10 Wrestlers Who Hated Working Together

It’s always awkward when you don’t get on with your colleagues. This can be especially uneasy when your job is to punch and kick each other, as these 10 pairs of wrestlers found out. Backstage fights, on-air blow-ups, friendships ruined in an instant! These workplace disagreements have them all – yet some also end up producing riveting television.

So, if you really don't like your colleague, try not to face them inside the squared circle. If you're boss just can't help it, though, at least make the product somewhat entertaining.

These are 10 Wrestlers Who Hated Working Together.

10. Alberto Del Rio & Sin Cara

For as long as the company has been around, WWE has longed for a Latin American star to capture the Hispanic market. Pedro Morales. Tito Santana. Rey Mysterio. Eddie Guerrero. WWE have put in a lot of hard work to win over this crowd.

Two more modern attempts to appeal to those south of the border were Alberto Del Rio and the original Sin Cara. Neither of them is with the company anymore, so it didn’t particularly go well. It didn’t help that these two men really didn’t like each other, stemming back to several incidents in their native Mexico. Whilst in WWE, the pair clashed both on-air and behind the scenes numerous times.

The most famous incident between these two took place on the August 19, 2013 edition of Raw. The masked man called off his match with Del Rio because he had dislocated his finger within the first minute, which Del Rio felt was hardly worth throwing up the X for, leading to a dispute.

9. Dean Ambrose & Brock Lesnar

In early 2016, the man currently known as Jon Moxley had the world in the palm of his hand. He’d almost won the Royal Rumble, fought Triple H for the WWE Championship, and was set to compete in a brutal No Holds Barred contest at WrestleMania. His opponent was the “1 in 21-1”, Brock Lesnar.

The idea of seeing crazy Dean Ambrose take on the superhuman Lesnar in a match with no rules was positively mouth-watering. Unfortunately, one of the participants in this much-hyped matchup did not put his all into it, refusing to put much effort into making this a violent masterclass.

As has been recounted many times, including by Ambrose himself on the Stone Cold Podcast, Lesnar had little to no interest in putting together an engaging match with Ambrose. Instead, The Beast just chucked The Lunatic Fringe around for a bit before pinning him after an F5 to overwhelming indifference.

Unsurprisingly, Ambrose and Lesnar never worked together again.

8. CM Punk & Ryback

In late 2012, WWE Champion CM Punk was feuding with the up-and-coming mega-monster Ryback. The two collided at Hell in a Cell and Punk handed the Big Guy his first ever loss.

The two then feuded again as part of The Best in the World’s rivalry with Paul Heyman in 2013, before Punk left the promotion in 2014. Punk took several shots at the company in the months after his departure. He also didn’t hold back with his thoughts on Ryback, whom he called an unsafe worker in so many words.

The two have continued to beef over the decade that followed their initial programme together to the point where you still can’t mention The Big Guy online without starting a conversation about the Straight-Edge Superstar. Even until this day, Ryback’s social media feed is taking shots at “Fragile Phil”.

7. Alexa Bliss & Sasha Banks

Whilst they didn’t ever have a memorable singles feud, Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks crossed paths multiple times throughout their respective WWE careers. They fought a few times down in NXT, battled at SummerSlam 2017, and were the final two in the first-ever all-female Elimination Chamber match.

Banks and Bliss were two of WWE’s biggest female stars at the time, so crossing paths isn’t all that surprising. This was a problem as, according to multiple sources, Bliss and Banks really didn’t get on behind the scenes, and we saw hints of this animosity creep into WWE programming.

The Boss fired shots at The Goddess on an edition of Raw Talk, claiming that she deserved Alexa’s spot more than she did. Thankfully, this was on Raw Talk, so only about 10 people actually saw it. The two continued to take subtle digs at each other across the years, reminding us all that they were not the best of friends.

6. John Cena & Alex Riley

As a protege/heavy for The Miz, Alex Riley was part of the Awesome One’s time as Mr Money in the Bank and subsequent WWE Title reign. This involved him tangling with John Cena in the build-up to WrestleMania 27, where Miz defended the top prize against Cena.

Things started going downhill for A-Ry in the 2011 Royal Rumble. He was supposed to score a huge elimination by chucking Cena out of the ring, but accidentally got eliminated himself before this spot could go down.

This only made his and Cena’s already-frosty relationship even worse. According to Riley, this backstage heat with Big Match John was one of the main reasons his big push was cancelled, which contributed to him plummeting down the card.

5. Booker T & Batista

The heat between Booker T and Batista from 2006 is just as melodramatic as any soap opera storyline WWE have ever run.

As well as being perceived as an arrogant newcomer who “didn’t respect the business”, Batista also caught flack for allegedly engaging in an affair with John Morrison’s then-girlfriend Melina. Melina was taken to wrestler’s court over her backstage attitude, something The Animal didn’t take kindly to. Booker, who was on the prosecution team, took issue with Batista’s objections.

This pressure cooker finally exploded during a photoshoot for that year’s SummerSlam, where Booker and Batista were set to face off for the World Heavyweight Championship. After a war of words, the two men apparently got into an actual fist fight, with the Booker man coming out on top. Somehow, these two got over coming to blows and worked together without incident for the rest of the year.

4. Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch

The main event of SmackDown on October 22, 2021 was a title exchange ceremony between Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair and SmackDown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch.

Supposedly, Lynch was supposed to snatch the red belt away from Flair to briefly be “Becky Two-Belts” again, before handing the blue strap over to her fellow Horsewoman. This would be to build some heat for the upcoming champion versus champion match at Survivor Series.

However, according to Lynch during an appearance on the Broken Skull Sessions, Flair thought that this made her look like a chump. In retaliation, she went off script, dropping the belt at Lynch’s feet before The Man could grab it.

Understandably, this made everyone rather cross backstage. All of this was such a shame, because Lynch and Flair used to be best friends. They came up in NXT together and were both responsible for changing the face of women’s wrestling in the company.

Since 2021, though, the two talents have repaired their relationship and are friends once again.

3. Chris Jericho & Chyna

Chris Jericho has written plenty of books detailing his long and storied career in the business, releasing three autobiographies so far. These all contain juicy little tidbits from his time working in Japan, Smoky Mountain, ECW, WCW, and WWE, including what he thought about working with the Ninth Wonder of the World, Chyna.

The founding member of DX was one of Jericho’s first major rivals when he joined WWE in 1999. Y2J won his first title from her, pinning her for the Intercontinental Championship at Armageddon. Their careers continued to intertwine in 2000, when the pair were named co-IC titleholders in a gimmick so awful WWE never tried it ever again.

Jericho has gone on record saying how difficult he found working with Chyna to be, going as far as to describe her as “terrible” in one interview. As detailed in one of his books, he also got in major trouble from her then-boyfriend Triple H for allegedly stiffing her during a match.

2. Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage

This one almost didn’t make the grade because there is so much conflicting information out there about when the Hulkster and the Macho Man were friends and when they were enemies. One thing we do know for sure is that, at some points, these two hated each other. Savage even made a diss track on his rap album about it… yes, Randy Savage released a rap album.

The real-life bad blood between the two icons came from something that was exploited in storyline ahead of WrestleMania 5 - Hogan’s supposed lust for Miss Elizabeth. Savage was a very jealous man and made assumptions that his wife Liz was getting overly friendly with Hogan.

To be fair, it is on record in a court of law that Hogan likes to sleep with other people’s wives, so he wasn’t without his reasons. What had once been a strong friendship completely unravelled once Savage and Liz got divorced and the Hogans allegedly harboured the ex-Mrs Macho Man, but that didn’t stop The Mega Powers from working together after the fact in WCW. They might have hated each other, but they loved money just that much more.

1. Bret Hart & Shawn Michaels

Much has been said about who started it, who did what to who, and who was the bigger arsehole in the entire situation, but really both men should have known better than to antagonise each other so frequently.

HBK yelled at The Hitman at WrestleMania 12, Hart said that Michaels was a poor role model, The Showstopper accused Bret of having an affair with Sunny.

Of course, you can’t talk about Bret and Shawn without at least mentioning Montreal. What happened in Montreal was the cherry on top of a particularly toxic cake and was thankfully the last interaction these two would have for many years.

It might be one of the greatest pro wrestling rivalries of all time, but the toll Hart vs Michaels took on each man’s personal makes you wonder if it was worth it. They did manage to settle things in their later years at least.