10 Wrestlers Vince McMahon Initially HATED

Vince McMahon is the weirdest person to have ever lived.

He’s fought God and won, fought Billionaire Ted and won, sits atop the dominant global brand in his industry that also happens to turn out some of the worst content in that industry, his biggest weakness is a total rejection of weakness as a concept, for someone whose career is dedicated to simplifying down what it means to be a good guy or a bad guy, he doesn’t know what a good guy acts like.

Point is, Vince McMahon fascinates people, from the fans who hate him and pay him, to those that deify him.

He is everything and nothing, and god I want to read an honest autobiography of him so much.

One of the things that people tend to agree on is that Vince is a ruthless business genius, who knows a good thing when he sees it and knows when to buy it, Hulk Hogan, raiding the territories, etc etc.

But the more you read up on the early days of some of WWE’s biggest stars, the more you realise… Vince might just be the luckiest man in wrestling history.

I’m Adam hailing from partsFUNknown, and here are 10 Wrestlers Vince McMahon Initially HATED.

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10. Randy Orton

Let’s talk about this first, because it’s the most recent story to come to light.

Next year, Randall Keith Orton will celebrate his twentieth continuous year on the main roster full-time. That is a LUDICROUSLY long career.

He’s outlasted Cena, he’s been a full-timer longer than Triple H was, longer than Shawn Michaels, the man’s put in the years, which makes the apparent fact that Vince wanted no part of him even more insane.

See, before Randy was hitting RKOs, he was hitting AWOLs. He enlisted in the Marines in the late 90s before going AWOL on two occasions and receiving a dishonorable discharge.

Vince graduated from military school which explains just a BUNCH and if you cut him he bleeds troops.

As such, according to Jim Ross on the Grillin JR podcast, Vince didn’t want to sign Orton based on his negative past in the military and had to be convinced by good ol’ JR to give Randy a second chance.

I guess you could say it paid off.

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8. Samoa Joe

Absolutely heartbreaking news this week that Samoa Joe has had to vacate the NXT title due to injury. Talk about people who can’t catch a f**king break.

In the light of the news you can’t help but wish that Joe had found a place in WWE sooner, when he was more entrenched in his physical prime, because according to an interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, who is a nice boy and everyone should tell him he’s a nice boy on Twitter, Vince did not want to sign Joe.

In Samoa Joe’s own words, he was, quotes “vehemently opposed” to the idea.

Some might have thought it was to do with the TNA connection, but in fact, Bruce Pritchard revealed on Something To Wrestle With that it was because it was thought in WWE that he was and I’m quoting again “a fat Samoan. He looked out of shape – he wasn’t the body type that Vince liked and they felt that it wouldn’t work.”

Jesus, don’t pull your punches lads. Here’s hoping this new development doesn’t jeopardize Joe’s place in the company, took him long enough to get there.

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8. Christian

When Edge and Christian split up, the lyrics to Christian’s new operatic theme (his best theme btw, don’t @ me with your just close your eyes bulls**t) were “Christian Christian, at last, you’re on your own.”

A lovely sentiment that Vince McMahon absolutely did not agree with. To this day it’s a long-running wrestling in-joke that Vince hates Christian, something they even referenced in their sketch show on the network.

And honestly, and I really shouldn’t find this funny, but Vince, he just hated Christian’s face.

He didn’t think Christian could connect with the audience, according to, again, Bruce Prichard, which means Vince definitely didn’t watch TNA in the mid-2000s, where the Instant Classic was one of the tentpoles of the promotions hottest period.

In fact, whenever anyone suggested anything for Christian to Vince, he would react negatively saying stuff like, quote “‘Ugh, goddamn, do we have to shoot him? Do we have to see that face?’

Like, damn, Vince. It’s just his face, man.

• Adam Blampied
• John Cena
• Vince McMahon
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