4 wrestlers who left WWE after issues with Vince McMahon

During his 50-plus years in the wrestling business, Vince McMahon has forced many stars out of WWE due to his poor handling of their creative direction as well as things outside of the ring.

With Vince McMahon no longer handling the overall creative direction of the company these days, many former superstars have returned to WWE.

However, we are going to take a look at four superstars who left World Wrestling Entertainment due to their issues with Vince and have yet to return.

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#4. Toni Storms out of WWE

From 2017 to 2021, one of the most talented wrestlers in the world, Toni Storm, was signed to the Stamford-based company. Most of her time there was spent under the creative guidance of Triple H in NXT, where she thrived.

However, when she moved to the main roster and started to work with Vince, her issues started to begin.

Speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Toni looked back on a storyline she had with Charlotte Flair that saw Vince and Creative want her to work in her underwear in front of the crowd.

"The original idea was like, I was called up and asked if I was comfortable having my shirt ripped off or something. They wanted to do this whole angle where they wanted to rip my shirt off to be embarrassed, in my underwear, I guess. When you're asked if you're comfortable to do that and literally, people are being fired every single week, it's like, 'Well, yeah, I guess I'm comfortable with that.' Then, a lot of people fought to not have that happen. That would have been a terrible idea." [H/T: Fightful]

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#3. Vince let Sasha Banks and Naomi down

In 2022, Sasha Banks and Naomi walked out of the arena moments before RAW went on the air due to their dissatisfaction with Vince's booking of them as tag team champions.

During an interview with Busted Open Radio on Sirius XM, Naomi recapped the day that she and Banks left WWE.

"Ultimately, I left that day because of the way I was talked to and handled. Everything kind of just broke me that day. It had nothing to do with anything else, anybody else. That was just it. I had to. To go through all the backlash and the negativity and the lies and the rumors and then to also kind of just feel lost, it broke me. It was probably the lowest I've ever felt in my life. But going through that made me reset and face it head on and figure out how to learn from this experience and grow from it [and] just find myself again in all of it." [H/T: WrestlingNews]

Today, both women are now working outside of WWE, with Naomi having won gold in IMPACT Wrestling and Sasha in New Japan Pro Wrestling.

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#2. FTR

In recent years, WWE's poor booking of the tag team division has been very apparent and one team that felt they could thrive as a duo outside of the company was FTR.

Like many before them, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler thrived in NXT before moving up to the main roster, where their creative direction confused them and the fans greatly.

Speaking on the Mack Mania’ podcast, Dax stated that despite getting a huge financial offer to stay in WWE, they both knew they had to get away from Vince's poor booking of them.

"We knew that we could do more and as we were walking out the door to the time they tried to get us to sign a new contract, the head of talent relations at the time came to the door after we told him and Vince no thank you, he came to the door, shut the door, and said, ‘What if I can get you to one million a year?’ And at that point, money is money." [H/T: TJR Wrestling]

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#1. CM Punk

In the 21st century, there has arguably been no bigger and more dramatic exit from the company than CM Punk's in 2014.

Despite having been one of the most popular and well-booked stars in the company in the years leading up to his departure, the Chicago native felt disrespected by management due to the fact that he was not getting the chance to mainevent WrestleMania.

His hatred for the company deepened when he was forced to continue to wrestle despite having a severe staph infection that majorly risked his health.

The nail in the coffin was how the company let him go when he received his termination letter on his wedding day when he married former WWE star, AJ Lee.