Wrestlers Who Can't Stand Vince McMahon

Michael N. Todaro/Getty Images

Let's be honest, this was never going to be difficult.

The "Mr. McMahon" documentary on Netflix got the world talking about arguably the most important man in the history of professional wrestling. Vince McMahon's entire life story is laid bare for the world to see across the six-episode docuseries, from his upbringing, where he had next to nothing to his name, to becoming the man that took WWE mainstream, all the way through to the Janel Grant lawsuit filed against him and John Laurinaitis, which is still unfolding at the time of writing.

Advertisement

During the documentary, stars from wrestling's past and present credited McMahon for being a creative genius, business mastermind, and a father figure, holding him in the highest of regards. While McMahon's impact on the wrestling business can not be understated, the sheer amount of scandals and controversies he has been involved in throughout his entire life has led to him making a number of enemies both in and out of the squared circle. For example, the New York Post's Phil Mushnick produced one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments of the docuseries, as McMahon tried to paint the sports columnist as someone who was out to get him, and didn't understand why he had such a problem with him. Mushnick's response? "Because he's a dirtbag."

Advertisement

Mushnick isn't the only person who thinks this, as a number of wrestlers who have worked for McMahon over the years have openly despised his moral compass, and some of them have legitimately laid hands on him out of sheer hatred. From undercard talents to some of the biggest stars in the history of the business, here are the wrestlers who couldn't stand Vince McMahon.

Bobby Bank/Getty Images

Few men will ever see the success that Bruno Sammartino had during his prime. Despite WWE's best efforts to rewrite history, Sammartino holds all of the records, including the longest reign and most culminative days as WWE Champion.

Advertisement

But Sammartino's prime came at a time when wrestling wasn't mainstream, or considered cool. By the 1980s, Vince McMahon had taken WWE to new heights, much to the displeasure of the former champion. Sammartino spoke openly about how he wasn't a fan of the direction WWE was headed under McMahon's leadership, as he believed that the company was prioritizing spectacle over athleticism. This was further emphasized by the creation of WrestleMania in 1985, which had Mr. T, a non-wrestler, in the main event match.

Sammartino was also strictly against steroids in the sport, something that McMahon ended up going to court over years later, as he was charged with essentially being an in-house drug dealer alongside WWE's doctors. The former WWE Champion voiced his frustrations to McMahon on various talk shows in the years following his initial departure from WWE, calling the company's drug testing a sham, and the wrestlers themselves "druggies." 

Advertisement

Sammartino later revealed that he wouldn't actually watch wrestling in the years that followed. However, the introduction of WWE's strict wellness policy was part of the reason he eventually accepted a long-awaited Hall of Fame induction in 2013. Sammartino passed away in 2018 having buried the hatchet with McMahon years earlier.

Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images

Vince McMahon's relationship with women has long been the subject of much criticism. While it's unclear whether he actually likes women, former WWE star and TNA Hall of Famer Gail Kim wholeheartedly believes that McMahon does not like women's wrestling. She believes that the whole "Give Divas a Chance" movement that started in the 2010s was only green-lit because McMahon was given no other choice. On top of that, Kim actually credits Triple H for being the one to truly revive the credibility of women's wrestling in WWE, claiming that he knows how to book it.

Advertisement

However, Kim's disdain for McMahon ran deeper than McMahon's own dislike for his women's division. In 2018, she accused WWE of being racist, and that the company doesn't mind bringing back people like Hulk Hogan because some high-ranking officials share the same problematic mindset. Kim apologized for her comments about WWE being racist after receiving criticism.

Despite this, Kim doubled down on this statement two years later, revealing in an interview in 2020 that she felt like she was "too Asian," and tried to become "more white" in order to meet McMahon's wishes. To this day, Kim still fights for more diversity in women's wrestling, claiming as recently as 2021 that WWE still has a problem, and that McMahon doesn't understand what it is. Now that McMahon is gone from wrestling, perhaps she will be more open to watching what WWE has to offer.

Advertisement

AEW/Lee South

Jon Moxley is one of AEW's biggest aces. The four-time AEW World Champion is almost unrecognizable when compared to the Dean Ambrose persona he portrayed in WWE, and given how Moxley's final year in his former company went down, he'd probably like to keep it that way.

Advertisement

Moxley's initial run-ins with Vince McMahon were small, butting heads over creative as many other talents have in the past. However, the straw that broke the camel's back came after Moxley turned heel on his former Shield stablemate Seth Rollins, which happened on the same night Roman Reigns announced he would be stepping away from wrestling to battle leukaemia. 

In order to get heat on Moxley, McMahon essentially wanted to reference Reigns' diagnosis. Moxley claimed the line about Reigns' cancer was so offensive that he wouldn't feel comfortable saying it in public, let alone as a TV character when one of his real-life best friends was battling an illness that could legitimately kill him. To this day, Moxley has never revealed what the line was, but considering that he was willing to leave WWE on the spot had he been forced to say it, one can only imagine what it was.

Advertisement

Since leaving WWE, Moxley has been vocal about how he thinks McMahon's line of thinking was out of touch. He's claimed that the one problem WWE had was McMahon, and that if he was gone, things could have been different between himself and the company. Five years have passed since his departure, and Moxley has not looked back.

Wwe/Getty Images

Burnt bridges can often be rebuilt with enough time and effort. However, in the case of Bill Goldberg and Vince McMahon, their bridge may as well be made of out cocktail sticks and industrial tape given how many times it has collapsed.

Advertisement

Goldberg initially left WWE in 2004 after becoming disillusioned with the business, and allowed his one-year contract with the company to expire around WrestleMania 20. Years after his departure, Goldberg was asked about McMahon, and he didn't hold back in what he thought of his old boss. 

"I can't really say anything positive about the man," he told Fox 23 Tulsa News (via Cageside Seats). "It's like working for a carny who is driven only by his ego. Business is out of the window as evidenced by what he did with my character. So I don't have a positive thing to say about that guy."

Their relationship was mended in 2016 when Goldberg returned to WWE for the most decorated period of his run with the company. He won the WWE Universal Championship twice, was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and got to redo his feud with Brock Lesnar that ended disastrously in 2004. By the time 2020 rolled around, Goldberg even admitted that he would die for McMahon, and that he had unrealistic expectations during his first run with the company.

Advertisement

That once again changed after Goldberg's second contract with WWE expired, claiming that McMahon promised him a retirement match while saying some unflattering things about his old boss. However, just a few months later, Goldberg said that he is thankful that McMahon gave him the chance for his son to see him wrestle live before he retired.

Suzanne Cordeiro/Getty Images

Nearly a decade after Goldberg originally left WWE, the company tried to make a similar type of character with Ryback — and it didn't go according to plan. Ryback was unleashed onto the wrestling world in 2012 after the former Skip Sheffield endured a stint in the developmental system. After four years in WWE as Ryback, he found who he was: someone who hated Vince McMahon.

Advertisement

Since his WWE exit in 2016, Ryback has taken shots at McMahon and the company. One notable example came during a Q&A session on X (formerly known as Twitter), where Ryback called claimed the world will be a better place when McMahon dies. 

While McMahon hasn't died (at least at the time of writing), a number of his family members have, and Ryback has managed to find his way into being a topic of conversation in these stories. In 2022, Ryback infamously called McMahon's late mother a "wh*re," while criticizing his former WWE boss. Ryback apologized for this rude remarks about McMahon's mother, blaming WWE for delaying a legal battle over trademarks for his language.

WWE

Paul London burst on to the scene in the early 2000s, when companies like Ring of Honor platformed wrestlers who would go on to be considered some of the all-time greats. Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, and AJ Styles all shared a ring with him, but London was unique in that he was quickly snapped up by WWE in 2003, where he met the man he would grow to hate more than anyone: Vince McMahon.

Advertisement

London's main issue with the former WWE chairman has received more publicity in the wake of Janel Grant's sex trafficking lawsuit against McMahon and the company. The issue in question is WWE officials ignoring the alleged rape Ashley Massaro, the manager of London and Brian Kendrick, during a WWE tour of Kuwait for American troops. McMahon allegedly told her to keep quiet about it, as it might make the company look bad and ruin its relationship with the U.S. military. 

London recalled Massaro being harassed by McMahon and former WWE producer Kevin Dunn, claiming they pressured her into flying on the company jet with them, and banged on her hotel room door at all hours of the morning. London isn't surprised by the stories that have been released about McMahon in the years since, and has slammed people for protecting him.

Advertisement

WWE

The majority of Eric Young's career has been spent in TNA Wrestling, where he has won almost every championship, including the Knockouts Tag Team Title, the Beer Drinking Championship, and Turkey Bowl. While all of those accolades seem far-fetched, he has carved out a Hall of Fame career in TNA, but he won some fans' respect even more thanks to the way he left WWE in 2023.

Advertisement

Young originally left TNA to join WWE in 2016, where he became part of the SAnitY stable on "NXT." After two years working under Triple H, Young and SAnitY were drafted to the main roster, but Vince McMahon didn't understand the group, and broke them up in 2019. Afterward, Young told McMahon to his face that he had failed as a leader for not being able to find anything for him to do.

After being released in 2020, Young was brought back to WWE in 2022 after McMahon initially retired in the wake of the Wall Street Journal airing out all of his very expensive dirty laundry. However, less than a year into his second stint, Young requested his release from WWE after McMahon returned and started making creative decisions again.

Advertisement

After his departure, Young admitted that the sole reason that he left WWE was because he didn't want to work for McMahon, as it went against all of his own morals. In 2024, he revealed that WWE made him sign an NDA after his release, for reasons he can't legally talk about.

Wwe/Getty Images

Bret "The Hitman" Hart has the reputation of being the wrestling world's grumpiest man. However, Hart's displeasure for certain people is warranted as he is well known for noting everything down in his journal, meaning that when he tells a story from 25 years ago, the details are mostly accurate accounts of what really happened. The events of the "Montreal Screwjob" are well documented at this point, and the incident led to Hart resenting McMahon for years.

Advertisement

After Hart had the WWE Championship essentially robbed from him on live pay-per-view in his home country, Vince McMahon tried to talk to him. Hart reportedly took a shower and told his boss that if he was still there when he got out, he was going to knock him out. Hart got out of the shower, and McMahon was still there.

Hart reportedly landed an uppercut so clean that "The Hitman" called it the greatest punch he's ever thrown. McMahon was knocked out, and sported a black eye for several weeks on TV, but Hart didn't care. In the past, he's wished that McMahon would rot in hell for what he did to him, and even though they seemed to bury the hatchet in 2010 for a match at WrestleMania 26, Hart retold the story in the "Mr. McMahon" documentary, where he said the punch is the greatest thing he's ever done in his life. 

Advertisement

WWE/Peacock

Some men will call him out on social media, others to his face, and in the case of Bret Hart, knock him out and leave him on the floor doing his best starfish impression. But no one comes close to the level of hatred that Kevin "Nailz" Wacholz had for Vince McMahon.

Advertisement

Nailz was released from WWE in 1992 after a confrontation with McMahon over pay. According to multiple sources, including Bret Hart and Bruce Prichard, Nailz burst into McMahon's office, cornered him, and yelled at him for 15 minutes. Nailz then knocked McMahon out of his chair and strangled him, leading to multiple WWE officials separating the two. Nailz was gone from the company by the end of the day.

Multiple legal battles between Nailz and WWE were filed, including a wrongful termination lawsuit, as the former WWE star claimed that McMahon tried to sexually assault and make an advance on him which led to their infamous altercation. However, the most notable story saw the former WWE star accuse McMahon of telling him to take steroids, which resulted in Wacholz being a witness in the 1994 steroid trial. 

Advertisement

WWE lawyer Laura Brevetti cross-examined Wacholz when he took to the stand and asked him if he had any personal animosity toward McMahon, to which he said "no." He was then asked if he hated McMahon, to which he said "yes," which ended up working in his old boss' favor and played a part in him being found not guilty. Years later, Nailz claimed that he was forced to testify in the trial, and even though he got paid for taking the stand, he told the Department of Justice to get lost, as he wanted nothing to do with McMahon.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).