5 WWE Superstars who had backstage heat - and what happened next
In sports, if a sportsman does something to upset fellow teammates or management, they will likely be dropped from the team before returning at a later date. In sports entertainment and WWE, however, if somebody upsets the wrong people within the company, they will get these two dreaded words: backstage heat.
What is backstage heat, exactly? Well, if there was a dictionary definition for the term, it would read something like this:
“Heat within the wrestling business typically means that a bad-guy character has successfully fulfilled their on-screen duty of getting the audience to boo them. Wrestlers can also garner backstage heat, which means they have done something negative, usually behind the scenes, that has caused issues with management or colleagues.”
One of the most well-known cases of WWE backstage heat in 2019 involves Lio Rush, who was suddenly removed from his role as Bobby Lashley’s manager on Raw in April. Fightful reported that he “would be very lucky to be back on the main roster any time soon, if ever” following a series of off-screen incidents, while Rush responded by claiming that somebody within WWE is trying to get him fired.
With so much talk about Rush and his future right now, let’s take a look at five examples of WWE Superstars who reportedly had backstage heat to find out what happened next in their career.
#5 Big Cass
One of the biggest stories of backstage heat in 2018 came shortly after Big Cass returned from a long-term injury and began feuding with Daniel Bryan on SmackDown Live.
In one particular segment in the build-up to their match at Backlash, Cass was instructed to hit a little person, who was dressed as Bryan, with a big boot. According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, the 7-footer also wanted to hit him with a flurry of punches, but he was told not to by backstage officials, as well as Vince McMahon.
Going against orders, Cass continued to attack the Bryan imposter after the big boot, which apparently landed him in big trouble backstage, and WWE edited out footage and images of the attack on their social media platforms and photo galleries.
Following the end of the two-month feud with Bryan, and another report of backstage heat due to a number of behaviour-related issues on a European tour, Cass was fired in June 2018.