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With at least five hours of live in-ring action on a weekly basis, it is only natural that WWE and its Superstars will make some mistakes along the way.
At WrestleMania 35, for example, Becky Lynch pinned Ronda Rousey to win the Triple Threat main event, despite the fact that Rousey’s shoulder was not down for the entirety of the 3-count. The mistake happened, the right Superstar still won, and everybody moved on.
Since then, it has emerged that another botch occurred at WrestleMania 35, with Braun Strowman missing his cue during the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal, causing the eliminations of Luke Harper and Ali to be delayed. Again, the mistake happened, the right Superstar still won, and everybody moved on.
In those two cases, the outcome of the match was not altered, but did you know that there have been several occasions in WWE history where a different Superstar has gone on to win due to somebody making a mistake?
In this article, let’s take a look at five botches that caused the wrong person to win a match.
#5 Summer Rae’s ringside mistake
Having defeated Chris Jericho in his debut match at WrestleMania 29, Fandango recruited Summer Rae as his full-time manager and he often relied upon her presence at ringside to help him win matches.
During a time when ‘Dango was struggling for victories, WWE’s decision-makers booked him to pick up a win over Kofi Kingston on an episode of Main Event in August 2013.
However, as Summer later recalled during an interview on NotSam Wrestling, she accidentally caused the match to come to an abrupt end when the referee noticed that she grabbed Kingston’s foot underneath the bottom rope.
Per WWE’s rules, the official did not have prior knowledge to the finish of the match, so he immediately called for a disqualification, meaning Kingston won instead of Fandango.
Summer explained:
“We go in the back and I didn’t even know what to say. I’m so, like, I just want to cry and I never let anyone see me cry here. Vince [McMahon] looks up and goes, ‘I loved it! It was great!’ and I don’t know if he knew it was a mistake, but he shook their hands and the producer, Dean Malenko, and we just went to the back and I said, ‘I’m so sorry.’”
#4 Kevin Owens pins AJ Styles
One of the most memorable botched finishes in recent years came at Battleground 2017 when Kevin Owens pinned AJ Styles to win the United States Championship.
Styles was the clear favourite to emerge with the victory, having won the title just two weeks earlier during a live event, but the referee surprisingly counted a 1-2-3 for KO at the same time that “The Phenomenal One” had locked in a submission on his opponent.
WWE resolved the problem two nights later on SmackDown Live when Styles defeated Owens, as well as Chris Jericho, in a Triple Threat match to reclaim the United States Championship.
One month later, Jericho said that the Battleground finish was indeed a botch, telling Busted Open Radio:
“The idea was for me to work with AJ on Tuesday, and do nothing with Kevin. And then the match happened on the Sunday and they legitimately screwed it up, it happens sometimes - the finish didn’t work… It ended up working out great. It was the classic Vince [McMahon] line of taking a negative and turn it into a positive.”
#3 Kaitlyn wins a Battle Royal
Kaitlyn surprisingly became the #1 contender for the Divas Championship in August 2012 after she clotheslined Eve Torres over the top rope to win a Battle Royal on Raw.
At the time, Kaitlyn had been associated with WWE for three years and part of the main roster for two years, but she had not quite reached a level where it looked as though she was going to challenge for the Divas Championship.
WWE altered its plans by having Eve ‘injure’ her rival at Night of Champions in September 2012, not only as a way to temporarily write Kaitlyn off television but also to allow Eve to become the #1 contender, as originally planned.
Speaking in 2013, one year on from the incident, Kaitlyn told NotSam Wrestling:
“In those types of situations, anything can happen. Let me just say that it was very unexpected and I was very surprised. It’s funny because that actually started my career, basically. I had been on the roster for three years but that was like the moment where everything started shifting for me, where I started becoming relevant. From there, I had to prove myself that I deserved that spot.”
#2 Hardcore Holly wins at WrestleMania
WrestleMania 2000 featured a hardcore Battle Royal for the Hardcore Championship. The match had a 15-minute time limit and it included a total of 10 title changes, with Hardcore Holly ending the match as the new Hardcore champion.
The chaotic encounter began with Tazz pinning Crash Holly to become the new champion after just 26 seconds. Viscera, Funaki, Rodney, Joey Abs, Thrasher, Pete Gas, Tazz (again) and Crash Holly (again) all held the title before Hardcore pinned his storyline cousin for the 1-2-3 with milliseconds remaining.
It was later revealed that Hardcore was supposed to break up Tazz’s submission on Crash in the closing stages before attempting to pick up a pinfall victory over Crash, who would then either kick out or let the clock run down to 00:00.
WWE covered up the incident by having Crash win the title back from Hardcore one day later on Monday Night Raw.
#1 John Cena co-wins the Royal Rumble
The 2005 Royal Rumble came down to two of WWE’s biggest up-and-coming Superstars, John Cena and Batista, with Batista originally booked to win the match.
Towards the closing stages, “The Animal” attempted a Batista Bomb to eliminate Cena but his rival countered the move with a head-scissors takedown, accidentally sending both men over the ropes and to the outside of the ring.
As the outcome was inconclusive, Vince McMahon marched down to the ring and demanded that the match be restarted. With Vince watching on (and having torn both quads whilst making the announcement!), Batista eliminated Cena and went on to headline WrestleMania 21 against Triple H.
Speaking on the Wrestling Inc. Podcast, WWE producer Bruce Prichard said:
"We looked at it and every angle, there was no angle that you can even argue that Cena hit first, they hit precisely at the same time... You couldn't have planned this better, they landed at the same time so Vince just went out and decided, 'Start it over, just get them out of there!'"
