10 WWE Stars Who Refused To Work With Other Wrestlers (& Why)

The life of a WWE wrestler is not all that different from any other everyday job, at least not as different as the average person may think. While an everyman's profession may not be as scripted or bump-heavy as a WWE Superstar's, the word "job" is literally in the vernacular of wrestling lingo. To do a "job" is to do business with someone in the ring.

Just like co-workers in an office job, WWE Superstars need to work with each other, and oftentimes in the case of "the job," one wrestler has to agree to take the fall - the pinfall - for another wrestler. To decide to not work with someone, just as in an office workplace, would be considered unprofessional

10 Stone Cold Refused to Work with Brock Lesnar

He Didn't Like the Creative Booking He Was Enduring

In 2002, Stone Cold Steve Austin was burnt out. He had been quietly phased out of the main event picture, and as far as he was concerned, creative had nothing interesting for him to do. Alternatively, WWE was all in on a man they had dubbed The Next Big Thing. Going all in on Brock Lesnar's push in his rookie year, there were plans for Lesnar to beat Austin on a June episode of Monday Night Raw in the first round of the King of the Ring tournament.

Not pleased with booking a marquee match with no build-up, this solidified to Austin that WWE had nothing for him, creatively, prompting his infamous walkout. Austin would be gone for the remainder of 2002, not returning until the No Way Out pay-per-view in February 2003. In between, though, WWE would publicly lambast Austin for "taking his ball and going home."

9 Brock Refused to Work with Jinder Mahal

He Wasn't Interested In Working with the WWE Champion

There was a time when Survivor Series was an annual tradition for WWE to pit the respective World Champions of Raw and SmackDown against each other. In 2017, this would've seen Raw's Universal Champion Brock Lesnar take on WWE Champion Jinder Mahal. Yet, with just a couple of weeks until the PPV, the November 7 episode of Friday Night SmackDown saw AJ Styles shockingly defeat Mahal, then face Lesnar at Survivor Series.

Former SmackDown head writer Brian "Road Dogg" James confirmed on his Wrestling Outlaws podcast that Brock simply professed backstage, "I'm not working with him." No reason was given as to why, but additional reports suggested that Mahal vs. Lesnar didn't feel like a marquee match worthy of Lesnar's time, as far as the then-Universal Champion himself was concerned.

8 Ken Shamrock Did Not Want to Wrestle Chyna

The Former WWE IC Champion Wanted to Be a Role Model To His Children

In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, when asked why he left WWE, one reason Ken Shamrock cites is over creative decisions he did not feel comfortable being a part of, namely when he was asked to wrestle Chyna. He goes on to explain that one thing he always instilled into his children at a young age is, no matter what, always respect women and never lay hands on them.

As much as he understands that intergender wrestling is merely sports entertainment, he also understands the optics of contracting what he tells his family and coming off like a hypocrite to his children. Shamrock reiterates that he will always put his family before any business and, on the Chyna booking, feared he'd confuse his kids by wrestling a woman.

7 Honky Tonk Man Refused to Work with Randy Savage

Vince McMahon Was Ready to Discard The Honky Tonk Man Completely Without the WWE Intercontinental Championship

In the 80s, Honky Tonk Man once held the record for the longest WWE title reign in the history of the Intercontinental Championship at 454 days, before Gunther broke the record at 666 days after 2023. His reign was planned to be cut shorter with plans to lose the title to "Macho Man" Randy Savage on the October 3, 1987 episode of Saturday Night's Main Event. Instead, the plans for the finish changed to Savage getting a DQ win following interference from the Hart Foundation, one of WWE's best tag teams.

In reality, as recounted in multiple interviews (including Title Match Wrestling), Roy Wayne Farris didn't feel like Vince McMahon had anything planned for him after his run ended. In fact, he felt disrespected that McMahon had plans to repackage him completely after. Ergo, he stood his ground and kept a vice grip on the title as long as he could.

6 John Cena Refused to Drop the WWE Championship Jack Swagger

John Cena Wasn't Sold on Swagger as a WWE Champion Yet

Although John Cena would work with Jack Swagger a handful of times during his WWE career, he never followed through on losing a title to him. Readers will recall that Jack Swagger won the Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania 26, the same night that John Cena beat Batista for the WWE Championship. The next night on Raw, Swagger tried to cash in on Cena, but failed, forcing him to successfully cash in on Chris Jericho's World Title on the next SmackDown instead.

In an interview on Chris Jericho's Talk is Jericho podcast (h/t Fightful), Donald Jacob "Jake" Hager confirmed that the original plan was for him to successfully cash-in on Cena's WWE Championship the night after Mania. Hager doesn't elaborate on a reason, but it may be safe to assume Cena simply wasn't sold on the idea of dropping the title to him.

5 Hulk Hogan Refused to Work With Bret Hart

At the 9th WrestleMania event, Bret "The Hitman" Hart lost the WWE Championship in the main event to Yokozuna. Mere minutes later, Hulk Hogan would wrestle the behemoth of The Bloodline, and in mere seconds, won his title. Bret Hart details on Inside the Ropes that Terry Bollea had pressured the WWE Chairman to take the belt off of Hart and put it on himself, or else he'd go to WCW.

However, Bollea apparently did promise Vince that he was willing to put Hart over in a match at SummerSlam 1993 to help elevate The Hitman. However, Bollea seemed to either change his mind or get cold feet in the months leading to the show. Instead, he'd go back on his word. As Hogan, Bollea dropped the title to Yokozuna at King of the Ring, two months before SummerSlam, before leaving WWE and going to WCW.

4 CM Punk Refused to Work with HHH at Mania

Punk Had No Interests in Anything Except the Main Event

Phil Brooks was often consumed by one dream at the forefront of his mind: main eventing WrestleMania. The closest he'd come to doing so is WrestleMania 28 and 29. First, CM Punk's WWE Championship match with Chris Jericho was relegated to the middle of the card in favor of John Cena vs. The Rock main eventing, while the next year, he'd lose the WWE Championship months before Mania in favor of John Cena vs. The Rock II main eventing.

Brooks was burnt out by late 2013 when a Championship Ascension Ceremony teased a WrestleMania XXX bout with Triple H. Brooks expressed in his infamous 2014 post-WWE shoot podcast interview with Colt Cabana that he had no interest in wrestling HHH in a rematch he felt he should've won in 2011. Disheveled with WWE, he only wanted to main event WrestleMania, and with those hopes seemingly dashed for good, he walked away from the company.

3 Shawn Michaels Refused to Work with Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13

The WWE Champion Lost His Smile

One year after Shawn Michaels' boyhood dream came true after beating The Hitman for the WWE Championship, WrestleMania 13 was on the horizon. The original plans called for Michaels to defend the title against Hart, this time with the former champion getting his win and belt back.

However, weeks before the show, Shawn Michaels cut a promo on Raw proclaiming he was suffering an injury that caused him to lose his smile, prompting him to vacate the belt. While the champion was dealing with nagging injuries, he suspiciously performed a backflip some weeks after this promo and still arrived to Mania for commentary. It's long been speculated that, save for some minor injuries and burnout from road life, Michael Hickenbottom simply didn't want to do the job for his rival.

2 Ric Flair Refused to Drop the Title to Lex Luger in March 1990

Flair Only Wanted to Drop the WCW World Title to Sting

WWE isn't the only company where wrestlers think twice about who they work with. Future WWE Superstar Ric Flair fits in the same mold, though some readers may commend him for this one. As WCW was ready to push a newer prospect in Sting to the moon, Steve Borden gets injured before his character could win the title. WCW Executive Vice President Jim Herd personally requested that Flair lose the title to Lex Luger at WrestleWar.

As Jim Ross would detail on Grilling JR, the WCW World Champion had personally handpicked Sting to win his title and wasn't going to change plans just because Borden was injured. Ric opted to stick to his word and wait things out. Thus, when Sting returned from injury, he was happy to do the job. It's no wonder why people view Ric Flair as one of WCW's greatest World Champions.

1 Stone Cold Refused to Work With Hulk Hogan

He Thought Hogan Fell Off And Couldn't Have Good Matches Anymore

Many wrestling fans not only wonder to themselves what a dream match between the Hulkster and The Rattlesnake would look like, but why they never wrestled one-on-one when the nWo first strolled into WWE. As it turns out, such a match was on the table at one point, but Austin was convinced Hogan was past his prime and wasn't capable of having a competent, passable match anymore.

As Jim Ross recalls on Grilling JR (h/t411Mania), "Austin didn’t have the match with Hogan because he didn’t want to have the match The Undertaker did." This is more so Ross' opinion as to why the dream match didn't happen, but the sentiment applies as far as Austin not wanting to wrestle a Hulk Hogan who was worn down and passed his prime. The WWE Universe never forgets, so an Austin vs. Hogan match that fails to live up to expectations would live forever in infamy rather than acclaim, which neither party would want.

Source: YouTube (Wrestling Outlaws, Chris Van Vliet, Title Match Wrestling, Inside the Ropes, Grilling JR, 411Mania) Fightful