00:00From best in the world secretly kissing goodbye in front of your very eyes,
00:05to certain champs not being able to disguise the fact they were done on their disappointed faces,
00:10these are those wrestlers that simply could not hide that they were on their way out.
00:15So I am Gareth, this is WhatCulture Wrestling, and here are 10 times wrestlers told you they were finished.
00:21Number 10, CM Punk 2023
00:23We'd been here before, not literally of course, AEW hadn't run Wembley before,
00:28Samoa Joe and CM Punk hadn't had a 3.5 star match in a stadium before,
00:34Punk hadn't engaged in a full backstage fight with Jack Perry before, these things were new.
00:39The rest, sadly less so.
00:41Punk had dropped to Bawmore 6 on All Elite Wrestling in the summer of 2022,
00:46and unbeknownst to most of one of the largest wrestling crowds in history,
00:50he'd played his part in another undetonated going off just minutes earlier.
00:54The fight with Perry and whatever else the Wembley cameras caught resulted in the cause Tony Khan spoke of when he fired him a week later.
01:02The Joe match was going to be the end of the road, and only the punker knew as the classic unfolded.
01:07After playing heel to a crowd totally divided on his very presence,
01:12Punk turned the mid-match middle fingers into the I love you gesture as he departed following an epic win.
01:17It was about as fitting a farewell as could have occurred in hindsight,
01:21even if nearly 80,000 people didn't know they were really saying goodbye, for a few months at least.
01:27And now I've got a quick question for you.
01:29What was your favourite AEW CM Punk match?
01:32Was it this 3.5 star classic or something else?
01:34You let me know in the comments section down below.
01:37Number 9, Dean Ambrose 2019
01:39We should have seen Jon Moxley coming, really.
01:42The iconic New Japan Pro Wrestling debut and subsequent G1 Climax run.
01:46The AEW Double or Nothing debut.
01:49The take-no-prisoners babyface on Dynamite that saw out 2019 as the next big opponent for All Elite Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho.
01:57And rightful heir to his throne.
01:59We should have seen Jon Moxley coming because we certainly saw him going.
02:03Moxley might have been Dean Ambrose by name during the last days of his WWE tenure in early 2019.
02:10But the freedom of confirming that he wasn't long for the system clearly energised him.
02:14In a way an intercontinental title or SHIELD reunion no longer could.
02:19Hilarious in backstage bits with the likes of Seth Rollins.
02:22When his preposterous 2018 heel turn was all but abandoned.
02:25If you didn't believe the lunatic fringe was leaving WWE behind, he outright told you.
02:30Over and over again until even Rollins and Roman Reigns gave up asking him to stay.
02:358. Big Cass 2018
02:37As of 2024, the Big Cass Big Bill story is one of redemption and success.
02:43Thankfully, the setbacks in his personal life have only served to enhance the major strides forward in his professional one.
02:49A joy to behold as a weekly television character, Big Bill's charisma as a heel extends beyond his lofty height.
02:55Being 7 foot tall isn't the only thing you can't teach.
02:58And he's got lots of that particular intangible in the locker.
03:01It didn't look that way as his WWE run slumped to a grim conclusion in 2018.
03:06After an inexplicable separation from Enzo Amore and frustrating injury layoff soon after,
03:11he was thrust back into an awkward spot opposite Daniel Bryan as the American Dragons' first major singles opponent
03:17following his surprising return from a career-ending head injury.
03:21Hideously bad booking and matchmaking resulted in a couple of bang average pay-per-view matches.
03:26Stuff just happened for years in the latter years of the Vince McMahon era,
03:31but the need for insufferable perfection resulted in it being easy to spot when a wrestler was not playing ball.
03:377. Jonathan Gresham 2022
03:39It was easy to sympathize with Jonathan Gresham's situation,
03:43when after being trusted with the proverbial ball during possibly the most tumultuous period in Ring of Honor's history,
03:49he had it rather unceremoniously ripped from his hands by his new boss at said gaffer's first real opportunity.
03:55It was subsequently just as easy to see that he was less than impressed with the decision.
04:00Gresham had reunified the title in a match against Bandido at the first Tony Khan-booked Ring of Honor pay-per-view in April 2022.
04:07However, he didn't make it out of the second one with the title intact.
04:10He didn't even close the show either.
04:12Gresham's loss to All Elite Wrestling newcomer Claudio Castagnoli was in the opening spot on the card,
04:18with the champion now working heel thanks to a turn that had taken place almost exclusively on Rampage.
04:23You could see the disappointment and annoyance with the booking written all over Gresham's face as he entered.
04:29And that was the point.
04:30Rather than arriving for this ostensibly massive bout with his trademark octopus head and flag,
04:35he instead sported a t-shirt and a glum expression.
04:38And he hasn't worked for Tony Khan since as of recording.
04:41Number 6.
04:42Demolition Axe, 1990
04:44The Demolition Man was finishing up with the company after several years and three strong reigns as a tag team champion.
04:51And though he was going out on his back and in extremely basic fashion,
04:54he was doing so with the least menace he'd ever portrayed.
04:58With no obvious tan, minimal detail on the face paint,
05:01and most notably no sparkly product on his hair slicking it back,
05:04Bill Eadie looked more like he was dressing up in his old gimmick to entertain some children for a big day out,
05:10rather than attempting to get the better of the ultimate warrior Texas Tornado and the Legion of Doom.
05:15Which, based on how he was squashed in the Thanksgiving tradition, was pretty much what happened.
05:19And thanks for checking out this video today too.
05:22And if you're not finished with us yet, then tap on that subscribe button down below, you lovely person.
05:26Number 5.
05:27Razor Ramon, 1996
05:29When Scott Hall passed away, it was remarked upon just how cool the man was,
05:34even during what's consensus considered the least coolest period in the history of the industry.
05:39Razor Ramon sparkled not just because he always wore gold,
05:42but because he was at the very least a film star rather than a cartoon character.
05:46Hall might have stolen liberally from the silver screen,
05:49but in a promotion ran by a man with no cultural frame of reference,
05:53and a fanbase that didn't care about the plagiarism,
05:55he was diamond sharp, years removed from playing a diamond stud.
05:59At least he was until a loss to Vader at In Your House Good Friends Better Enemies.
06:03He neither looked nor particularly felt much like the bad guy,
06:07and he was tacitly telling fans that it was time to get used to that.
06:10A scalp for the Mastodon and nothing much more on the night,
06:13Ramon was seeing out his date fresh off a WrestleMania suspension absence
06:17that he felt was cynically motivated by his impending departure.
06:21Number 4.
06:21Ahmed Johnson, 1998
06:23Everything about Ahmed Johnson's Royal Rumble 1998 performance
06:27spoke to a man that was substantially closer to the exit door
06:30than the main events of WrestleMania.
06:32Wearing about 15 leg supports,
06:34and the expression of a performer that knew how the next 10 minutes were about to play out,
06:38the fire Johnson had been able to breathe into the upper mid-card two years earlier
06:42had sadly been extinguished by a number of injuries,
06:45and the industry completely transforming underneath him.
06:48Sluggish on offense and the cell,
06:50Ahmed was eliminated just before Stone Cold Steve Austin arrived to take out the entire field,
06:55but suffered a one-man burial at the hands of former stablemate Karma.
06:59Exiting where the supreme fighting machine entered,
07:02Ahmed ate a shove in the chest from the future godfather,
07:05then shrugged and slumped off to the back.
07:07It was his penultimate WWE pay-per-view,
07:09with his last falling just one month later.
07:12Number 3.
07:12Hercules, 1992
07:14When you're called Hercules for a living,
07:16your job is to be and look as hard as a rock as often as possible.
07:20But after six strong years with nicknames such as The Mighty and Power,
07:25the time had arrived for man behind the gimmick Ray Hernandez to look anything but either,
07:29in a Madison Square Garden lost to the similarly monstrous Sid Justice in February 1992.
07:35But he didn't really want to do that, so what then?
07:38He did the honors, but that was about all he did, baby.
07:41Placing his hands behind his head for the powerbomb and stacked cover,
07:45Hercules popped up almost immediately after the finish.
07:48Sid, en route to facing Hulk Hogan in one half of the WrestleMania VIII main event,
07:52was told to leave the ring and cut his post-match promo
07:54to avoid cameras catching the no-sell in all its glory.
07:58Number 2.
07:59CM Punk, 2013
08:00It'll be a long time before the novelty of CM Punk's 2023 WWE return wears off.
08:06But for a pained reminder of how it could all go if the company ends up normalizing the magic,
08:10take a look at his December 2013 run to see a man on the edge.
08:14As he infamously recounted in The Art of Wrestling Incineration of his final years with the company,
08:19he was required to keep Roman strong while beating The Shield,
08:23was suffering as a character from the stuttering conclusion to his feuds with Paul Heyman and
08:27the Wyatt family,
08:28and appeared to be the latest babyface about to eat an awful lot of authority beatdowns
08:32before facing Triple H at WrestleMania.
08:34Promos found him trying to explain away Daniel Bryan's abrupt affection to Bray Wyatt's cult,
08:40barely keeping kayfabe and begging fans to keep cheering for him nevertheless.
08:44A memorable Car Crash Monday Night Raw Championship celebration segment found him laughing at the
08:48obnoxious refusal of the McMahons to acknowledge the star on the rise rather than the tired ones
08:53in the ring.
08:54Darkly amusing at points, in hindsight,
08:57this was the real and bleak deconstruction of the man behind the mythology in real time.
09:01Here's hoping things work out this time, eh?
09:03Number 1, Shawn Michaels, 1998
09:06As he walked the aisle for what he knew could possibly be the last time ever,
09:10Shawn Michaels looked done and dusted during every wince-inducing second of his WrestleMania
09:1514 loss to Stone Cold Steve Austin.
09:17Some saw it as karmic retribution for the various suffering he caused others during an enormously
09:22controversial decade as one of the company's most tempestuous and temperamental talents,
09:26but surely many of his peers had to feel sympathy as he gritted his teeth to dust in agony with
09:32every step he took.
09:33Having clipped his back on a casket at the 1998 Royal Rumble,
09:37exasperating a hard-living and injury-ravaged body in the process,
09:40Michaels took the run-up to WrestleMania off just to be fit enough to get out there
09:44and earn the sort of payday he'd missed out on during the lean years.
09:48The less said about his willingness to do the job, the better,
09:51but it was remarkable how he managed to do everything else bell to bell.
09:54They call him Mr. WrestleMania for a reason, folks.
09:56Did you enjoy this 10 times wrestlers told you they were finished video?
10:00Then check out this 10 WWE wrestlers who immediately told you they were losing one.
