Chris Masters isn’t sugarcoating what the WWE locker room was like when he broke into the company, and he says some of wrestling’s old-school stars could be absolutely ruthless behind the scenes.
While speaking to Hannibal TV, the former WWE Superstar was discussing the politics that existed during his era, including wrestlers talking about each other behind their backs and trying to protect their own positions on the card. Masters said that mentality was especially common among wrestlers from the generations ahead of him. Masters didn’t hold back when describing just how cutthroat some of those veterans could be.
“Not to dog them out, because, you know, the Golden Era guys and all those guys are generally some of the most backstabbing motherf**ers you will ever meet.”*
Masters wasn’t necessarily calling those wrestlers bad people. He said the behavior had a lot to do with the wrestling business they came up in, where protecting your spot and navigating backstage politics were simply part of surviving.
“I’m not saying that to say they’re bad people. It might just be the era they came up with was so carny and just was so much spot this, spot that.”
According to Masters, his generation entered WWE while plenty of that old-school mentality was still hanging around. That created an overlap where younger wrestlers had to learn how to deal with veterans who came from a much more political environment.
“I just think that us coming in when we did, we still were basically coming into that, and there was still a lot of that going on because there was a lot of crossover, right?”
Masters believes wrestling will probably never completely eliminate backstage politics, but he doesn’t think things are nearly as bad as they were during his time with WWE.
“I think there’ll always be a degree of that, but I just don’t think it’s as much of a thing as it was back then.”
He also made it clear that he wasn’t speaking for AEW because he hasn’t worked there. When it comes to WWE, however, Masters believes the company’s locker-room culture has changed quite a bit.
“I can’t speak for AEW, but it just doesn’t seem like WWE has as much of that going on. It’s just kind of a different culture a little bit.”
Masters came into WWE at only 20 years old and received a strong push early in his career, something he said elsewhere in the interview created resentment with certain veterans. His comments paint a picture of a locker room where protecting your position could be every bit as important as what happened once the bell rang.
WWE has changed considerably since Masters’ original run, and he clearly sees the current environment as less cutthroat than the one he had to navigate. Still, his memories show just how deeply backstage politics were woven into the wrestling business during that era.
Do you think WWE’s locker-room culture is healthier today than it was during Chris Masters’ era, or will backstage politics always be part of professional wrestling? Let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments.
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