The 8-Ball 09.06.12: Top 8 Career Killing Moves

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the 8-Ball. As always, I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and we are coming off a discussion of independent professional wrestling, with a countdown of our top eight “dream teams” for CHIKARA’s King of Trios. As a reminder, King of Trios is just a little over a week away, and you can still check out chikarapro.com for tickets.

No, I’m not talking about Owen Hart’s tombstone piledriver, D-Lo Brown’s running powerbomb, or Sid’s big boot off of the second rope. I’m here to talk about political moves, i.e. stupid things that wrestlers have said or done outside of the ring which have resulted in their professional careers either ending, being shortened, or significantly being reduced in prominence.

Who are the eight men that ruined promising runs in professional wrestling through their own stupidity? Read on.

In 2005, TNA wrestling was on the upswing. The promotion had just gotten its first cable television program on Fox Sports Net and, though not a particularly big deal in the grand scheme of things, it was poised to expand greatly. One of the hottest babyfaces on that roster was none other than luchador Hector Garza, Jr., who previously had brief runs in the WWF and WCW but really started to grow a fanbase when he was part of the Mexican team in TNA’s World X Cup. And then . . . then Garza was arrested in Texas, carrying a large amount of deca-durabolin, a popular steroid. Hector was immediately taken off of TNA television and, though he has gotten back into the United States for independent shows within the last several years, he has yet to return to the American big leagues. Had Garza continued with TNA, as one of their “original” wrestlers from the weekly PPV era, he could essentially be where Bobby Roode and James Storm are now. He remains a star in Mexico, but he’s barely even a historical footnote in the U.S.

This is an odd situation to write about because nobody seems to be entirely sure what happened. However, what we do know is this. In the early 2000’s, Dan Maff was half of the popular indy tag team Da Hit Squad, which was featured prominently in the early days of ROH. Given that other guys featured heavily in that promotion during that era included Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, and Daniel Bryan, it would seem that being a main player in ROH during that era was a surefire ticket to stardom a decade later. Maff wasn’t so lucky, though. A big part of the reason that Maff wasn’t lucky was because he angered Homicide, who, at the time, was one of the biggest names on the independents in addition to, despite his relatively small stature, being one intimidating mofo. In March 2005, Homicide started to make it clear to promoters throughout the indies that, if they were booking Maff, they weren’t going to be booking him and further that, if the two saw each other, there was going to be some trouble. Why? There is plenty of speculation out there, but it’s all speculation, so I’m not going to reprint it. Ring of Honor in particular cut off Maff’s bookings, virtually killing any chance that he would have to move up in the wrestling world as so many of his contemporaries did.

Maxx Payne is one of the truly underrated performers of the 1990s. Real name Darryl Peterson, he had an impressive NCCA wrestling career and trained in the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo as part of the same class that produced guys like Chris Benoit. He had a series of memorable early hardcore matches in the big leagues against and alongside Mick Foley, and he was as incredibly agile big man. So, why does virtually nobody remember Maxx Payne in 2012? It has to do, of all things, with a camcorder. Payne eventually jumped from WCW to the WWF and was repacked as Man Mountain Rock in 1995. While there, MMR videotaped the behind-the-scenes doings of many of his coworkers, with the footage including stars such as Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and the Undertaker in addition to including extreme intoxication, drug use, and solicitation of prostitutes (though not necessarily by those three men who were named). It was supposed to be a look at the seedy underbelly of professional wrestling, which Payne claimed to have cobbled together into a feature length documentary called The Thing That Should Not Be. Unfortunately for Payne, taping some of the most powerful men in the wrestling industry allegedly engaging in criminal acts while working for the most powerful promoter in wrestling history turned out not to be a positive for his career. Once a promising rising star, Payne suddenly and surprisingly dropped off the face of the earth.

Most everybody reading this has probably heard of The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, the official World Wrestling Entertainment DVD career retrospective of former WWF Champion the Ultimate Warrior. Though I’m no huge fan of the Warrior, even I would have to call the DVD nothing short of a hit job, bringing out every negative aspect of the Warrior and not even pretending to objectively look at his successful run in the early 1990s. Why was the documentary borderline slanderous as opposed to the hero worship that we normally see on the company’s nostalgic home video releases? Part of the reason is that the Warrior really did piss off a lot of people in wrestling when he was a star. The other, bigger part is that the Warrior absolutely refused to participate in any way, shape, or form with the DVD’s production. If you believe what the man from Parts Unknown wrote on the internet around the time of the controversy, he stated that he would only participate in the WWE DVD if WWE would participate in Warrior’s independently produced documentary on his career. As you would expect them to do, WWE refused. Why do I call this a career killing move? Apparently a similar character assassination DVD was planned regarding Bret “The Hitman” Hart, who was no more popular than the Warrior amongst WWE brass. However, Bret ultimately decided to play nice on the DVD, which in time lead to more merchandising, a Hall of Fame induction, a modern Wrestlemania payday, and an all-around restoration of his rightful status as a legend. The same could have happened to the Warrior, but he couldn’t swallow his pride.

Let me take you back to the Monday Night War. During this period of wrestling history, there were multiple major promotions, and all of those promotions were very concerned with their talent jumping ship to the competition. Despite this paranoia, some WWF front office employee somewhere royally screwed up when he allowed Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett’s contract to expire just days before a scheduled title defense against Chyna at the Fed’s No Mercy pay per view. Jarrett held the promotion up for a reported $300,000.00 in order to wrestle one match without a contract and drop the IC strap as scheduled. Fearing a situation similar to Alundra Blayze dumping the WWF Women’s Title into a trash can, the WWF, in a rare move for them, caved in to the demands. Double J pocketed a pretty penny for the night, but the fallout was huge, as Vince McMahon subsequently refused to pick up Jarrett’s contract after WCW folded or to otherwise to business with him. This lead Jarrett and his father Jerry to found TNA wrestling in 2002, and, thought the company now boasts a television audience of slightly over one million U.S. viewers, that is still only a quarter of the fanbase for Monday Night Raw . . . and, for a period of time, things were even worse for Jarrett’s career, as early TNA buyrates for their weekly pay per views numbered in the several thousand, not the several million, basically making them a glorified indy. Essentially, making a play for a huge one-night payoff significantly reduced Jarrett’s profile in wrestling for almost fifteen years to follow and has probably cost him much more than $300,000.00.

When WCW went out of business in 2001, it seemed like all of the stars were aligned for Buff Bagwell to become a major player in the on air invasion of the WWF by the former Turner promotion. Most of the company’s major stars were not jumping ship to the Fed due to large guaranteed contracts that they could collect on without working. Bagwell was one of a few names who, despite there originally not being much interest in him, accepted a buy out of his Time Warner deal so that he could fill one of the WCW “star” roles when it was clear that there would be no Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, or Bill Goldberg in the invasion. However, despite being one of the bigger WCW names that the Fed was able to acquire, McMahon and company were not about to give Buff any preferential treatment, particularly after some just outright bizarre behavior on Marcus Alexander’s part. Bagwell reportedly missed dates with the company and had his mother Judy (former WCW Tag Team Champion) call in to the talent relations department to try to get his absences excused. He also had a ridiculous top hat that he wore everywhere despite the fact that the office told him exactly how ridiculous it looked and forbade him from wearing it further. Combine that with a backstage brawl with Gregory “Hurricane” Helms and a godawful WCW Title match against Booker T. at a crucial time in the invasion, and Bagwell was released from the company after being a character on television for all of one week, never to return.

In 1984, “Dr. D” David Schultz was a pretty hot heel. He had a no nonsense in-ring style, he cut a hell of a promo, and he was a perfect early rival for then-World Wrestling Federation Champion Hulk Hogan, being a favorite main event opponent of the Hulkster’s during that period. Given that virtually every other favorite opponent of Hogan went on to work for the WWF for many years in addition to following him to WCW, Hogan Knows Best, TNA, and all points in between, some younger fans might wonder why Schultz didn’t become part of the Hogan-centric troupe that included the likes of Hacksaw Duggan, the Nasty Boys, and, of course, Brutus Beefcake. The answer is that Schultz, during the beginning of the 1980’s wrestling boom, was asked by 20/20 broadcaster John Stossel whether wrestling was fake. The result was a pair of open-handed slaps to the side of Stossel’s head. This, combined with reported difficulties with Mr. T when T was backstage as part of the build to the initial Wrestlemania, lead to the good Doctor’s departure from the World Wrestling Federation and, though he did continue to wrestle in smaller territories afterwards, he never reached any significant level of fame again.

It is relatively indisputable that Vince McMahon is the most powerful single human being in all of professional wrestling and has been for decades. Thus, you’d think it would be common sense that you don’t lay your hands on the guy. Not everybody is smart enough to figure that one out, though. In fact, two different men have allegedly physically assaulted Vince McMahon, resulting in both being kicked out of major league professional wrestling for the remainder of their careers. The first was Mike Kirchner, a.k.a. Corporal Kirchner, who was introduced to the WWF in the 1980s as a patriotic babyface replacement for Sgt. Slaughter when Slaughter decided to spend the latter part of the 1980’s in the AWA. Unfortunately, he crossed the boss in the largest way possible, and he was relegated to playing “Leatherface” in Japanese independent promotions for years. The second man to display this extreme idiocy was Kevin Wacholz, who wrestled for the WWF as ex-convict Nailz. Nailz allegedly attempted to choke out Vinnie Mac during an argument and then took things a step further when he claimed that McMahon made sexual advances towards him. Aside from a one-off appearance in WCW, Wacholz has spent the remainder of his life in complete obscurity, where he deserves to be for pulling a move as moronic as that one.

That’s it for this week’s 8-Ball. If you can’t get enough of Ryan, follow him on Twitter here.