* ActingForTwo: Wrestling/MickFoley's four wrestling personas - Cactus Jack, Dude Love, Mankind and [[AsHimself himself]] - are all completely separate characters. Unlike [[PunnyName Isaac Yankem DDS]] and Kane, say, who were played by the same person but are totally separate characters, it is openly acknowledged that Foley is one guy in 4 roles. It was even {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when he once entered a Royal Rumble match three times (he wasn't working under his own name at the time), once for each persona. Also lampshaded at the 2005 Taboo Tuesday PPV, when fans voted online whether Foley would face Carlito as Mankind, Cactus Jack, or Dude Love. Mankind won the online vote and also the match.
* BreakupBreakout:
** The WWWF was the second major wrestling company to break ties with the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance and declare their own world champion, the first being the Wrestling/AmericanWrestlingAssociation. Flash-forward to the 2000s and WWE is a billion-dollar industry, while the NWA pretty much had to turn into a glorified indie to survive and the AWA no longer exists.[[note]]AWA closed its doors in 1990 before officially dissolving the following year. Keep in mind that this is before WCW was able to reach the same standing as the then-WWF, and before ECW was even founded.[[/note]]
** Anytime a tag team/{{power stable}} break up and one or more of those wrestlers have a successful singles run. The most prominent example is Wrestling/ShawnMichaels after the break-up of The Rockers; Wrestling/MartyJannetty is the reason why "The Jannety" is a redirect to this trope due to his lack of popularity after the break-up. There are ''way too many'' examples after them to count. In fact, Michaels' breakout success after the Rockers' break-up is considered the reason why there are too many examples to count in the first place, as WWE has engineered breakups between established teams in the hopes of creating singles stars, even to the detriment of its tag team division. Many have even stated that the break-up of the Rockers is probably the most damaging event to tag-team wrestling in the entire ''industry'', not just WWE.
* CashCowFranchise: WWE have reached a point where they are essentially CriticProof, according to the ''Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter''[='s=] Dave Meltzer. They remain the largest and most-profitable wrestling company in history.
* ChannelHop:
** ''Raw'' jumped from the Creator/USANetwork to The Nashville Network (which would become Creator/SpikeTV) fron 2000-05, then back to USA.
** ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackDown SmackDown]]'' went from {{Creator/UPN}} to Creator/TheCW, then to Creator/MyNetworkTV, then to Creator/{{Syfy}} at the start of its NetworkDecay, then to Creator/USANetwork, and now Creator/{{Fox}}, where it's remained since October 2019.
** ''Saturday Night's Main Event'' went from Creator/{{NBC}} to Creator/{{FOX}}, and was revived on NBC. Incidentally, ''WesternAnimation/HulkHogansRockNWrestling'', which WWE co-produced with was on NBC rival Creator/{{CBS}}.
** ''[[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]]'' originated on Syfy, then to WWE.com, Creator/{{Hulu}}, the WWE Network, and finally moved to Creator/USANetwork in order to provide competition for Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling's flagship program, ''AEW Dynamite'', on Creator/{{TNT}}.
* CreativeDifferences:
** Wrestling/DanSevern quit the company in protest after being asked to join the Wrestling/MinistryOfDarkness and [[NumberOfTheBeast paint three sixes on his head.]]
** Wrestling/PaulHeyman walked out of the company following creative differences with Wrestling/VinceMcMahon over ''December to Dismember 2006'', the only pay-per-view of WWE's revival of ECW.
* CreatorBacklash: In 2007, WWE's "revival" of Wrestling/{{ECW}} made Bryan Alvarez of ''Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter'' so furious that he directly messaged and emailed WWE personnel to complain to them directly. He said the resounding response could be summed up as "Yup, it sucks." WWE would spend the next three years trying to spruce up the program before giving up.
* DistancedFromCurrentEvents: The "Wrestling/MuhammadHassan summons ski mask-clad mooks" and "Who Killed Mr. [=McMahon=]?" angles, although in a reversal of how it usually happens, the "current event" happened ''after'' those storylines. The first was filmed before the July 7th bombings, it was only aired after them. The latter angle was actually stopped because of another incident to which WWE performed this trope: the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Benoit_double-murder_and_suicide Chris Benoit double murder-suicide]]. When the news first broke of the tragedy (before anyone became aware of the circumstances involving the deaths), the WWE dedicated the episode that was supposed to reveal that [=McMahon=] was alive and well (filmed in an empty arena) to the life and career of Benoit. However, the very next day, it was made known that Benoit killed his son and wife before killing himself, and thus, on the ECW show, [=McMahon=] mentioned that Benoit's name wouldn't be mentioned at all on that show, and that the wrestlers would "do what they do best: Entertain you." WWE [[UnPerson has yet to acknowledge Benoit's existence since that night]], to mixed reaction, and made a literal HandWave of his [[CanonDiscontinuity matches and appearances in their back library since then]].
* FridayNightDeathSlot: Averted, when Creator/{{UPN}} moved ''[=SmackDown=]'' to Friday nights, and again, when it [[ChannelHop switched to]] Creator/MyNetworkTV, the WWE aggressively promoted the show, and it more or less retained their audience. It eventually did catch up over time, with ''[=SmackDown=]'''s ratings declining, but this could be equally attributed to WWE gradually turning ''[=SmackDown=]'' back into a B Show for ''Raw''.
* GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld:
** Daniel Bryan's firing was a result of this. Mattel had just become an advertiser and distributor for WWE. Vince [=McMahon=] told Wrestling/TheNexus to [[HostileShowTakeover go out in front of the cameras and destroy everything]] but gave them no limitations. Bryan spat in Cena's face and choked out one of the announcers, Justin Roberts, with his own necktie. The next day, Mattel told WWE that the angle was way too violent, citing the choking as one of the things they didn't like. Vince was painted into a corner because he can't have a company as big as Mattel walk away and take all of their money with them. So, Vince fired Bryan in good faith. As far as it has been reported, no one else was reprimanded, including the director or the cameraman. Bryan had a pretty full indie schedule afterward, so the firing was legit, but he was told by Vince that the door would be open for his return once it blew over. And it did at the end of that year's ''[=SummerSlam=]'' when he returned as the mystery member of Team WWE.
** Besides generating controversy due to their human rights record, Saudi Arabia hosting WWE events became infamous for their demands to the promotion (which, given the lucrative deal with the country, WWE has largely acquiesced), including asking for already dead wrestlers like Wrestling/{{Yokozuna}} and the Wrestling/UltimateWarrior (which WWE couldn't comply to, for obvious reasons) and (initially) not allowing women to wrestle due to the limited rights women have in the country (they would eventually ease on the latter, but women would still wrestle in full body suits and T-shirts instead of normal ring attire, due to the country's conservative dress policy).
* LongRunners:
** WWE itself is a long-runner, being founded in 1952 as Capitol Wrestling Corporation, before their namechange to World Wide Wrestling Federation after leaving the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance in 1963.
** ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' have been on the air since '93 and '99, respectively.
** The "Big Four" pay-per-view events, with Wrestling/WrestleMania running annually since 1985, followed by ''Survivor Series'' (1987), ''Wrestling/SummerSlam'' (1988) and the ''Royal Rumble'' event (1989 as a pay-per-view, the 1988 event airing on free television).
* LyingCreator
** Wrestling/BuddyRogers and Wrestling/PatPatterson became the first WWWF World Heavyweight Champion and WWF Intercontinental Champion respectively by winning a tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! It went to the point that one April Fool's Day had WWE.com ''acknowledge it'' by claiming that they had footage of the tournament for the Intercontinental Championship, but clicking the link that supposedly directed to it only led to an "April Fools!" message.
** ''[=WrestleMania=] III'' had 93,173 people attend it.[[note]]They could have sold that many tickets, but they couldn't fit that many people in the building, especially not with the WWF stage reducing the amount of seats people could sit in. This wasn't the only false attendance number the WWF ever put out; they had been doing so since they inflated an already impressive 38,000 to an unprecedented for Chicago 41,000 back during the CWC days of Wrestling/BuddyRogers but people believed it for seven years until Zane Bresloff, who promoted the event, revealed the true number was 78,000[[/note]]
** The Rock: This Is Your Life! Highest rated ''Monday Night Raw'' segment ever![[note]]The segment pulled an 8.4 rating (around 8 million viewers). Austin vs. Taker on the June 28, 1999 episode of ''Raw'' did a 9.5 rating (just under 11 million). The misinformation is often attributed to Vince Russo [[/note]]
** John Cena vs. The Rock: Once in a Lifetime![[note]]They had a rematch the following year, which was reportedly always the plan[[/note]].
** John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan, [[FromACertainPointOfView first time ever!]][[note]]John Cena and ''Bryan Danielson'' wrestled on Velocity in 2003[[/note]]
* MarketBasedTitle: In UsefulNotes/{{Germany}}, the ''Elimination Chamber'' PPV is promoted as ''Wrestling/NoWayOutWWE'' because the ''Elimination Chamber'' name has connotations that tie it to the gas chambers used in UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust. ''Elimination Chamber'' was introduced in 2010 by WWE as its replacement for the ''No Way Out'' PPV. Interestingly, when ''No Way Out'' was brought back in 2012, it was promoted in Germany as ''No Escape''.
* OldShame: There are some matches that WWE has never uploaded online on their official accounts, in most cases because of the overwhelmingly negative reception they got (sometimes even as the match was still in progress by the live crowd), the assumption being that WWE would prefer them to be forgotten. One example of this is the infamous "Rosie O'Donnell" vs. "UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump" match, whose "highlights" (or lowlights) include "Trump" [[PieInTheFace splattering "Rosie" with a Fudgy the Whale cake]], Wrestling/JimRoss uttering the phrase "lesbianic fury", and the fans, sick of what they were seeing, chanting "BORING", "TNA", and "WE WANT WRESTLING". WWE takes down videos of the match when they find them.
* PromotedFanboy:
** Edge was named "Most Likely to be WWF Champion", was in the audience at WrestleMania VI, and won a training camp to become a wrestler by writing an essay. It was destiny.
** At 14 or 15 years old, Scotty 2 Hotty wrote to the WWF asking what professional wrestling school the WWF recruited their wrestlers from, helped assemble a WWF ring and attempted to call Vince [=McMahon=] himself.
** Wrestling/TripleH deserves extra special mention. He went from diehard fanboy to WCW jobber to breakout WWE Superstar to marrying the boss' daughter, and he and his wife Wrestling/StephanieMcMahon are now running the WWE empire.
* RecycledScript:
** The storyline in which Daniel Bryan's enemies accused him of having an affair with a woman named Megan Miller drew comparisons to the infamous Claire Lynch storyline in TNA, in which Wrestling/AJStyles's enemies accused him of having an affair with a woman of that name. It got to the point that "Claire Lynch" was trending on Website/{{Twitter}} after Stephanie [=McMahon=] introduced Megan. However (and perhaps due to the bad reception it got), the Megan Miller angle was dropped after one night, in contrast to how the Claire Lynch storyline dragged on for several weeks.
** Wrestling/BigShow opposing and/or being tormented by a CorruptCorporateExecutive, turning against TheHero of the storyline and costing them a big pay-per-view match, revealing that he'd made a DealWithTheDevil or last-minute FriendOrIdolDecision to either keep or advance his job status, and spending some time working as the authority figure or group's muscle, [[Wrestling/VickieGuerrero has been done]] [[Wrestling/JohnLaurinaitis at least]] [[Wrestling/TheAuthority three times]].
* RoleEndingMisdemeanor:
** The famous story goes that Wrestling/TheIronSheik and Wrestling/HacksawJimDuggan were caught driving in New Jersey under the influence of some heavy narcotics. They were released from the company not for this, but for the fact that they were supposed to be arch-enemies, and the entire world saw them break character by partying together.
** Matt Striker, a wrestler-turned-commentator, reportedly got in the hot seat for shouting, "I'm '''marking out''', bro!" during one ''Royal Rumble'', which is verboten in WWE.
** Orlando Jordan was fired after WWE kept complaining about him bringing his underage groupies not only to the backstage area but also the locker room. Ric Flair also had issues with Jordan.
** Daniel Bryan was fired for choking out an announcer with his own necktie in kayfabe during the riot that introduced Wrestling/TheNexus. He would be rehired two months later once it blew over.
** In January 2018, allegations of Enzo Amore raping a woman the previous October became public. Said sexual assault accusation would be the culmination of several incidents in which Enzo reportedly rubbed a lot of people backstage the wrong way, to the point that Roman Reigns had to kick him off the tour bus at one point, along with other incidents.[[note]]Adding to this, when Enzo didn't like his writing, he'd go to Vince [=McMahon=]. This pissed off Triple H, but endeared him to Vince.[[/note]] He was suspended for failing to inform WWE of the police investigation, and it was reported that as he was leaving the building, he said to the guy escorting him out, "This company needs me more than I need them." That person relayed it to Vince, and Enzo lost his only supporter, which turned the suspension into a termination.
** Enzo's tag team partner Big Cass had a drinking problem which led to his release, but Vince left the door open for a return one day.
** In 2020, on the onset of the [=#SpeakingOut=] movement, several wrestlers and employees contracted by WWE were accused of engaging in acts of misconduct, and some of them, like "Gentleman" Jack Gallagher, Ligero and Travis Banks, admitted their guilt and were released from their contracts.
* RomanceOnTheSet: It came out that Wrestling/{{Lita}} cheated on Wrestling/MattHardy with Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}}, causing a mini-scandal. On his website, at conventions and meet-and-greets, Hardy would tell anyone who asked that Lita cheated. Matt was legitimately fired over that. His firing turned out to be a glorified suspension and he came back.
* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: The WWE Network was originally set for an 2011 debut date and was heavy pushed as such, but for various reasons, they didn't manage to get it off the ground. It wasn't until 2014 that the Network finally debuted.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork
** Happened to ''WWE Saturday Morning Slam'', as Creator/{{Vortexx}} wanted to change the format of the show to a WWE news magazine rather than the taped matches that the company wanted. WWE didn't want the change, and thus canceled the show.
** WWE has been the guilty party too, such as when it denied [=VH1=] and Corey Maclin's version of Memphis Wrestling Wrestling/JerryLawler in 2007, despite otherwise allowing Lawler to wrestle where ever he wanted so long as it didn't conflict with Raw, because they didn't want Hogan to have the publicity.
* WagTheDirector:
** Wrestling/TheFabulousMoolah became infamous for the control she held on women's wrestling in the WWF, and the U.S. at large in TheEighties.
*** It was weird that the Rock 'N Wrestling Era of pro wrestling had a 64-year-old lady as their top female star (it was even weird at the time). It becomes clearer once you read about Moolah's business acumen and how she was able to control women's wrestling in the northeast for so long. (Numerous other women's wrestlers defected from the WWF after growing weary of sharing their paychecks with Moolah.) Her protégé, Mad Maxine, was slated for a huge push which Moolah put a halt to. Moolah was going to get a cut from Maxine being in ''WesternAnimation/HulkHogansRockNWrestling'', but Moolah used her influence to take over that slot in the show.
*** The Wrestling/JumpingBombAngels habitually tore the house down in Japan, but their high-flying style was too ahead of its time in the U.S. The Glamour Girls (Judy Martin and Wrestling/LeilaniKai) requested working with them because the innovation going on in those circles was an antidote to the boring, Moolah-infected style that western women's divisions had. When these four began house show programs in June 1987, they stole the show every night and were awarded four-star matches left and right. Moolah, who was totally at sea with the acrobatic stuff that was blowing up overseas,[[note]]And backed by some of the boys in the back, who had complained to Vince that those girls needed "to learn how to work." Bear in mind that at that time you had steroid-jacked grapplers like Hogan on those particular house show cards.[[/note]] phoned the Zenjo office with phony booking which Vince [=McMahon=] and Pat Patterson didn't sign off on: The JBA won the Tag Team belts at the '88 ''Rumble'', and the big rumor was that the Glamour Girls were going to be given an opportunity to wrestle a title match with them at a PPV. (Judging by the timing of the story, it was either going to be ''[=WrestleMania=]'' IV or ''[=SummerSlam=]'' '88.) Kai and Martin went on a tour of Japan and were instructed by Moolah to do the title change on the last show of the tour, which confused the hell out of everyone. But it was enough for management to blame it on Kai and Martin. Soon after, the title was retired and both teams were out of the company, with the JBA breaking up in 1991.
** Wrestling/TheKliq, a backstage group whose members (Wrestling/TripleH, Wrestling/ShawnMichaels, Wrestling/KevinNash, Wrestling/ScottHall, and Wrestling/SeanWaltman) helped push themselves to the top of the card, whilst freezing the progress of countless others they didn't care for either professionally or personally, via having Vince's ear. Most of the horror stories involve Triple H and Michaels. Most guys who worked with them seem to like (or at the very least, respect) Nash. Hall refused the top spot, both in the WWF and in WCW. He didn't want the stress of having the entire company on his back; he enjoyed hanging back in the midcard while making tons of money. Waltman for the most part just hung out with them and got drunk. The group eventually split off in two different directions (with Nash and Hall going to WCW to form the nWo and Triple H and Michaels forming WWF's Wrestling/DGenerationX), with a respective member from each side (Kevin Nash and Triple H) eventually gaining creative control over their matches. Nash ended up the less lucky of the two, as his company was the one which went under, and he wound up traveling back-and-forth between WWE and TNA. Triple H married into the [=McMahon=] family and became the ''de facto'' COO. His reputation for burying talent became so prevalent (see his career starting from ''[=WrestleMania=]'' X8 and going strong through 2005) that it became an IWC meme.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: With arcs getting {{aborted|Arc}} mid through, either due to injury of one of the wrestlers involved, lack of reaction or other issues there are some things you really wanted to see happen after reading the plans. WWE has [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/{{WWE}} its own page]].
* WrittenInInfirmity: After Lita's neck injury hurt her momentum, her pregnancy storyline was conceived as a way to get her out of the ring, since her perfomance during her comeback was noticeably hampered because of it.
* YouLookFamiliar: Occasionally a wrestler will disappear and return with a new name and gimmick so radically different, many fans won't recognize him. Sometimes the WWE marketing actually helps this along, pretending that an earlier character played by a current athlete-actor never existed:
** Jamal from 3-Minute Warning became WildSamoan Wrestling/{{Umaga}}, for example.
** R-Truth (a.k.a. Wrestling/RonKillings) is actually K-Kwik from back in the day; he even won a title as K-Kwik, but WWE has apparently {{handwave}}d that out of existence.
** Similarly, when Wrestling/DolphZiggler won the WWE Intercontinental Championship in 2010, the announcers claimed that it was his first title, conveniently forgetting that the same wrestler was part of the Spirit Squad which won the World Tag Team Championship in 2006. Later on they do acknowledge his status as triple crown champion though, and Ziggler himself mentioned being a male cheerleader and a caddy for [[Wrestling/ChavoGuerreroJr Kerwin White]].
** Festus became [[Wrestling/DrewHankinson Luke Gallows]], one of Wrestling/CMPunk's underlings, but is actually a subversion as he's acknowledged to be the same person; the story is that he was "saved" by Punk and his SmugStraightEdge MessianicArchetype teachings. He was also the fake Kane, so he's subverted it and played it straight.
** Speaking of Wrestling/{{Kane}}, the real one previously played Fake Diesel when Wrestling/KevinNash left for Wrestling/{{WCW}}; earlier still, he was 'wrestling dentist' Isaac Yankem, before he was retooled (unacknowledged) under a mask into The Undertaker's psychopathic half-brother.
** Wrestling/CharlesWright, who played Papa Shango, Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine, and The Godfather. While Kama sort of evolved into The Godfather, they never once acknowledged that he was ever Papa Shango. It sort of helps that Shango wore face paint all the time, and that the time between Wright's stints as Shango and Kama was a fairly long interval.
** Tyler Reks was a short lived surfer dude who then showed up as Tyler Reks, dreadlocked demolition man.
** [[Wrestling/MattBloom (Lord) Tensai]] was Prince Albert/A-Train after gaining some respect on the Japanese circuit. Which they actually admit, albeit in a half-assed manner (never mentioning his actual former names aside from WWE.com).
** Johnny Curtis disappeared off TV after he debuted on Smackdown, and reappeared months later as Wrestling/{{Fandango}}. It helps that he was barely on TV, and the TV time he got was on ''NXT''.
** The man known as Stan who got superkicked by Wrestling/ShawnMichaels showed up on WWECW as Gavin Spears, but was released a few months later. He reappeared in WWE several years later, as Tye Dillinger.
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