#2. Batista
Batista is back in the WWE and he finally got what he wanted – a feud with Triple H. The former WWE Champion is an adamant man who never refrains from speaking his mind. It was this inflexibility that once cost Batista $100,000.
It was during an episode of Raw in Tampa, Florida that Batista took on Chris Jericho in a steel cage match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Batista wanted to keep it old school and envisioned the contest to be as bloody as possible. The only problem was that this match happened during the advent of the PG Era when bloodshed was a big no-no.
It was decided that Jericho would smack Batista in the head with a metal pipe, however, they were strictly told to not make it a messy contest. Batista wasn’t too high on the conservativeness and took it upon himself to blade ‘for the betterment of the business’.
Vince McMahon lost it backstage as Batista bled all over the place. The match ended and both Jericho and Batista made their way back where all hell broke loose. As revealed by Jericho, there was a lot of commotion as Batista and McMahon argued. The boss didn’t want any explanation and told them to wait for their respective punishments to be dished out the following week.
Batista even tried to call McMahon after the incident to smooth things out but only got a resounding ‘f*** o**’ during the 18-second conservation. McMahon wanted to fire Batista for disobeying the rules but eventually settled for a hefty fine of $100,000. He even fined Chris Jericho, producer of the match, Dean Malenko, and referee Mike Chioda $5,000 each, which were all paid by Batista himself.
Things were never the same between WWE and Batista after the blading fiasco. The former Evolution member would, later on, quit the WWE in 2010 and would attribute WWE’s PG stance as one of the biggest reasons behind the ouster.