Biggest asshole in wrestling?

[Caliber]

If you had to pick who the biggest asshole in the history of wrestling is, who would you go with? I'm not talking kayfabe, I'm talking real life.

For me, I'd have to go with Triple H. He's been a prick his entire run and has had NUMEROUS instances of such.

- Being the leader against Jericho when he first got there. Saying on national TV that Jericho can't work, and then having the run he had from 2003-2006
- The shit with Booker T
- Insisting he could get a great match out of Steiner and forcing people to watch TWO PPV main events.
- awarding himself the title
- doing things like talking about how Chris Masters lost 45lbs in 6 weeks, on TV. Despite the fact it's been obvious that Triple H has been on a ton of PEDs [performance enhancing drugs]
- having himself beat Brock Lesnar at the biggest show of the year
- having his good buddy Kevin Nash headline THREE ppvs with him when there were numerous others would deserved the spot
- turning the Summer of Punk into a match with him and Nash

and I'm sure there are countless other incidents I'm forgetting.

[ucladavid]

Anyone who is on top has been a bit of asshole. Flair held people down in the 80s like Luger. Hogan held lots of people down (heck he basically didn't lose cleanly for like 10 years excluding WM 6).

For top choice has to be Vincent K. McMahon:
Was WWECW champion
Was WWF champion
held lots of people down
refused to hire or push people for petty reasons (Zack Ryder is the best example)
the whole Invasion thing (WWF can't look bad and ever lose to WCW)

[scottyflamingo]

Hogan is Hogan. He's such a parody of himself at this point it is hard to consider him an asshole. He put over Warrior too.

Trips has never done anything to make me warm up to him. Someone like Nash is an asshole, but you just can't completely hate him because he's got a cool personality. HHH doesn't even have that going for him. You can apply any criticism of Hogan to him. The big difference is that Hogan was making everyone rich while HHH couldn't keep the company hot after Austin and Rock left (If he was "that damn good" we wouldn't see the ratings back to where they were before the Monday Night Wars).

Vince, yeah, major asshole. Has flushed away more money on petty shit than anyone I can think of. Brings in Dusty Rhodes and makes him wear polka dots and stay in the midcard (and yet Dusty still got over). He also is ashamed of wrestling and has tried and failed over and over to make something else his legacy (WBF, Icopro, XFL, WWE Films).

I would also toss JBL on the list. Huge backstage bully from what I've read. Oh and Bob Holly. STILL hate that guy for shooting on Matt Cappatelli on Tough Enough.

[Caliber]

What was Vince's reason for holding down Zack? I never found that out and it's always pissed me off.

Man, one of these days I'd like to compile a list of wrestlers who quit the business because of the bullshit Vince put them through. I know one of the Spirit Squad quit. Cornette was talking about him.

And yeah, Hogan may have pulled some bullshit, but he would have never gone on TV and made a joke about it, or tried to embarrass someone.

[parallax1978]

Bob Holly is up there. As much as I don't like Brock Lesnar it is one of my favorite non kayfabe moments when Holly was dumb enough to try and sandbag the musclebound freak with the known bad attitude and legitimate fighting background and Brock just dumping him on his head and breaking his neck. It was justice for all of the rookies Holly had stiffed in the past.

[scottyflamingo]

There is no "official" reason for Vince burying Ryder but I believe it has a lot to do with him daring to go outside the WWE machine to get fan support. Vince is a control freak and has a habit of going against a trend that is not created by him.

Hell even with Punk he basically got him to sign and comeback and then returned him to his "role" as a second banana heel to Cena within a year. Know your place with Vince.

[Caliber]

Something I don't get....

I was reading an article with John Cena in Men's Fitness, and they did word associations with names. When they said Vince, he said "my hero". Now, I've also heard guys like Mick Foley say close to the same thing. If Vince is such a God-awful man, how come some of the nicest people in the business really admire & respect him?

Also, what did Punk mean when he said someone told him that he was "John Cena's TV program". I never really got that.

[scottyflamingo]

There is a really weird control Vince has over his wrestlers. He's almost like a father figure to a lot of them. If you read Jericho's second book, he almost sounds like an abused housewife in some parts talking like he deserved the burial he got when he came in. It is that weird manipulative charisma that a lot of cult leaders have.

Today I thought of another addition, Dustin Rhodes. I've heard some bad fan stories, but mainly I get this from his Twitter. Dude is a total d-bag unless someone is totally kissing his ass, and not in the fun smartassy way Punk does it.

[ucladavid]

Regarding the Vince father figure thing: people always have a special affection for the guy who gave them their big break or the boss who always treated them well. Cena and Foley became huge figures in wrestling thanks to Vince. If Vince never gave either one of them a shot, they would be nobodies on the indy circuit if that. Remember Cena was thisclose to being gone from WWE until the rapper gimmick; foley was in ecw and couldn't go back to wcw. Vince made both guys super rich and they are set for life.

It is the same affection that people have for Paul Heyman in ECW and very recently. He may have bounced checks and bankrupted a company. However, he gave many guys their big break and treated them with very well in and out of the ring. Where would Rob van Dam, Dudleyz, or CM Punk be without Heyman?

[scottyflamingo]

The difference is those guys will still openly ridicule Heyman for his lying and check bouncing while Vince is untouchable.

[Caliber]

Vince reminds me of Scott Keith.

Jericho said that if Vince gave one once of the motivation that Heyman did, it would mean the World.

That's how it is with Scott. He doesn't back any of the writers, or give them props, or anything like that. I mean, I don't need Scott to pat me on the back or anything like that, but you can clearly tell he doesn't really care about the blog too much. Like on that interview he did for the podcast, the guy asked him about ROH, and he simply said "someone else covers it". I think he should have mentioned Adam by name. I would have given all props to all the writers on the blog if I was running it.

Also, like with The Dark Knight Rises, I wrote the review the second I came home so BoD could be the first. Then Scott just posted someone elses review later that day, without any mention of mine. Same reason why I posted the Iron Man 3 review.

I'm not complaining, really, I'm insanely gracious that I get the chance to write for BoD. But that's why I feel like Scott is similar to Vince.

[scottyflamingo]

Yeah, but don't take it personally. Scott has always struck me as a guy who isn't the most personable in the world. I think that is just him. I've emailed him and had the emails ignored, and I've emailed him and had the email on the blog a couple hours later (I did the Main Events Wrestlemania Should Have Had).

I would try to get my writers super motivated, but he has a wife and kid now so you gotta do what you gotta do.

[Caliber]

Oh yeah, I don't take it personally at all. It's just kind of annoying to see someone with so much opportunity squander it. I mean, I'd have BoD merch for people, I'd set up a chat-room, I'd have a Greatest Hits of the BoD section for when topics got hot. I'd constantly set up round-tables with the writers, do cross promotional stuff with other websites. I mean, I emailed him with that new header a while ago and he said "I don't think there's much wrong with the current one, but we'll take a vote". Not much wrong? It was off-center, and it said "Made with the pulp-0-mizer custom header generator".

It is funny how he responds to email. Often times I'd send him an email with a few questions, and he'd only answer one of them. I'm not talking about posting them on the BoD, I'm just talking about in general, personal emails. So I've learned to only ask him one thing now.

[scottyflamingo]

Yeah, I've sent him emails that were short and simple that didn't get answered and written books that did. But I will say probably 80% of my stuff has ended up on the BoD.

[acsativa]

May 2, 2013 10:17:14 GMT -5 Caliber said:

Like on that interview he did for the podcast, the guy asked him about ROH, and he simply said "someone else covers it". I think he should have mentioned Adam by name. I would have given all props to all the writers on the blog if I was running it.

I just do the ROH reviews for fun, it's not like I'm trying to make a career out of it. Any idea what the specific question was? Because anything that happened prior to the Sinclair buyout I wouldn't be much help with.

Anyway, I would have appreciated the name-drop, but I'm not going to get pissed about it or anything. It's not like I'm trying to parlay this into a job with 411 or something, even though I wouldn't have my name associated with that joke of a site to begin with. Besides, I think Scott totally stopped giving a fuck about ROH when the Feinstein thing happened.