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"Wrestling is fake."
Every wrestling fan has heard this in their life. However, wrestlers are usually as tough as professional fighters, and most of them have actual experience in combat sports, be it amateur wrestling, or some form of martial arts. Needless to say, it's ideal to not pick on a wrestler because they might just legitimately put you on your backside. A shoot fight is a fight which is serious in nature, as opposed to a work.
While shoot fights involving wrestlers have happened for a variety of reasons, from punishments to genuine dislike between wrestlers who were working together and even wrestlers having to defend themselves against aggressive fans or wrestlers looking to take liberties, the following events show when wrestlers went off script and things got real very quickly.
Honorable Mention - Shawn Daivari
Daivari is best known for being the controversial Muhammad Hassan's manager or being the brother of current 205 Live roster member Ariya Daivari. Daivari would predominantly be a manager during his time in the WWE, despite being a talented in-ring performer. After being released from his WWE contract in 2007, he would jump ship to TNA and wrestle under the name Sheik Abdul Bashir. While with TNA Daivari would win the X Division title, his first title in a major promotion. Daivari would later participate in a Feast or Fired match in which he would retrieve the Pink Slip box and be fired.
However, more than his career in wrestling Daivari gained fame when he was on the light rail en route to the Minneapolis Airport. A drunk and disorderly passenger was harassing passengers. After police were slow to respond to the scene, Daivari stepped in himself applying a rear-naked choke to the assailant and subdued him. The incident was picked up by news stations and subsequently got mainstream attention due to Daivari's history as a professional wrestler.
# 7 Montreal Screwjob aftermath
Every wrestling fan knows about the Montreal Screwjob, the events that occurred after are less clear. What is known is that WWF Champion Bret Hart was facing off against arch nemesis HBK Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series, in Hart's home country of Canada. Hart was leaving the WWF and heading to their main rivals in the business WCW.
Hart had made an agreement that he would drop the belt to Michaels on the Raw following Survivor Series back in the USA, instead of dropping his belt in Canada and Vince supposedly agreed. However, come the night of Survivor Series, Vince changed his mind and called for the bell in the middle of the match. An understandably enraged Hart destroyed the ringside area, signaled WCW with his hand and spat on Vince McMahon. This much is known.
Supposedly, once backstage, the still upset Hart sought out Vince McMahon and as legend has it, cracked his soon-to-be former boss in the face with a stiff knuckle sandwich. The event was never captured and isn't often spoken about, but according to many that were at the arena, the event did take place.
# 6 Daniel Puder shoots on Kurt Angle
In 2004, the WWE ran a season of Tough Enough where the winner would receive a guaranteed $1,000,000 4 year contract. The season included Mike "The Miz" Mizanin and Ryan Reeves, better known as Ryback or Skip Sheffield. Each week the competitors would complete a challenge with the winner getting a reward for their effort. During the November the 4th edition of Smackdown, Kurt Angle challenged the competitor's to a squat thrust competition.
The challenge was won by Chris Narwocki, and his prize was a shoot fight with the former Olympic Gold Medalist. Angle quickly took Nawrocki down, broke his ribs and made him submit to a Neck Crank.
Angle would then challenge the other finalists as well and was answered by Puder. After Puder and Angle squared off, the two wrestled for position, and Angle was able to eventually take down Puder but was caught in a Kimura lock. Angle managed to quickly roll Puder on to his back with the referees making a quick 3 count, despite Puder's shoulders clearly not being pinned to the mat.
As the two got off the ground, Angle was clearly pissed at Puder's attempt to embarrass him while the rookie went to shake Angle's hand. Puder would go on to win the competition and would sign the WWE.
His first PPV on the roster was the Royal Rumble, in which Puder would come in at the number 3 entry after Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero. They were soon joined by Hardcore Holly. The 3 veterans would take turns stiffly chopping and suplexing Puder before eventually eliminating him and continuing the Rumble as usual.
# 5 Shawn Michaels gets beaten by a soldier
Wrestlers are trained fighters, but that doesn't mean you should go around picking a fight with people wherever you go, even if you are the 'Heart Break Kid' Shawn Michaels. During the 90's Michaels was the biggest star in the WWF, a frequent Main Eventer and had several runs with the WWF title during the decade
He was also described with several colorful names by wrestlers that shared a locker room with Mr. Wrestlemania and many would have wanted to take a swipe at the champ, had he not been in such a position of protection.
The story seems to vary depending on who is telling it. Some versions have Michaels jumped by a bunch of Marines, with the number usually being six against the lone Michaels. However, the more likely story is that Michaels, 1-2-3 Kid (more commonly known as X-Pac) and the British Bulldog were drinking at a club in Syracuse when they tried picking up a woman that was married. In order to stop this woman going to the wrestlers' hotel room, an army man pulled an intoxicated Michaels out of the car and beat him up.
Michaels successfully sued the soldier, who was forced to cover his medical bills as well as being banned from going to a WWF live show for life. Michael's appeared on Raw after the incident with 2 black eyes and referred to the incident as being "jumped by 9 guys".
# 4 Mike Bell v Perry Saturn
Wrestlers are super protective about their health, so they may tend to lose it a little if they feel like their not being protected by their opponents. This was certainly the case during a match between veteran Perry Saturn and jobber Mike Bell. Saturn was a mid-card talent who worked for both WCW before crossing over to the WWF. When he crossed to the WWF, he did so with close friends Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit to form the Radicalz.
Bell, on the other hand, was a jobber that bounced back and forth between ECW and WWF tapings. Bell was a professional jobber, and out of the 83 matches had at the promotion he only managed a single solitary win, coming at a dark match against Jeff Libolt.
During the match on WWF's Jakked, Bell appeared to mistime a hip toss. To compound the issue, Bell then botched an arm drag which resulted in Saturn being dropped on his head. This appeared to make Saturn lose his mind, swinging for Bell with legitimate strikes and then throw Bell out of the ring head first. The irate Saturn would then drive Bell recklessly into the steel stairs. Saturn would finish the match quickly looking incredibly upset throughout the fight.
As punishment, Saturn would be saddled with a gimmick in which he was in love with a mop, called Moppy, and behave increasingly eccentrically while Bell would be released from the WWF a few years later and would die from a heart attack at the age of 37 while at a rehabilitation clinic.
# 3 JBL shoots on Blue Meanie
WWE Superstar JBL is an alleged bully and routinely made life miserable for people backstage. However, JBL took it one step further at ECW's One Night Stand PPV. During a Battle Royal between ECW and WWE superstars, JBL went after Blue Meanie and bloodied the latter's face quite badly.
According to the story, JBL had taken exception to something that Blue Meanie had said about the WWE Superstar and decided to take revenge on the ECW Wrestler in the ring.
Understandably, the WWE was embarrassed by the actions of one of their foremost talents and acted quickly to try and make sure that Blue Meanie didn't take legal action against JBL or the company.
To make amends for the situation, Blue Meanie was given a one on one match against the former WWE and Tag Team Champion. During the bout, Blue Meanie's friend and stablemate Stevie Richards came down to the ring and delivered a stiff chair shot to JBL's skull, allowing for Blue Meanie to pick up the win.
# 2 Sexy Star breaks Rosemary's arm
In the 1970's and 1980's, shoot fights in a wrestling ring were much more common due to promotions being territorially based. The industry also cleaned up a lot during the 90s and early 2000s as it was rocked by a series of scandals and had to change in order to maintain money coming in from corporate backers. This not only meant that promotions had to be more professional in how they booked shows, but this also filtered down to the talent.
Therefore, it was such a big surprise when a wrestler named Sexy Star applied a shoot armbar to her opponent, Rosemary, during their match and legitimately broke her arm. To top it all off, it occurred at their biggest PPV of the year, TripleMania.
At the time, Sexy Star was the Reina de Reinas champion and had a match against three other wrestlers, Rosemary, Ayako Hamada, and Lady Shani. Rosemary was one of several wrestlers on the TripleMania card that were appearing on behalf of the Global Force/ TNA Wrestling promotion.
At the end of their match, Sexy Star locked Rosemary's left arm in a shoot armbar and held it in place after Rosemary tapped out. The submission popped Rosemary's arm out of place. Sexy Star was subsequently stripped of the title and fired from the promotion.
# 1 The Great Antonio v Antonio Inoki
In one corner, Japanese Wrestling Legend Antonio Inoki, in the other corner Croatian-Canadian strongman The Great Antonio. Inoki had a distinguished career in the ring, having wrestler other greats like Karl Gotch, Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund and even had a match against Muhammad Ali.
Inoki was, and arguably still is, Japans biggest wrestling star of all time. The Great Antonio was a strongman turner wrestler who grew increasingly eccentric as his career developed.
The two Antonio's faced each other on December 8th, 1977. At the start of the fight, the Great Antonio decided it would be wise to no sell the future WWE Hall of Famer's strikes. This got even worse as the giant would then stiffly strike at Inoki. The NJPW founder quickly grew tired of his opponent's antics and decided to turn the bout from a wrestling match to a real fight, hitting his larger opponent with a series of palm strikes before taking the big man down and repeatedly kicking and stomping on the face.
Unfortunately for the Great Antonio, he was unaware of Inoki's legacy of shoot fighting. However, no one could have expected Inoki to lose his cool the way he did that day.
