As WWE ushered in its Ruthless Aggression era, fans found more and more platforms to gain insight into the company’s behind-the-scenes workings. Autobiographies, web content, and TV shows like WWE Confidential allowed the fanbase to peel back the curtain and see a different side of their favorite superstars.
The behind-the-scenes stories of the Ruthless Aggression era are just as compelling—and, in some cases, even more fascinating—than the storylines unfolding on Raw and SmackDown. These backstage secrets include creative decisions, little known friendships, and a confrontation years in the making.
These days, Randy Orton is a grizzled veteran who has seen and done it all in his career. But, in April 2004, Orton was barely two years into his main roster run. This made him susceptible to backstage ribs.
Shortly before his Street Fight against Cactus Jack, Orton was told by Michael Hayes that he had to wear a hockey helmet during his entrance. Hayes claimed that Vince McMahon had issued the edict. Right before Orton went through the curtain for his match, Hayes dropped the act and told him it was a rib.
October 2003 was an eventful month for Stephanie McMahon. Behind the scenes, she was going to be married to Paul Levesque (better known as Triple H). As a wrestling persona, Stephanie—the incumbent SmackDown General Manager—was going to wrestle her father Vince in an I Quit Match at No Mercy.
Well aware of the bizarre timing of this violent match, Stephanie's mother Linda warned Vince about cosmetically damaging physicality that could ruin the big wedding. "My mom was so mad at my dad," recalled Stephanie in a 2019 appearance on First Things First. "She said, 'If you give her a black eye, if she gets a black eye before her wedding, I'm going to kill you.'"
With his lovable antics and beautiful mastery of wrestling technique, Eddie Guerrero became a wildly popular SmackDown superstar from 2003 to 2004. Apparently, this crowd reaction was not what several writers had in mind before Latino Heat moved to the blue brand.
Back in the summer of 2002, Guerrero was part of the Raw roster. Around that time, Vince McMahon gave Paul Heyman—then the lead writer of SmackDown—the chance to bring a couple of superstars to SmackDown. When Heyman announced his intent to get Eddie Guerrero, Vince and the entire room of writers laughed at him. If only they knew...
In the mid-2000s, wrestling forums were buzzing over the Matt Hardy-Lita-Edge love triangle. Matt Hardy’s firing and his confrontation of Lita on Byte This have been given much attention, but there’s another detail that adds a layer of heartbreak to this narrative.
A quick review of the record books will tell you that Matt Hardy had a successful singles run as a SmackDown superstar in 2003. Out of nowhere, in November that year, Hardy moved to Raw. Why, you ask? Becaus, as he revealed in an interview with Pro Wrestling's Ultimate Insiders, he wanted to spend more time with his girlfriend Lita on the red brand.
By this point, December to Dismember 2006 has become synonymous with premium live fiasco. Amid the terrible booking decisions and subpar in-ring performances, there’s a glimpse of wrestling professionalism to be appreciated here.
In the lead-up to December to Dismember, Paul Heyman was hell-bent on elevating CM Punk in the ECW World Title Elimination Chamber match. As he described in a 2008 article with The Sun, Heyman’s idea was to have Punk start with Big Show, who would tap to the Anaconda Vise. The open-minded veteran that he is, Big Show was said to have liked the idea—much to the chagrin of Vince McMahon.
On July 15, 2002, Eric Bischoff walked into a WWE arena like a soldier entering an enemy camp. Minutes after arriving at the venue, Bischoff found at least one ally in a potentially hostile environment.
As Bischoff recounted during The Roast of Bruce Prichard, he quickly became buddies with Prichard who'd been designated the producer of all his Raw segments that night. Apparently, certain agents had voiced their hesitation to work on Bischoff’s vignettes, and so the task fell upon the former Brother Love. A couple of decades later, the friendship between Bischoff and Prichard remains strong.
For a short while in the Ruthless Aggression era, Mark Jindrak had a career-changing opportunity in the palm of his hands. Jindrak was going to be part of Evolution, but somehow, this opportunity slipped from his hands. What happened?
If you ask Jindrak, he's pointing at the man in the mirror. "I was kind of too immature," Jindrak said in a 2023 interview with Developmentally Speaking. "Orton and I liked to joke around a lot and I think that hurt my chances." (For the record, Jindrak believed that Batista was a better fit for the stable.)
After overcoming personal demons and a career-derailing back injury, Shawn Michaels made his successful in-ring return at SummerSlam 2002. At that time, HBK was focused solely on having a great comeback match with his best friend Triple H. As for down the line? Michaels wasn't really thinking of that.
In his 2005 autobiography Heartbreak and Triumph, Michaels recounted that he cut off his hair and took to eating chocolate chip cookies with his son Cameron following his dramatic SummerSlam encounter. But Michaels would soon be called back to action, and after praying and reflecting on the matter, he decided to embark on his final full-time WWE stint.
The Spirit Squad was a prominent act on Monday Night Raw in 2006. Though the existence of this group was a nice opportunity for five youngsters to shine, not all of them was going to stay long in the spotlight.
This revelation isn't hearsay—it came right from one of the Spirit Squad's members. "That group was for Kenny," said Nic Nemeth in a 2023 interview with Chris Van Vliet. "You get to a point where you're six months into the Spirit Squad, and it's like, 'Everybody can get pinned except for Kenny.'" While the former Nicky clearly wasn't thrilled as he recounted this, wrestling fans can note the irony that it was Nemeth—as Dolph Ziggler—who went on to have the most successful career out of all the five cheerleaders.
In his 2004 autobiography To Be the Man, Ric Flair claims that Eric Bischoff greatly undervalued him during his WCW run in the '90s, leading to the Nature Boy losing his confidence. Flair and Bischoff were eventually signed as WWE talents, and sooner rather than later, their paths would cross.
In To Be the Man, Flair narrated how he found an opportunity to settle the score shortly before the taping of a 2003 Raw episode. According to Flair, he interrupted a Bischoff phone call, slapped the gadget from Bischoff's hands, and prodded him to get into a fistfight right then and there. Eventually, WWE officials broke things up and Vince McMahon told Flair to never get into an altercation with Bischoff again.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTErKeoqqSowaa%2BjZympmenrLJuvtStn6Wdo6h6orPGq5ysq5mku26x0Zpkm52YnruledOhnGark5q7pr%2BMrJycqpWpwHA%3D