Top 5 WWE Home Invasions Of All Time

WWE has staged a number of home invasion angles over the year, for which the action and the enmity transcend what happens in the ring or even backstage and get profoundly personal as one or more wrestlers visit another’s home to up the ante.

Most recently, we saw this dynamic on SmackDown Live, when Samoa Joe escalated his ongoing mind games with AJ Styles that had already involved referencing The Phenomenal One’s wife and kids, and went so far as to visit their house. It was a tense, compelling segment, and a fine demonstration of just how uniquely provocative home invasions can be on the WWE landscape.

This article looks back at five of WWE’s very best uses of the home invasion angle stretching back to the early stages of the Attitude Era, to the relatively early days of the PG Era, and right up to today. While not every home invasion made for great television, these five were hard to take our eyes off of and furthered storylines in important ways.

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#5 The Ministry visits the McMahon house

The Undertaker and company visited the McMahon residence.

While many fans remember The Undertaker’s Attitude Era work best for the humanized biker gimmick he took on for the latter years of that period, fans who watched WWE in the moment surely can’t forget his early Attitude efforts, leading the Ministry of Darkness. This represented The Undertaker at his darkest, going to horror movie lengths that he couldn’t breach when the character first debuted.

Vince McMahon warned The Undertaker he was going too far, but The Deadman didn’t back down. Instead, he and his minions went so far as to stalk McMahon’s personal residence while Vince, Shane, and others looked on from security monitors.

This was a particularly good home invasion for not actually culminating in violence, but rather letting a fearsome image do the talking as The Ministry left a burning Undertaker symbol in the front yard to make their presence felt.

#4 Mr. Cena takes The Rated R Superstar over the edge

John Cena's father had an odd effect on this shoot.

There’s little question that one of John Cena’s all-time best feuds was opposite Edge. As a conniving heel with non-kid-friendly sensibilities, Edge was a near perfect foil for Cena’s white meat babyface act. Moreover, Edge was one of the very few heels of that time period who could successfully get fans to boo him and rally behind Cena at least some of the time.

For better or for worse, one of the most memorable moments of this rivalry saw Edge visit Cena’s childhood home. He and Lita walked the halls and went through Cena’s things, before being confronted by Cena’s dad.

As former writer Brian Gewirtz discussed on Edge and Christian’s podcast, Mr. Cena went into business for himself, trying to verbally spar with Edge, and repeatedly saying lines to the effect of, “I’m going to take you over the edge.” The results were awfully rough, calling for some intensive editing in WWE’s studios. The crux of the angle did succeed, though, with Edge smacking Mr. Cena down, and in so doing adding some extra fire to the program.

#3 Samoa Joe lets Wendy know that “Daddy’s home”

Samoa Joe paid a creepy visit to the family of AJ Styles.

In the most recent entry for this countdown, Samoa Joe made a surprise visit to AJ Styles’s personal home at the close of this past week’s SmackDown. A part of what was so effective about the segment was Joe’s slow build, letting the tension mount without having to actually do much more than talk.

The piece of business was further enhanced for it not being overly produced. Rather than appearing on polished WWE cameras, Joe appeared to be filming from his cell phone in a relatively grainy, unsteady picture, that added an edge of realism to the situation.

Perhaps best of all, Joe left Styles and WWE fans wondering as the feed cut out just after he’d rung the doorbell and proclaimed, “Daddy’s home”. The rest was left to our imaginations. Hopefully, the follow up will be fittingly heated in support of this fine segment, which seemed to represent the climax of Joe antagonizing the champ’s family.

#2 Triple H goes after Orton

Triple H brought the heat to Randy Orton's home.

In 2009, Randy Orton cultivated a particularly personal feud with Triple H. Their issue nicely built off of the history between the men, dating back to their alliance under the Evolution banner and their 2003-2004 feud.

This time, their grudge centered on The Viper trying to get into his old mentor’s head. He took out The Game’s father in law and brother in law en route to DDTing his wife on Raw. Meanwhile, he also won the Royal Rumble to earn himself a shot at Triple H’s World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 25.

Triple H has always done a fine job of communicating rage and was pretty brilliant in going to Orton’s house for revenge on an episode of Raw. The scene was sheer intensity as Helmsley went after his young rival, and brilliantly sold the story that Orton had succeeded in getting into the champion’s head in advance of their WrestleMania 25 showdown.

#1 Pillman’s got a gun

Steve Austin and Brian Pillman teamed up for one of Raw's most tense moments.

The early stages of the Attitude Era were a pretty fascinating time to watch wrestling, as WWE tried to find its footing in a changing landscape, and to figure out where the lines of decency, good taste, and responsible programming were—if they existed at all.

The Pillman’s Got a Gun segment quickly became the stuff of legends for the then-off-beat choice to go on location to Brian Pillman’s house. The set up was that anti-hero Stone Cold Steve Austin was on his way there to beat Pillman, but a turn in the story came up when Pillman brandished a gun, suggesting a level of violence and chaos WWE had never broached before.

The scene culminated in Austin arriving, Pillman pulling the gun, and the scene going dark. While it was a bit of a cop-out to not really resolve the tense situation, we nonetheless had a captivating story threaded through that episode of Raw.

Maybe it did go too far—the network and advertisers were reportedly unhappy with it. Just the same, when it came to suggesting something truly devastating might happen, few performers could pull off an authentic sense of mayhem like Stone Cold and the Loose Cannon.