WWE Dice Masters: Who NOT To Expect

As of now, WWE Dice Masters will be a reality in just over two months. We have a few teases as to what characters we will see via various press releases and articles. So far, the confirmed characters are:
– ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage
– Bret “Hitman” Hart
– Becky Lynch
– Asuka
– AJ Styles
– Shinsuke Nakamura
– Trish Stratus
– Lita
– Stone Cold
– The Rock
– Kane
– The Undertaker
As well as teams, such as:
– nWo
– The New Day
– The Shield

Instead of guessing who else we will see, I want to take a look at some of the biggest stars in WWE history that we will NOT be seeing in Dice Masters for one reason or another. These are superstars that have left the company or are no longer in good standing with WWE. Warning: there is a fair amount of heaviness and controversy involved with a few of these entrants.

Owen Hart

It’s a somber note to start this list on, but it’s accurate. Owen Hart is considered one of the greatest of all time, inside and outside of the ring. His life was tragically cut short after an in-ring accident in 1999. Owen’s widow filed a law suit against WWE from ever using her husband’s likeness. He is not in the WWE Hall of Fame, and has not appeared in any WWE video game or toy line since his death. She blames WWE and their negligence that lead to Owen’s death and will not let them further profit off of him. It makes sense. And I may feel the same way if I lost my spouse because of a dangerous needless stunt that was being performed. Owen’s older brother Bret is already confirmed, so the Hart legacy will be represented. It’s incredible to think that a tragedy that took place in a wrestling ring can still have rippling effects in a tabletop game 20 years later.

The Fabulous Moolah

Moolah was one of the most influential women in wrestling in the 80s. She was one of the only women wrestlers to have regular time on television. She was essentially the promoter for the entire women’s division in the early days of WWF. Some have said that Moolah’s stranglehold over women’s wrestling in the 80s was similar to Don Corleone in The Godfather. There are stories of Moolah forcing her wrestling trainees in to debt to her. She would make her students sign a contract that included renting an apartment from her as well. When she controlled how much you paid for rent, how much you pay for wrestling training, and how much you would make per wrestling appearance, it was easy for things to get out of control. Many of her students have come out and said that if you owed money to Moolah, she owned your life. There are stories and accounts of her getting her students addicted to drugs, or sending them on the road with male wrestlers simply to be used for sexual favors. Depending on who you talk to, Moolah was an evil, manipulative pimp, who stole from her students and forced them in to abusive lives. There are some who have come to Moolah’s defense, but there seems to be much more against her than in support of her. A few years back, WWE was going to have an all-women’s battle royal. The original plan was to call it the Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal. There was so much outcry and backlash based on the accounts of Moolah’s past, WWE took her name off of the event. If they have already gone that far in being disassociated with her name or legacy, you can bet she will not appear alongside the legends in WWE Dice Masters.

CM Punk

This is probably the one everyone was waiting for. If you watched WWE programming from 2009 to 2014, you know CM Punk. The self-proclaimed ‘Best in the World’ was a different kind of superstar than people were used to seeing. He was not an oiled up, muscle-bound titan. He was lean with tattoos and piercings. He had an anti-establishment attitude than was very authentic inside and outside the ring. I’m not about to enter a debate on what is “real” in professional wrestling, but he brought a sense of realism to the on-screen product. Especially in his famous “pipebomb” promo in the summer of 2011. Punk was unhappy with multiple aspects of his job with WWE (everything from creative direction of his character to the care from the medical staff) and walked out in early 2014, electing to not work for the remainder of his contract. Months later he went public with his list of grievances from the company in a now famous episode of Colt Cabana’s Art of Wresling podcast. The podcast lead to defamation lawsuits from WWE, which Punk and Cabana won. Punk burnt bridges with WWE, and has claimed he will never return, and WWE seems happy to oblige. They have gone out of their way to not mention his historic 434-day WWE Championship reign.

At the time of CM Punk’s exit from the company, there was an ongoing WWE comic book where Punk was a regularly occurring character. The writer of the comic was told by WWE officials to drop the storyline and no longer use Punk going forward. If they were willing to cut him out of a comic book, there’s little chance he would be included in Dice Masters.

All Elite Wrestling

Ok, so this entrant isn’t a single wrestler. There is a new professional wrestling promotion called All Elite Wrestling, or AEW. It is run by former WWE superstar, Cody Rhodes (Now simply known as Cody). Other former WWE superstars that have been longtime members of it’s roster have joined AEW as well. Dustin Rhodes, Cody’s older brother formerly known as Goldust, signed with AEW after his WWE contract expired. It was originally suspected that Dustin would only be working as a backstage agent for AEW, since he is 50 years old. However, this is not the case as he had a blood-filled match against Cody at the most recent AEW event. Chris Jericho is another WWE alumnus who has signed an AEW contract. For a while Jericho was navigating uncharted waters as a wrestler who could come and go from WWE and also wrestle in Japan for NJPW (New Japan Pro Wrestling). His working with WWE is now all but destroyed after signing a contract with the US based AEW. So don’t expect to see Cody Rhodes, Goldust, or Chris Jericho in WWE Dice Masters.

But wasn’t there another former WWE wrestler that appeared at the AEW event last weekend? Yes there was. And that is where this gets interesting.

Dean Ambrose

Dean Ambrose is a former WWE wrestler and is now wrestling under another name, Jon Moxley. He made his shocking debut at AEW’s Double or Nothing event, attacking multiple wrestlers after the main event had ended. Moxley also went on a podcast (fellow AEW wrestler Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho) and vented all of his creative frustrations while working with WWE. He recounted conversations with WWE president Vince McMahon, shared stories of being frustrated with scripts he was given, and ripped apart their entire creative process. As some of you may know, Dean Ambrose was a member of a faction in WWE called

The Shield. That’s the same Shield that is confirmed above to appear in WWE Dice Masters. Would WWE even consider still using him in Dice Masters after everything he said about their company? Especially while he is wrestling for another promotion, handing out free advertising for him.

There was a similar situation way back with Dice Masters in the Uncanny X-Men set. The Invisible Woman and Fantasticar were included in the set during playtesting and dice icons of those cards were unearthed about a while back. Marvel made a decision, since the Fantastic Four movie franchise was owned by Fox, and said that characters associated with the Fantastic Four franchise were no longer available to use in Dice Masters. Those characters were pulled at the last minute before the set went to print. So, there is a precedent for WizKids to remove characters from a set due to the IP company’s request. Will Dean Ambrose get removed from WWE Dice Masters and become the next Invisible Woman? Will WizKids go ahead and release a Dean Ambrose character while Jon Moxley is currently wrestling for a rival company? The more things change, the more they stay the same. It will be interesting to see how all of this impacts Dice Masters and the WWE license moving forward.