Original source : http://camelclutchblog.com
Posted : April 2013 Author : Eric Gargiulo
Sure we all know the deal about pro wrestling. The cat was
let out of the bag a long time ago. Yet even sometimes the match planned in the
back has taken a serious detour in the ring. Here is a look at ten instances
when the “fake” pro wrestling got very real inside of the ring. Nobody is
trying to insult anyone’s intelligence here with pro wrestling. It’s a work and
that has been documented long enough. But what happens when one wrestler isn’t
playing ball with the other? What happened was chaos, unpredictability,
intensity, and even fear when a planned match turns shoot. You want to see fear
in a pro wrestler’s eyes? Wait until that wrestler realizes his opponent isn’t
pulling punches and you will see some of the biggest, meanest, and intimidating
individuals change their body language immediately. I thought it would be fun
to take a look back at ten matches where one wrestler or promoter went into
business for themselves. It doesn’t happen often in this era of pro wrestling,
but there have been plenty of rogue wrestlers in the past who were interested
in embarrassing, double crossing, or hurting their opponent inside of the ring.
Here are ten famous and some not so famous worked matches turned shoots in pro
wrestling history.
Lex Luger vs. Bruiser Brody
This match is legendary for the swerve that Brody pulled on
Luger and Luger’s reaction. The match took place in Florida right before Lex jumped to Jim
Crockett Promotions. Brody didn’t sell a thing for Luger who was locked in a
cage with the mad man. Knowing what was coming, Luger scaled the cage, walked
to the back, grabbed his stuff, and immediately left the building. So why was
Brody uncooperative with the Florida
territory’s biggest star? Apparently Lex had been shooting (no pun intended)
his mouth off in the locker room about his new deal with JCP and what a big
star he was and word got back to the big Bruiser.
Strangler Lewis vs. Henri DeGlane
For wrestling fans like me who follow history, this match is
also legendary. The match took place in 1931 so the only evidence of the story
is word of mouth. DeGlane was a 1924 Olympic gold medalist and a big star in Montreal. Lewis was
coming in as defending world champion and expected to win the best of three
falls match. During this era wrestlers would go back to the locker room between
falls. As legend goes DeGlane bit himself in the locker room between the second
and third fall near his armpit and drew blood. He came back to the match with
his arm covered. As the third fall began DeGlane grabbed a headlock and brought
Lewis out the middle of the ring. DeGlane dropped to the mat and started
screaming, revealing the blood to the referee. Seeing teeth marks, the referee
disqualified Lewis and awarded the world title to DeGlane in what was probably
the biggest swerve in the history of the wrestling business. According to
legend Lewis was so irate that he went after the promoter in the locker room but
was stopped by several bodyguards, none named Shane.
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
I would be surprised if most people reading this blog
weren’t aware of this infamous incident in Montreal. Bret was the WWE champion leaving
for WCW. Bret had refused to lose the match to Shawn Michaels. The match itself
was no shoot in that both guys worked well together up until the finish. The
finish is another story. As most of you know by now Bret was supposed to
reverse Shawn in the Sharpshooter. Instead the referee indicated that Bret had
given up and Vince McMahon rang the bell. Bret was furious and punched out
Vince after the match.
John Tenta vs. Koji Kitao
Long before the Earthquake made waves in the WWF, John Tenta
was a major star in Japan.
He returned as part of the WWF/SWS super show and took on another famous former
sumo star, Koji Kitao who achieved superstar status in the sport. I haven’t
been able to grasp exactly why things broke down but it all appears to go back
to Kitao having a problem with Tenta. Kitao no-sold early. Eventually the two
had a showdown in the ring with Tenta yelling, “this is pro wrestling!” Kitao
allegedly told the crowd after the match that “wrestling is fake.”
Akira Maeda vs. Riki Choshu
This was actually a six-man tag team match but it was the
rivalry between Choshu and Maeda that turned this pro wrestling match real.
Maeda was a young, rising star in New Japan pro wrestling who was frustrated by
the politics at the time. Jonathon Snowden tells the story in his book about
Shooters. Snowden recalls that Maeda was upset when Choshu was brought back to
NJPW, angry that he was one spot back from the top. During the six-man tag,
Choshu had Osamu Kido in a scorpion death lock as Maeda laid in a brutal
roundhouse kick at full speed to Choshu’s face, breaking Choshu’s orbital bone.
Maeda left and restarted UWF several months later.
Stanislaus Zbysko vs. Wayne Munn
We go way back in time again for another one of pro
wrestling’s historic shoot matches. Munn was a big boy as legend has it, wrestled
for Strangler Lewis’ group, college athlete, but had no real shoot wrestling
experience in his background. Legend has it that Zbysko was paid off by rival
Lewis’ rival Joe Stecher to take the world title from Munn the hard way. Munn
was scheduled to keep the world title but that didn’t happen. The match
according to legend saw Zbysko refuse to cooperate with Munn and pin him over
and over again until a surprised referee counted to three and Zbysko left with
the world title in another one of wrestling’s biggest screw jobs.
Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki
This is arguably most historic MMA match in history. The
story has been told many times, so much that an entire Wiki page exists on the
match. The basic gist is that in the days leading up to the match Ali tried to
renegotiate the rules and put limitations on Inoki. Inoki wasn’t allowed to
throw, tackle, grapple, or land kicks on Ali. Ali’s team wanted the rules
private for those reasons. According to journalist Jim Murphy, the plan was for
Inoki to win. The finish was supposed to involve a ref bump with the ref waking
up and counting the pin on Ali. Ali reportedly refused as the match got closer
and that is where it all came apart. The match itself was boring, yet
incredibly intense. Inoki laid on the ground most of the early part of the
match kicking at Ali. Some punches were thrown but in the end they went to a
fifteen round decision in one of the most disappointing MMA matches of
all-time.
Andre the Giant vs. Akira Maeda
Big can be more inviting than intimidating depending upon
who you are standing across the ring from. There are mixed opinions of this
match over the years with some claiming that this was a worked shoot. One
version is that neither man wanted to lose the match. Another version was that
Antonio Inoki booked Andre to “teach Maeda a lesson.” This is more plausible.
Maeda returned to NJPW from UWF with a ton of heat for mocking the “fake” NJPW
style. Regardless, Andre showed Maeda early that he wasn’t playing ball and
no-sold Maeda. In turn, Maeda began kicking him in the legs. Maeda wasn’t as
gutsy to get on the ground with Andre. Antonio Inoki wound up coming out and
stopping the match after it came to a standstill long enough.
Antonio Inoki vs. The Great Antonio
This is a You Tube classic although the 1977 match itself is
pretty terrible, as most shoots usually are. This was the typical Inoki freak
show with Inoki being promoted against a Strongman champion. Great Antonio
completely no-sold an Inoki kick which was where things got real quick. Antonio
mocked Inoki and proceeded to take liberties with Inoki and punch him in the
back of the head. Inoki gets annoyed and this where things get real. Inoki took
the best the Great Antonio had to offer until Inoki just went to town and kicked
the crap out of the Great Antonio. There have been different versions of what
exactly happened with some saying Inoki was a bully but an objective eye can
see different when you watch the match.
The Mass Transit Incident
This has been discussed for years and even has its own
Wikipedia page. The Gangstas were booked to wrestle Eric Kulas who wrestled as
Mass Transit and Devon Dudley. Kulas reportedly lied about being trained by
Killer Kowakski and was only 17 years old. Kulas rubbed New Jack the wrong way
when they put the match together and even smoked in the locker room before
Perry Saturn and Taz yelled at him. The match saw New Jack cut Kulas’ head open
with a blade to the point where Kulas was bleeding buckets of blood and his
father was yelling “Stop the match” from ringside. Jack continued to work Kulas
over and grabbed the mic after the match and said, “I don’t care if the
motherf*#&^er dies! He’s white. I don’t like white people. I don’t like
people from Boston.
I’m the wrong n*&%er to f#$k with.” It came out in court that Kulas asked
Jack to blade him and thus Jack was acquitted of any wrong doing. It doesn’t
get any more real than this.
Bonus – Wendi Richter vs. The Spider Lady:
I hesitated throwing this one on the list because there
really wasn’t much of a shoot here. The story goes that Richter was being
difficult at the time with management so the office swerved her and sent the
Fabulous Moolah out there under the Spider Lady costume to take the title from
Richter. Once Richter knew what was up she fully cooperated and Moolah wound up
beating her for the title. The reason I was hesitant about adding this was that
the entire match was worked and Richter went down without a problem. However
there was a swerve here and it is one of the most famous in pro wrestling
history, thus it makes the list.
~Admin~
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