year as champion while they built up the rising force that was John Cena. Bradshaw certainly had put in his time with WWE and with his friendship with important roster members like Eddie, Big Show, and The Undertaker, he got rewarded with a chance that he capitalized on.

12 Punishment: William Regal - Demoted From GM

This one's pretty straight forward in reasons for the punishment and the result, but it still goes down as one of the biggest 'what-if's' in WWE history. William Regal had won the right to be the General Manager of Raw and went on to also win the '08 King Of The Ring tournament, giving him the largest push of his WWE career to date. This was reportedly to lead to an eventual World Title where he'd be the first from his country to hold such gold in WWE, but his old demons came back to haunt him.

He received his second strike on the WWE's Wellness Policy, such a violation causing a mandatory 60-day suspension. Regal's storylines were quickly wound up and he was 'fired' to write him off of television. Fans still wonder what could have come from these burgeoning storylines given Regal's skill and the interesting lead-up, but it wasn't to be.

11 Punishment: Jim Ross - Vince's Punching Bag

For some reason Vince McMahon has shown a persistent tendency to belittle and humiliate Jim Ross over the course of his time working in WWE despite his exemplary work behind the commentary table. Jim and Vince did sometimes butt heads during Ross' time as head of Talent Relations, but there's got to be more to it considering the outright cruel ways McMahon singled him out for public ridicule on worldwide television. Ross has had his face shoved into Vince's behind in front of his home state Oklahoma crowd and when Ross went down needing a colonoscopy Vince cooked up a ludicrous segment where he played 'Dr. Heiney' and proceeded to pull dumb objects out of "Jim's" rectum including his own head.

The whole thing is beyond stupid and if it happened today would be one of the lowest things WWE could do, but it happened and is on the network ripe for viewing if you feel like you need a reason to dig out your own eyes with a melon baller.

10 Punishment: Paul Heyman - Vince McMahon As ECW Champion

Sometimes you don't get directly punished, your creation does. Such was the case when Vince finally had enough of Paul Heyman trying to keep ECW within his framework. Paul was let go for myriad reasons which could be punishment enough but the main one according to the man himself was repeatedly challenging Vince's ideas for the new ECW resulting in McMahon taking the advice as criticism and personal attacks. When Paul left after December To Dismember Vince went into full overdrive, crowning his new chosen champion in Bobby Lashley and inserting himself into storylines as the new ECW Champion just to grind that boot into Paul that little bit more. The fact that this coincided with what many believe was the final conclusive death of the original ECW's soul and fans began calling this version 'WWECW' says a lot about the actual gravity of this punishment.

9 Reward: AJ Styles - Beating John Cena/WWE Championship

AJ Styles may have been beloved by most fans prior to WWE, but within the company he was an unknown quantity and had to prove himself. His initial thunderous reaction when he entered the Royal Rumble at number three was considered a fluke or tentative, so he needed more on his resume to be treated as fans hoped he would be. AJ succeeded by having a great feud with Chris Jericho leading into WrestleMania that year, and even though he lost that match he proved to Vince McMahon how good he was.

Subsequently, Vince booked AJ Styles in as Roman's first challenger for the WWE Championship and those matches proved to be the final straw in legitimizing AJ to the boss. Nobody questions the quality of those epic encounters and from then on AJ Styles was promoted as the top level star he is. He had a long feud with Cena resulting in his ultimate victory, and then he dethroned Dean Ambrose at Backlash to claim his first WWE Championship. Rewards don't come much clearer than those.

8 Punishment: Rusev & Lana - Separated And Stomped

Rusev and Lana were embroiled in a mixed gender/relationship feud with Summer Rae and Dolph Ziggler, and while it was mostly fluff and comedy that didn't work (except Rusev and the fish) the storyline went on for months and had plenty of television devoted to it. When TMZ and Lana revealed that behind the scenes she and Rusev had gotten married, in stark contrast to where the story was at on television, WWE pulled the rug out from under the pair pretty quickly. Their engagement was referenced on television and the angle was dropped, along with their momentum. Rusev began appearing on Main Event instead of Raw and suffered losses and Lana separated from his act. He wound up with a bicep injury that took him completely out of action and that spiral all started with his punishment for having a life outside WWE that conflicted with the televised 'reality'.

7 Punishment: Triple H -  Slopped/Losing KOTR

Maybe the most famous punishment in the history of wrestling, Triple H bore the brunt of the infamous 'Curtain Call'. When Diesel and Razor Ramon (aka Kevin Nash and Scott Hall) were set to leave WWE, they hugged it out with real life friends Shawn Michaels and Triple H in Madison Square Garden. This was during the times when such a display of 'out of character' friendship between faces and heels was sacrilege and so Vince was forced to punish someone over it. Nash and Hall were gone, Shawn Michaels was his current posterboy, leaving Triple H to wear the damage.

His scheduled win at King Of The Ring '96 was given to Stone Cold Steve Austin (so in hindsight it was good timing) and he was stuck in feuds with Henry 'O' Godwinn (HOG) a pig farmer who liked throwing slop at the future C.O.O. It was a decent few months before he got out of the doghouse, but you can't say he didn't take it on the chin and move on.

6 Punishment: Roman Reigns - Temporarily Not Owning A Yard

Roman Reigns' ascension to WWE's top tier has progressed largely unchecked as far as Vince McMahon is concerned. The fans be damned he is going to instill Roman as the face of WWE and the posterboy for the coming generation. The only time that future seemed even slightly in doubt was when he failed a Wellness Policy check and received his violation punishment. A month on the sidelines was in order as the mandatory 30 days for a first offense loomed, but he first dropped the WWE Championship to Seth Rollins clean at Money In The Bank.

He then sat on the sidelines until the Shield Triple Threat match which he also was pinned in. He lost clean again to Finn Balor in the finals of the Universal Championship tournament to see who would face Seth for the new belt.

For most wrestlers, losing is part of the job but up until this point Roman had been strictly protected from such treatment so this series was very noticeable as punishment for his indiscretion.