10 Most Shocking Defections In Wrestling History

7. Madusa (WWF to WCW)

1995 was a year for WWF, it really was.

House show attendance was in the toilet, the roster was thinner than one of those stupid weird gel mints you put on your tongue, and Nitro kept rummaging through their allotment at night and making off with all their stars.

And because my dad Eric Bischoff is a messy bitch that loves drama, all these new signings were instructed not only to jump ship, but stick the knife in and give it a little twist.

Case in point, the woman known as Alundra Blayze in WWF, crossed over to WCW to retake her original identity of Madusa.

Only issue was, she’d been let go from WWF whilst still being in possession of the WWF Women’s Championship belt, and when she told Eric of this, he clapped his hands together like he’d just been told it’s double pudding Friday.

Medusa was told to bring the belt to WCW, appear on Nitro with it, and drop it in a trash can live on TV, where it would sit until she’d become Alundra Blayze again and fish it out at the WWE Hall of Fame.

Oh, the silly wrestling companies and their silly games.

---

6. Brock Lesnar (WWE to NFL)

Tell you what’s nice. When your main event scene is packed with full-time proven draws. A.K.A. WWE from 1998 to 2001 inclusive.

However, as the attitude era drew to a close, The Rock had one foot out the door, Austin had chronic neck, Foley had retired, Undertaker had been one bad bump from retirement for the last few years, Triple H’s legs had exploded, in late 2001, Vince had the sobering realization he had to make a new star fast.

Cue the originator of the Brock Lesnar push, Brock Lesnar.

Debuting the night after WrestleMania X8 and WWE Champ by Summerslam, WWE were super duper serious about making Brock Lesnar the new face of the company.

Brock got over, and everything was going to be fine with the company as long as the new face doesn’t get farmboy cross about having to travel around in those fancy planes, trains and automobiles all the time and run away to throw balls instead of men.

Sadly that’s exactly what happened, and right after WWE invested literal years in making Lesnar the most important man in the company, he split for the NFL, leaving WWE, and its fans at WrestleMania XX, really peeved.

---

5. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW to NOAH)

Time for a Japanese wrestling story, somewhere out there Tempest’s little ears are picking up and his little tail is starting to wag.

There are a number of BIG wrestling companies in Japan, New Japan, Stardom, but for about 20 years in the 70s and 80s, the biggest was All Japan Pro Wrestling, founded by wrestling’s other most famous giant, Giant Baba.

However, being the biggest player in town the company was plagued by defections and, oh man, when people quit All Japan, they did it in style.

The company has like three different mass exoduses of talent in its history, in each case an entirely new promotion being formed to house all the talent that ran away.

In 1990 Super World of Sport was formed by All Japan breakaways, ditto in 2013 when Wrestle-1 was formed by Keiji Mutoh after a mass talent resignation, but the most famous case is the formation of Pro Wrestling NOAH.

In 1999, Giant Baba died and the ownership of the company passed to his widow.

Dismayed at the proposed direction for the company, Mitsuharu Misawa, one of the four major names in All Japan history, resigned to form a new promotion Pro Wrestling NOAH, taking with him all but two of its top native talent, a bunch of big name gaijins, and it’s goddamn TV slot as well.

Total scorched earth policy, although the promotion’s called NOAH, so I guess, total wet earth policy.

---

4. Ric Flair (WCW to WWE)

The Natural Boy, the dirtiest player in the game, and the man who’s fuelled by divorce like most cars are fuelled by petrol, was synonymous with two major companies throughout two of biggest decades in wrestling history, the NWA, and then WCW.

Like Cody in AEW, Hogan in WWE and Inoki in New Japan he was The Guy in the companies, which made it all very weird when WCW fired their biggest star and he hopped over to their biggest competitor for a cup of coffee.

See the running of the company had been taken over by Jim Herd. Jim Herd fundamentally misunderstood what WCW fans wanted. The fans wanted Ric Flair because he was Ric Flair.

Jim Herd wanted Ric Flair to shave his head and be renamed Spartacus and not pay him as much because Jim Herd eats crayons.

Flair refused, got canned, and like Madusa, they omitted one small thing, they forgot to get the WCW Heavyweight Championship off him before he left, so, in an act that would cause Twitter to herniate today, he took it to F**KING WWF WITH HIM.

WCW sued WWF so they eventually had to use a pixelated tag championship instead of the big gold belt, but still, absolute scenes. 

• defections
• Adam Blampied
• AEW
• wwe

Share this article with friends