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Sports entertainment requires a lot of skills, talent, practice, persistence, patience, and calculations. Without any of these, the entertainers can end up causing harm to themselves, their career, the business or to their competitors.
The same is the case when it comes to wrestling, as a lot of dangerous maneuvers are exercised nonstop and require each individual to be perfectly trained to perform them. At times things don’t end well, as Superstars have managed to injure themselves or their opponents.
Other times, a missed move or a botched attempt has ended up just being funny and memorable for the fans and the wrestlers themselves too.
While the company, wrestlers, and the officials try their best for everything to run smoothly and for the competitors to remain as safe as possible, there are still instances where there are botches.
Keeping that in mind, let’s take a look at 10 of the memorable botches in WWE’s history.
#10 Sami Zayn
Sami Zayn is one of the better high-flyers on the main roster of the company. However, things do not always turn out as expected.
On July 24, 2016, Zayn took on longtime friend-cum-foe Kevin Owens. The match was as good as anyone would expect, but a botched move from Zayn highlighted the match which was otherwise flawless.
When Kevin Owens tried to powerbomb Zayn on the apron, Zayn grabbed onto the top rope and proceeded to jump up and sit on the top rope to gain momentum, bounce off, and land on Kevin Owens. Sounds simple, right? It wasn’t so, Zayn didn’t get any momentum and came crashing down shoulder first onto the apron, with Owens trying to break his momentum and helping him avoid an injury.
#9 Batista
May 10, 2010's edition of SmackDown saw The Animal make a fool out of himself. He was a part of a no-disqualification match with John Cena when Mark Henry decided to make an entrance.
Henry came out to the ring in order to attack Batista once Sheamus got into the ring to help The Animal against Cena.
When Henry got up on the apron, Batista punched him and 'The World's Strongest Man' retaliated by pushing Batista away. Batista stumbled, stopped, and then decided that it was time to jump back and fall on his back.
Now no one knows what Batista was trying to do there and whether he was scripted to take a back bump or did so to emphasize Henry’s power, but the act made it one of WWE’s funniest botches to date.
This wasn't Batista's first botch in the WWE, and surely not his last either.
#8 Randy Orton
According to the commentators, Randy Orton is very agile. And only a handful will disagree, as Randy is by far one of the best wrestlers to have stepped into the WWE.
But when Kane tried to chokeslam him through the announcer’s table, Orton managed to block it and get on top of the announce table to launch his own attack.
Afterward, he kicked Kane while standing on the table, and placed his foot right in the hole where the monitor was placed. His leg went straight into the hole and knocked the table over.
Orton fell and immediately grabbed his leg, shouting in pain. Once he got back up, he made it seem like a deliberate joke and walked on.
Thankfully, Orton did not damage his leg and he did not sustain any injury, making the botch funny rather than worrisome.
#7 Braun Strowman
Braun Strowman can smash, crush, flip, throw, and defeat. What Strowman can’t do is fly. He learned this the hard way at WWE Super Show-Down.
Teaming up with Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler to take on The Shield, Strowman decided to use a weapon out of his old foe’s arsenal called the frog splash.
Though Kevin Owens is a master of the frog splash and has delivered a few of the said maneuver on the big man, Strowman is not at all built to even climb the ropes.
The Monster Among Men climbed to the top rope while shaking and questioning his own decision in the process. When he hit the maneuver, he was nowhere even close to connecting it (though he wasn’t supposed to connect). It just led to one of the most awkward moments for the big man as he came down half on his feet and half on his face.
#6 CM Punk
What’s wrong with CM Punk pinning Jack Swagger? Well quite a bit in a match which was held on Raw on January 9, 2012.
The match was as good as you can expect between the two superstars, but the ending wasn’t half as good. At the end of the match, Punk pinned Swagger for what was supposed to be a two-count. However, the referee counted to three even though Jack Swagger had kicked out and asked for the bell to be rung.
Now we know that the outcome of the matches are predetermined and the referees know who they have to award the victory to. In this case, the referee was too much in a hurry to end the match and embarrassed the WWE with the botched count.
Punk was announced the winner and it can be seen that Punk wasn’t happy with the referee and how the match ended. The WWE later posted about the incorrect call and announced that in order to be fair, Swagger would receive a title match the following week.
#5 Brock Lesnar
One of the most memorable and famous botches in the WWE's history came during a match between two of its best wrestlers in 2003.
Brock Lesnar is known as The Beast simply because he has the power and strength to put down any opponent with ease. That also means that he doesn’t need to climb the ropes to launch an attack, something he has rarely done in his long career.
However, at WrestleMania XIX at the grandest stage of them all, Lesnar decided to climb the ropes to deliver a shooting star press on his opponent Kurt Angle. Had he been a high-flyer or a more athletic individual, the move would have worked out perfectly.
Instead, Lesnar botched up the move and landed on his head, causing a concussion. However, he was able to finish the match as planned and took the title home.
#4 CM Punk
CM Punk was known to have a decisive finishing maneuver but looked hard to perform against larger wrestlers. Many wrestling gurus had suggested over the years that CM Punk should come up with another finisher to use for larger men, however, Punk wasn't in favor of that.
This resulted in a botched attempt when he decided to apply the move to WWE’s Demon.
Punk decided to finish off Kane with the Go To Sleep and lifted the big man up on his shoulders. Even though Kane came down in the right position to take the knee, it seemed like Punk was unable to get his knee up at the right time and in position probably due to Kane’s weight and size.
This ended up with Punk going down with the big man and making a fool of himself, while the referee proceeded to kneel down for the three count, only to see that Punk was in no position to cover Kane.
#3 The Undertaker
Who is to blame when neither wrestler is the reason behind a botch?
WrestleMania XXV ignited a fire within The Undertaker to fly high in the memorable match against Shawn Michaels.
When Taker saw that Shawn Michaels was trying to buy some time outside the ring, he dove over the ropes to take Michaels down. Interestingly, Undertaker landed on a cameraman instead of Michaels and nearly received a career-threating injury to himself.
Later on, it was revealed that the cameraman was none other than Sim Snuka, who was a part of the script and had to catch The Undertaker when he dove out of the ring. However, he was lost in his own thoughts and forgot to do so.
This resulted in a terrible botch that could have ended The Deadman's career, and the WWE was forced to release Sim Snuka of his contract due to his mistake.
Michaels can be seen pulling the cameraman into place so that he would break The Undertaker’s fall and save the legend from breaking his neck.
#2 AJ Lee
AJ Lee teamed up with Big E to take on Natalya and The Great Khali on August 12, 2013. All four competitors were having quite a good match until the ending was completely botched.
Natalya got Lee in a sharpshooter, and it was evident that the move would lead to the end of the match. However, Natalya released the sharpshooter before AJ Lee tapped out, only for Lee to tap out seconds after being released.
Natalya thought she had won the match for her team and walked around the ring with a big smile on her face while waiting for the referee to call for the ending bell and raise her hand to award her the win.
However, it meant that Natalya and Khali didn’t win and the match had to go on, while Natalya thought she had already won the match. The referee cleared up the confusion with Natalya immediately putting AJ Lee back into the maneuver for her to tap out moments later.
#1 Batista
Batista is no stranger to botches, but this botch caused WWE a lot of pain. The 2005 Royal Rumble saw John Cena and Batista as the final two uneliminated wrestlers in the ring. To close out the match, Batista decides to Batista Bomb the 16-time World Champion.
However, he lifts Cena, stumbles backward and managed to fall over the top rope with Cena still on his shoulders. Both men’s feet touched the floor at almost exactly the same time, as the refs tried to find something substantial to hand the win the Batista as scripted.
However, it was baffling to see a few refs actually debating to award the victory to John Cena. The match was restarted and Cena can be heard stopping Batista from trying to end the match with a Batista Bomb, and go for the spinebuster instead and toss Cena out of the ring.
