10 Most Unprofessional WWE Moments

Professional wrestlers are supposed to actually be professional when at work. That is especially expected of those who work for the industry leader and extends to their conduct in the locker room, on the road and in the ring, especially when the show is live. 

That doesn’t always happen, obviously, with accidents, vendettas and personal problems occasionally derailing the planned programming. 

These are the 10 Most Unprofessional WWE Moments. 

10. Hawk at WWE SummerSlam 1992

SummerSlam 1992 was one of the biggest nights in the careers of the WWE stars who were lucky enough to get a spot on the card. 

WWE put their best foot forward in front of 80,000 inside London’s Wembley Stadium, offering up a thrilling WWE Title match between Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior and a classic Intercontinental Title main event between Bret Hart and The British Bulldog. 

Another highlight for the assembled masses was seeing the ever-popular Legion of Doom, who made their entrance down the long aisleway on motorcycles. 

Little did most fans know that one-half of LOD was so messed up on pills that it was a miracle he even made it to the ring. Hawk was noticeably not all there during his and Animal’s opener with Money Inc. and was so sluggish that, at one point, Vince McMahon shot him an evil glare from ringside. 

After barely getting through the match, Hawk then decided to miss his flight, opting instead to join a biker gang and stay in the UK to party for a while longer.

Animal was so irked by his partner’s antics that they didn’t team together for another three years. 

9. Randy Orton and that STUPID! moment

After almost two years of portraying the plucky mid-card babyface, Kofi Kingston began to receive a serious push towards the end of 2009.

It all came about due to his feud with Randy Orton, with Kofi helping John Cena dethrone The Viper to win the WWE Title. 

Kingston was given some big moments during the feud, including that massive Boom Drop he delivered to Orton through a table in Madison Square Garden and his Sole Survivor performance and final elimination of The Legend Killer at Survivor Series. 

But while his work with Randy had put him on another level, a mistake while wrestling the third-generation star would end up knocking him back down the card.

During a triple threat World Heavyweight Title number one contendership match (also featuring Cena) on the January 11, 2010, episode of Raw, Orton got the win after hitting Kofi with an RKO.

After delivering it, Randy began shouting ‘STUPID! STUPID!’ at Kingston before making the cover. It turned out Kofi was supposed to stay down for the running punt but forgot and Orton blew his stack. 

8. Hercules Heads Out

Typically, when a wrestler was on their way out of WWE – say, because their contract was coming up and it was accepted that it would not be renewed – the company’s MO was to get the maximum out of that person’s time left by having them do as many jobs as possible. 

Hercules found himself in this position in early 1992, including at a February 23 Madison Square Garden house show where select matches would be taped to air on a future edition of Prime Time Wrestling. 

Herc’ was tasked with putting over Sid Justice (who was gearing up for a WrestleMania showdown with Hulk Hogan) and he didn’t exactly hide his unhappiness. 

The match, such as it was, lasted a whopping 26 seconds, with Sid getting the win thanks to his signature Powerbomb. However, Hercules did everything he could to let people watching know that he didn’t agree with the script, which included popping back up almost immediately after taking the supposedly devastating move, which he barely looked like he cooperated with anyway. 

He would compete in the battle royal main event later that evening and lost to The Berzerker the night after before leaving WWE for good.   

7. Sunny Days

Pretty much everything about the relationship between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels in 1997 could be described as ‘unprofessional’. 

The two had once been close friends, but things had deteriorated to the point where, inevitably, something had to give. 

That something turned out to be an off-the-cuff comment The Heartbreak Kid made about The Hitman on the May 19, 1997, episode of Raw.

Despite being warned about no longer making ‘insider’ comments on the air during a previous backstage sitdown, a clearly under-the-influence Michaels claimed that Hart had been seeing a lot of ‘Sunny days’ – basically insinuating that he was having an affair with Tammy Sytch. 

Now, the great irony is, of course, that Shawn was the one who had been having a relationship with Sytch, but Bret’s then-wife Julie didn’t exactly care about that little fact. 

Bret hadn’t even caught the comment in the moment and only found out about it when Julie questioned him as to its meaning. 

The fallout from the Sunny days remark was one of the main factors that led to Bret and Shawn having a backstage fight at the June 6 Raw taping, a fight that resulted in Shawn temporarily threatening to walk out of the company in protest. 

6. Charlotte Flair 'drops' the belt

The October 22, 2021, edition of SmackDown was supposed to end with a segment that would see Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch swap their women’s championship belts after being drafted to different shows. 

While going to retrieve the red-coloured strap from The Queen, however, The Man was dismayed to see it fall to the mat. 

Lynch believed that this was done intentionally as a way to mess up the segment and mess with her personally after months of lingering real-life tension between the former friends. 

Charlotte then picked the belt up and handed it to Sonya Deville, who was acting as an intermediary in the swap.

The perceived slight had Becky feeling disrespected and a confrontation ensued when the two got to the backstage Gorilla position. 

Flair was escorted out of the arena by WWE officials after the situation had been diffused. 

During a later appearance on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions podcast, Charlotte claimed that she did not drop the title intentionally, but rather accidentally.

Video evidence (not to mention Flair’s Cheshire cat grin after) suggests otherwise.

5. Perry Saturn rings Mike Bell's bell

A WWE squash match is supposed to be an easy piece of business. An established WWE superstar goes out, gives an enhancement talent a bit of a kicking, wins without much effort and goes backstage after what is essentially a night off. 

However, squashes don’t always go according to plan, with one of the most infamous examples being Perry Saturn vs. Mike Bell from the May 12, 2001, episode of Jakked. 

As Saturn tells it, he became angered after Bell – a jobber WWE had used fairly regularly since the early 1990s – dropped him twice on his head with an awkward hip toss and arm drag. 

After knocking his head on the canvas, Perry entered fight mode and began laying the leather in on Bell before chucking him out of the ring between the middle and top rope. 

Unfortunately, Bell landed right on his head and neck. The beating then continued (albeit in a working fashion) and the match ended with Saturn picking up the victory. 

When he got backstage, however, the former European Champion (who admitted he was in the wrong) was told in no uncertain terms that he could never lose his cool like that in the ring again and was subsequently given the ‘Moppy’ storyline as a form of punishment.

4. Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam 2005

As we have already established, Shawn Michaels could be a bit of an insufferable arsehole in the 1990s.  

As well as his ‘Sunny days’ quip, there are a tonne of instances of HBK acting out both behind the scenes and in front of the camera, typically without being reprimanded for it.

Most people believed the ‘old’ Shawn was no more when he became a born-again Christian and returned for his second WWE run in 2002. 

Then he met a man even better at playing politics and the old Shawn emerged once again. 

Michaels was ticked off heading into his main event match with Hulk Hogan at SummerSlam 2005, primarily because the Hulkster had used his pull to turn a three-match series into a one-and-done deal with him going over clean.

Shawn responded to this powerplay by exaggeratingly overselling just about everything Hogan hit him with, bouncing around the ring like a rubber ball and almost turning the contest into a parody. 

It was very funny and compelling in its own way, but Michaels let his frustrations get the better of him and allowed them to spill over onto what fans saw on the screen.  

3. Bully Holly

As one of WWE’s hardnosed resident locker-room enforcers, Hardcore Holly was a logical choice as a trainer for the second season of Tough Enough. 

While he didn’t take it easy on that season’s contestants, none of the hopefuls trying to earn a WWE contract had to suffer in the same way as season three co-winner Matt Cappotelli. 

The way Holly tells it, he showed up for his guest spot and saw the contestants goofing around and not taking their training seriously. This, naturally, annoyed him since he was not only giving them his time, but he had also just recently had his neck broken by Brock Lesnar. 

Singling out Cappotelli as the main offender, Holly proceeded to beat the absolute tar out of him during a practice match, leaving Matt with a black eye and a swollen, bloody lip. 

While some disagreed with his methods, Holly wasn’t reprimanded for his actions and offered no apology, instead doubling down on his belief that he was in the right to do what he did.

He did later work a short match with Cappotelli in WWE developmental league Ohio Valley wrestling, which passed without incident. 

2. Hardcore Holly...again

Bob Holly didn’t think he was out of line when he roughed up Matt Cappotelli during filming for Tough Enough season three. He also didn’t think he was in the wrong when he assaulted Rene Dupree during a tag team match at a house show on November 21, 2004. 

Holly had a bone to pick with Dupree after Rene had gotten a speeding ticket while using Bob’s rental car. The ticket itself wasn’t a big deal, but Rene had failed to pay it and, since the car was registered in Holly’s name, it turned into a big legal headache when he was summoned to another state to sort it.

Even though Dupree claims he offered to pay the fine and court costs (plus interest), Sparky Plugg was having none of it and decided to exact revenge in the ring. 

Rene, who was tagging with Kenzo Suzuki and defending his WWE Tag Team Titles against Holly and Charlie Haas in a Hardcore Match, took several very real punches and kicks to the head and face, as well as a full-force chair shot before retreating to the locker room. 

The beating continued once Holly caught up with him, though it was quickly broken up and Holly was slapped with a hearty fine. 

1. JBL shooting on Blue Meanie at ECW One Night Stand

Bob Holly wasn’t the only rookie-hating, happy-to-haze veteran that young wrestlers had to be wary of in the SmackDown locker room of the mid-2000s. 

The blue brand was chock full of such delights, with chief instigator JBL regularly cited as someone who would make people’s lives miserable with his relentless bullying.

One person who had felt the full force of Bradshaw’s torment was The Blue Meanie, who had been open about the difficulty he encountered with the former Acolyte during his time in the company years prior. 

Word had gotten back to JBL, who (after having a few beverages during the pay-per-view) saw the big brawl at the first One Night Stand as an opportunity to get his receipt. 

The former WWE Champion went right after Meanie, opening him up with stiff shots to the head and face, before they were separated by others involved in the melee. 

WWE management apologised to Meanie afterwards and doubled his pay for the evening, though he still considered suing until WWE offered him the chance to work a match with JBL on the July 7, 2005, episode of SmackDown.

It was Meanie’s bWo brother-in-arms Stevie Richards who got the last word with that chair shot.