5 Real life backstage fights in WWE

Professional wrestling can often be a very competitive business and we have often seen tempers flare and it is no different in WWE. This can sometimes happen while a match is still going on, like Brock Lesnar legitimately punching Braun Strowman in the head after taking an errant knee to the jaw at the WWE Royal Rumble a few years back. In other cases, tensions can boil over to behind the scenes and has in some cases led to backstage fights.

In today's article, we take a look at some of the most infamous backstage fights in WWE as well as a couple of lesser known ones.

#5 Big Show and The Great Khali (at a WWE event in Puerto Rico)

We start off our list with a backstage altercation between two giants - Big Show and The Great Khali. The incident was described by Chris Jericho in his book “The Best in the World: At What I Have No Idea”.

The incident described by Jericho took place at a WWE show in Puerto Rico. Jericho and Big Show were in the middle of their run as JeriShow at the time and they faced The Undertaker and Great Khali at the said WWE event.

According to Jericho, Khali had been using some of Big Show’s moves including the slap to the chest in the corner on a number of occasions. This rubbed Big Show the wrong way and Jericho went on to describe what happened next:

“'Khali just stole my move,' Show mumbled on the apron, and I knew something was gonna go down. He was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore. We were in the dressing room after the match, and Show was still fuming, steam practically billowing out of his ears. "

Jericho went on to say that WWE legend Big Show accused Khali of stealing his moves when the latter reached the backstage area. Khali denied this and it led to an altercation in the backstage area. Jericho described what happened next in the WWE locker room:

“A few seconds later, Show threw the first punch, which connected with a loud smack to Khali’s overdeveloped jaw. It rocked him backwards, but he didn’t go down and Khali landed a punch of his own.

With the opening shots fired, the floodgates opened and the two titans began swinging like Tiger Williams. I counted at least five more smacks and cracks as the blows connected with each other’s faces, shoulders, necks and chests.

I had a front-row seat for King Kong vs Godzilla and they were in a fight to death. Nobody in the locker room was too keen to break them up either and besides, how could we? Their fists were as big as my head!

If I tried to intervene, I was going to get swatted away like a biplane trying to shoot Kong off of the Empire State Building. And I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Cody Rhodes was hanging in the corner as far away from the mess as possible, and even though Kane had the size to intercede, he was wearing only a towel and I’m guessing he didn’t want to get involved in case it fell off and exposed his big red machine.

The battle raged on until finally Show took a wild swing and tripped over a chair, which caused him to crash onto the floor with Khali on top of him. The boys waded in at that point to pry them apart and the fight was over.”

#4 Matt Hardy and Eve Torres

We move on to one of the lesser-known stories on this list. This one involves WWE legend and current AEW star Matt Hardy and Eve Torres, who was only a backstage interviewer in WWE at the time.

The incident took place during a WWE tour of Europe in 2008. Matt Hardy had had a little too much to drink one night and got a bit rowdy. We don’t exactly know what happened right after this but this led to an altercation with Eve Torres. She ended up putting Matt Hardy in a rear-naked choke and choking him out.

Torres described what happened in an interview with MMA Hour:

So I sink in a rear-naked choke, and put my hooks in, and he goes to sleep. Yeah. And he starts, um, snoring. And all the other wrestlers were like ‘You just got choke out by an interviewer!’ I was an interviewer backstage, I wasn’t even in the ring yet!

Things got worse for Matt Hardy later as he was dragged into Wrestler’s Court where The Undertaker reportedly had some harsh words for him.

#3 Sin Cara and Simon Gotch

The Vaudevillians showed some promise when WWE first called them up to the main roster but their run fizzled out after Enzo Amore's injury incident for which The Vaudevillians weren't at fault. Simon Gotch being released by WWE shortly after a backstage fight with Sin Cara was the final nail in the coffin for the team.

Incidentally, Sin Cara has gotten into a number of altercations backstage with many WWE Superstars which also include Sheamus and Chris Jericho.

Simon Gotch opened up about what led to his altercation with former WWE Superstar Sin Cara in an appearance on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast:

“With me and him, we were sort of trading little digs and I got one in that was stiff and I found out later after the fact that I apparently hit a nerve with some stuff that had happened to him personally that I didn’t know about and looked back down at my plate and all of a sudden I look back up and yell what the ***k because my face started hurting and I couldn’t see anything and completely didn’t know what was going on and as I’m piecing it together I smell Diet Coke, why is my shirt wet? And as my vision started to clear I see Jorge running from around the table and he tried to do almost a double leg and out of instinct I reached around his neck and shoot head locked him.”

“We were struggling for maybe 10-15 seconds until people got involved and pulled us apart and I was still wondering what was going on and I obviously have a concussion having been hit in the face and he’s just yelling.

#2 Joey Styles and JBL

We move on to one of the most infamous backstage fights in WWE, which led to a commentator knocking out a former WWE Champion.

There have been many stories about JBL bullying younger stars backstage. During one of WWE’s tours of Europe, JBL chose to target Joey Styles. When Styles had enough and finally stood up to JBL, the latter lunged at Styles and got knocked out by the former ECW commentator. Former WWE Superstar Simon Dean was there and described what went down in a 2017 interview:

Bradshaw got free somehow and he started lunging towards Joey and Joey got his arm out and knocked him on his a**. I dare say that Bradshaw’s wrestling career was never the same after that.

Dean went on to open up about JBL more in the interview, describing how JBL could sometimes be a bully:

Everything he did to so many people – he would drink and just terrorize people. It was horrible. I was just like, “What does he get out this?” There were overseas trips all night on the bus, yelling at people and treating them like ***t because he would sleep all afternoon.

#1 Chris Jericho and Brock Lesnar

This finish led to Jericho confronting Lesnar

Brock Lesnar faced Randy Orton at WWE SummerSlam 2016. The finish to the match was a little controversial with Lesnar legitimately busted Orton open with elbow strikes. He followed this up with an F5 to then WWE SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon.

It was made to look like WWE's Beast Incarnate may have gone off script and it worked really well. So well in fact, that even Chris Jericho was a little concerned backstage regarding what happened. Jericho walked up to Lesnar backstage and ended up getting into a scuffle with him. Here’s how Jericho described it:

Well, you know, anytime something like that happens there’s always a lot of rumors and a lot of stories being told. Not to get into specifics ... it was basically between me and Brock, but we did have a little bit of a brouhaha, shall we say.

I just thought the finish of that match was very brutal and very violent, and I just didn’t know if Randy was OK. I was checking on Randy, my friend. We’ve always been pretty close. I said something and (Lesnar) said something and next thing you know we’re nose to nose kind of yelling at each other. And (it) diffused fairly quickly.

What makes Sting special? His first AEW opponent opens up RIGHT HERE.

Edited by Atharva Papnoi