Top 10 Most Controversial Wrestling Personalities In Wrestling History

It could be considered difficult or disproportionate to make a list concerning who is the most despised personalities within the wrestling worlds, with hatches being buried as time heals wounds, and opinions continuing to differ on some of the most controversial yet popular names within wrestling. However, with some of the most well-known names within wrestling more recently coming out of the shadow, whether that be through rage-filled podcasts or eagerly written articles, suggests that the names I have constructed on this list have committed some of the most heinous crimes that left a prominent mark of professional wrestling as we know it. While the animosity towards some of the personalities may have faded away over the past few years, the trouble that they’ve caused, like anything in wrestling, stands within history.

Honourable Mentions:

Paul Heyman
Stephanie McMahon
Jeff Jarrett
Roman Reigns
Ted Turner
Ultimate Warrior

10. Shawn Michaels

It’s fair to say that Shawn Michaels no longer stands as a controversial figure within the wrestling world today. After returning to the company full-time in 2002 as a born-again Christian man clean from his past of drugs and alcohol, he was no longer considered a ‘problem’. However, during his original run and arguably, the peak of his career, he was heavily disliked by many members of the roster, labelled an egotistical power-hungry superstar who was unable to consider the repercussions of his actions and how it impacted the people he worked with, as names such as Shane Douglas, Jim Cornette and most prominently, Bret Hart, emphasizing how difficult he was, and how it ruined his reputation backstage during the 90s. Why was this? Many consider the reason to be his inclusion in the backstage group, The Kliq, which put Shawn in a position of self-entitled power, excluding all of the other guys in the locker room. Additionally, his alcohol and drug abuse factored in to his morality, claiming to have ‘lost his smile’ and having to deal with an agonizing back injury. Although he ‘retired’ at Wrestlemania 14, McMahon made the decision to keep him in an authority role who would show up sporadically. However, Vince would eventually release him due to his demons, which also lead to Triple H and Michaels falling out for a short period of time. It could be argued that if Shawn did not take this time off, he may have never been able to clean his act up and redefine his reputation with those who worked so close with him.

9. Hulk Hogan/Kevin Nash

Putting these two together on this list seems logical, considering for a certain amount of time during WCW’s last couple of years, they booked Nitro to its inevitable death. As they both gained more power within the company, they began taking control of booking shows, and would decide to push themselves in favour of talent which could be argued deserved the spotlight more, names such as Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio who labelled as nothing more than ‘vanilla midgets’. They were ignorant to their own power, and should take a large amount of blame for the breakdown of the company that they worked for. Hogan would continue to plague the wrestling world due to his power and control, which showed when he became owner of TNA. During a time in which TNA began picking up levels of popularity which they’ve never had since, Hogan walked in and the company’s credibility started to die down, with questionable booking decisions and the concentration on outdated wrestlers over fresh talent leading to ratings plummeting and never being able to recover since then. To follow that, Hogan would find himself in trouble for racial comments along with a sex tape, leading to WWE cutting off all times with the man once considered the biggest draw in wrestling during the 80s under Vince’s company. While Nash has stayed fairly quiet after a couple of mediocre runs in WWE, it does not take away from the damage he caused alongside Hogan in WCW.

8. Jim Cornette

Cornette is one of the smartest wrestling personalities the business has to offer, considering how long he’s worked within the business and the number of companies he found himself working under. However, he is also considered one of the most controversial men in the wrestling due to how opinionated he is. With having a large platform such as a podcast, it has been easy for Cornette to share his opinion on some of the most popular topics in wrestling, and it’s safe to say that Cornette does not hold back, and why would he? He has absolutely nothing to lose other than his reputation with some of his listeners, and it’s questionable whether he’s concerned by that at all. Cornette’s finds most of his hate from the current audience, due to some of the grievances he has with some of the most popular stars in wrestling today, most notably both Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, who Cornette claimed where difficult to work with in Ring of Honor and predicted that neither of them would find success in the WWE. Other names such as Austin Aries, Shawn Michaels and The Bullet Club have all been verbally attacked by Cornette, highlighting their weaknesses in the business and the many issues he has with them, personally or from an outside view. You could argue that Cornette’s opinion on certain people could be substantial, considering how long he may have worked with these men. Yet there is a certain vibe that some hard-core wrestling fans get from Cornette that suggests that he finds himself complaining on podcast’s as an attempt to stay relevant in the wrestling world, and that the majority of his comments are inappropriate representations of reality. Either way, Cornette has found himself in the middle of controversy, and probably will continue to.

7. Jim Herd

There is a high possibility that many of you reading may have never heard of Jim Herd. Working for WCW around time Turner first bought the company, Herd was given a prominent role within the company. The only problem with that was that he had little to no knowledge on professional wrestling or sports entertainment at all, and it would lead him to be the most despised figure during this redesign of WCW. You can give him the benefit of the doubt; he did not know the trouble he was causing, and his naivety to the business could mean that he passes by this list. But regardless of his knowledge, he still made questionable decisions within his power. One of the most famous stories was his urge to shift Ric Flair towards the mid card, get him to shave his head and dress as Spartacus. Flair and the whole WCW writing team would blatantly write this off, however this would lead Herd to make the decision to release Ric Flair from WCW and try to strip the world title from him, only two weeks before WCW’s Great American Bash PPV which was going to be main evented by The Nature Boy. Flair would leave as told, but opted not to give the belt back, appearing on WWF with his world title in hand. It can be questioned that Herd almost destroyed WCW before it even started, and to suggest that he stayed in his role any longer could have meant that we would have never got the Monday Night Wars.

6. John Laurinaitis

The controversy that Laurinaitis receives from certain wrestlers could be considered unfair. Johnny Ace arguably has one of the toughest roles in wrestling: he has to share the bad news to the unlucky men and women who were unable to keep their position in WWE. Many are to say that on a personal level, John is a very likeable character. However, when it comes to business, he is considered by some to be Vince’s lacky, following his every word and demand more so than any other worker in the WWE, which has helped him gain his powerful role within the company. It could be easy for fans to confuse his tedious heel authority role with his actual role of work, so the opinions of those who work closely to him are a more reliable source. However, some of the people who talk down on Big Johnny are the same people who also were released by him, so it’s easy for them to criticise his work. But really, can you shoot the messenger in this situation?

5. Triple H

The argument of how Triple H gained his authority within WWE is still debated through wrestling fans. Did he gain the role through his relationship with Stephanie McMahon? Or was he destined for the role ever since he showed his loyalty to the company during the 90s? Either way, you always felt like Hunter always had some leverage within the company, as he was booked in to top level positions for most of the 2000s, which correlated with his impressive tally of 13-time world champion. During some of his most prominent rivalries, it felt as if the wrong person was being put over, with prime example being Booker T, who was racially slurred and run down by Triple H leading up to their matchup at Wrestlemania for the World Heavyweight Championship, only to lose to ‘The Game’. In some cases, it felt as if the power that Triple H somehow possessed was being used incorrectly. However, it’s also worth giving him the benefit of the doubt, as he was also able to put over names such as Batista, Chris Benoit, John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and so on, along with his creation of the world-renowned NXT brand that he helped popularised. The problem attached to Triple H isn’t especially how he uses his power, it’s more so how he gained it, with many fans questioning whether he is deserving of taking the brass ring from Vince in the future rather than the more popular figure of Shane McMahon. Triple H is a good example of finding controversy due to his political supremacy.

4. JBL

Bradshaw has been with WWE for a very long duration of time. First joining during the beginning of the attitude era, all the way up to current day, he has found himself to be a prominent figure within the company. Although this prominence has led him to some very significant controversy, and is now considered by many fans as an overbearing bully rather than an influential veteran. This controversy sparked more recently, when former WWE ring announcer, Justin Roberts, released his autobiography about his time with the company, and claimed during his book that JBL stole his passport and refused to give it back, meaning Roberts was unable to travel with the company. Although JBL disregarded this, claiming that Roberts was nothing more than an outcast, more wrestlers began releasing their own recollections of JBL’s horrible behaviour towards them and other members of the roster. It was no surprise that JBL had found himself questioned to bullying, as he has had this reputation during most of his career. However, the nail in the coffin was the recent departure of Mauro Ranallo, with many reliable sources claiming that Ranallo was victim to ridicule from JBL or a regular basis, and making comments on his mental health and depression issues. While this has been ignored by the company, which is rather ironic considering their B-A-Star scheme, fans have taken a lot of this information to heart, with ‘Fire Bradshaw’ chants picking up steam at Smackdown shows. While it seems clear that JBL will not face any repercussions from this, his reputation is all but tarnished in the eyes of the fans.

3. Vince McMahon

There is no denying it, regardless of all the wrestling crimes that Vince has committed, he is a genius who is the mastermind behind some of the greatest ideas in wrestling history. However, with good decisions comes bad decisions, and with Vince, his bad decisions has been subject to much controversy with wrestling fans, with the ‘push them to the moon’ mentality with stars such as Reigns and Cena proving to have caused a lot of anger for wrestling fans over the past few years. This brings up the topic of whether McMahon is out of touch with the modern audience, and that the logic behind his booking decisions is far outdated. However, the controversy towards Vince has been around for decades, ever since he was stealing names such as Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper from wrestling territories, putting them all out of business in favour of his global dominance. Yet the spark of his mainstream controversy began after the Montreal screwjob, which first revealed McMahon as the owner of WWF, and he would use this heat to play an on-air heel role to rival the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin. But you can’t confuse his on screen evil persona with his backstage antics. Vince’s pride and power would mean that he was able to put all of his competition out of business, and would find controversy after he opted to bring back a toned down version of ECW, crowning himself world champion during this time, when he clearly was in no shape to do so. Also, the fact that he changes his mind on important booking decisions at the flip of a coin makes him very difficult to work for, as although he has a team of bookers, nothing is filtered without his approval, which has led to many former workers claiming how it was almost impossible to pitch ideas that McMahon would get behind. With great power comes great responsibly, and McMahon is held responsible for letting many potential stars and storylines slip through the cracks.

2. Vince Russo

I think it is worth getting out the way that I myself am not a fan of Russo. It seems as if he throws out inappropriate and controversial slurs towards the current product for the sake of staying relevant, and in reality, he sounds bitter because of all the bad decisions he made during his time at the top of the wrestling world. In his benefit, the work he did under Vince McMahon was solid, and made for some great television during a time where Raw needed a fresh start. However, when he migrated to WCW and began writing shows for Nitro, the booking decisions he made are some of the worst that wrestling has ever seen. Most notably, when he book actor David Arquette to be WCW World Champion, which lost the title all of the credibility it once had. To follow this up, he decided to book himself as World Champion, during a time in which all of WCW’s main stars began to walk out the door. He would make himself an on-screen character when he should have never found himself in that position, performing shoot promos only to benefit for himself. Russo became power-hungry, and made the poor decisions that lead to the demise of his reputation in wrestling. Although it could be argued that his decisions had no malice behind them, they were still incredibly outlandish and was a large factor in the death of Nitro, not to mention his repetitive rants on his podcasts which just puts the nail in the coffin regarding the reputation of Vince Russo.

1. Eric Bischoff

I find it hard to put Bischoff on the very top of this list,. He had an underrated role in the way he helped wrestling adapt to the times and became so popular during the late 90s. He is a passionate wrestling fan, and a smart one at that. However, the more power he gained in WCW, the larger his ego grew. It became obvious that he favoured the NWO, and booked them prominently for so many years at the expense of younger stars. This led to poor relationships with a lot of the rosters, which stars such as Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho and a number of other cruiserweights feeling underappreciated for their work, leading them to jump ship to WWF. However, the man who had the worst relationship with Bischoff at the time was Ric Flair. With Ric Flair acting up against Bischoff’s regime of power, Bischoff wanted to make an example out of him, suspending and fining him for no-showing events and refusing to release him from his contract, just so he was unable to wrestle. This was prime example of Bischoff taking his power on to another level, and it was proof that he got lost in his limelight. His determination to defeat McMahon and beat Raw on ratings on a weekly basis lead to his show’s meltdown; he lacked control of his roster when it truly mattered. Although he did find himself in an on-screen authority role when joining WWE, he was continuously ridiculed, as you felt as it Vince found joy in mocking his former rival on his programming. Eric’s controversy has since faded, as he occasionally appears on certain independent shows and has his own podcast. However, the stain that he left on the legacy of WCW will always stand. As he says, controversy creates cash.