Pro wrestlers spend around 300 days a year on the road, away from the comfort of their homes and busting their behinds for our entertainment. It's little wonder that such a gruelling workload means that they direly need to resort to an effective coping mechanism to deal with the physical and mental toll.
Today, with the Wellness Policy in place and a more stringent approach to health management, those mechanisms are more or less socially acceptable activities that don't cause more damage in the long term than good.
But it wasn't always like that.
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There was a time not too long ago that it was as common for wrestlers to snort a line in the locker room or down a bottle or two in between segments, as it was for them to take a bump in the ring.
Inevitably, many of them weren't in their right minds...and it showed.
In this list, we look at 5 such instances when pro wrestlers were caught doing ridiculous things when under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
#1 Lex Luger rains on his own WrestleMania parade
Lex Luger, for all intents and purposes, was Hulk Hogan v 2.0. He had the chiselled look, the beach blonde hair and he was a terrible wrestler. His grand coronation at WrestleMania 10, however, never really happened.
And Luger had only himself to blame for it.
Apparently, on the day before the event, Luger had hit a pub in New York and under a drunken stupor, revealed to a journalist that he was scripted to win the WWE Title the next day against Yokozuna.
When the big day dawned, it was met with the main event results of WrestleMania 10 plastered all over a local newspaper. Understandably, Vince was livid with rage. The plug was promptly pulled on Luger's monster push and pretty soon, his career would peter out into nothingness.
#2 Hulk Hogan's hall of shame
Hulk Hogan is one of the most famous personalities that pro wrestling has ever seen...but he's also one of the most notorious.
And I'm not even talking about the infamous Gawker sex tape incident.
As it would turn out, that was merely the precipitation of the years of marital problems that Hulk Hogan was having. Conniving as ever, Hogan even made a statement when the video was released that he was forced to embrace infidelity because his then-wife, Linda, was - apparently - abusive.
While it beggars belief that a near-300 pound monster like hogan could be 'abused' by his wife, the truth was a much more bitter pill to swallow.
Not only did Linda claim that Hogan used to physically abuse her throughout the tenure of their marriage due to roid rage, there's also one particularly distasteful rumour that, under intoxication, he used to parade her around in the locker room for anyone who was interested in partaking.
Well, as repulsive as it sounds... that's certainly one way to get rid of an 'abusive' wife.
#3 The Im’Perfect’ plane ride
Mr Perfect and Brock Lesnar were really quite similar. Both were Minnesota natives and both of them hailed from a rich collegiate wrestling background. Naturally, they hit it off as friends when they were employed by the WWE.
One day, Mr Perfect thought that he quite fancied a friendly exhibition wrestling contest with Lesnar to determine who the better man was.
Sounds innocuous enough right?
Certainly not when they were 30,000 feet in the air and under the heavy influence of both alcohol and drugs. In an episode now widely known as the Plane Ride from Hell, Lesnar and Hennig went at it hammer and tongs and were only separated when Lesnar speared Hennig through one of the Emergency Exits on the place, almost completely unhinging it.
It wasn't just that the safety of Hennig and Lesnar was at risk then...the entire WWE crew that had been returning from London could have been put in serious jeopardy had the Exit door actually given way.
Definitely not one of the shining moments in Brock Lesnar’s WWE career and as for Curt Hennig, he didn't have one for much longer after that incident.
#4 Hangover part IV starring William Regal
We know William Regal as the godfather of NXT, pulling strings behind the scenes and guiding the stars of tomorrow with a steady, sure hand. But earlier on in his own career, Regal was anything but a sure-footed customer.
This little gem comes to us from the early 90s, when he was making his way from Tokyo to Detroit after a show he worked in Japan.
In Regal's own words:
"I was rather 'out West' on booze. I went into the plane toilet and I had my foot in the door, which hadn't shut. I was relieving myself when the hostess tapped me on the shoulder and I spun round. Next thing I know I wake up in a jail cell, in Anchorage, Alaska, when I should have been in Detroit. I had no memory of why I was there. I was in an orange jumpsuit and was handcuffed to another guy and taken to court. They were going along the line of prisoners reading out charges. I was laughing, thinking, 'This is all a terrible mistake'. Then they read my charge out: 'Urinating on a flight attendant.'"
Now we've all heard our share of pro-wrestling related drunken tomfoolery, but in terms of sheer hilarity, this incident takes the cake. As for William Regal though, he must just be quite 'relieved' that it didn't cost him his career in the WWE.
#5 A dogged pursuit
During his wheelin' dealin', kiss- stealin' days, Ric Flair lived a life of excess that mirrored his on-screen persona. It was during one of those alcohol-heavy nights that he saw fit to invite his friend, Terry Funk, over to his place to down a couple of bottles.
Flair's then-wife (he's had 3 since) had gone out for a bit, leaving the men to their own devices. When she came back, however, she realised just how big a folly that had been.
Ric Flair was lying unconscious in a pool of his own vomit and Terry Funk, kitchen knife safely nestled in his mouth, was chasing their dog around in the backyard on all fours - butt naked!
Apparently, the dog had bitten him on the nose and Funk, employing his mental faculties to the best of his ability in that heavily inebriated state, decided that he simply had to get even come what may.
Oh, and did I mention? Terry Funk also happened to be the World Champion then. Sigh.
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