You really shouldn't slap André the Giant!
Wrestlers are, by nature, trained professional martial artistsnote . Just because they can feint any hit in order to protect their opponent while making a match believable doesn't mean that they cannot hit for real. After all, we're talking about people who bench over 350 lbs. in a daily basis for a living. Add to that the fact that wrestlers are either extremely large, extremely muscular, or both, and many of them aren't even afraid of doing dangerous things when it comes to actual ass kicking. Not the kind of people you want to mess around with.
And not even the wrestlers themselves are safe! Countless are the tales of backstage bullies or people who should've thought better getting their asses handed to them by "lesser" wrestlers... who happened to be decorated martial artists or professionals in any other martial art. The result goes as well as you expect.
Among other things, saying that wrestling is fake (a moot point in the post-Kayfabe era) or just trying to attack one by jumping over the barricade is a good way to get a one-way ticket to a local... medical facility.
open/close all folders
Real life examples
- Fans who decide to jump the barricade and run into the ring. As these invaders could be drunk, mentally unstable, have weapons, or are willing to do anything crazy for 5 seconds of glory, wrestlers and other ring personnel (including the referees, who are often wrestlers/trainers themselves) are taught to immediately and overwhelmingly subdue anybody who is not authorized into the ring area. If you look up videos of these fan invasions, you can clearly see the difference between choreographed violence and real violence, as these very big, very strong wrestlers suddenly forget they're supposed to be competitive rivals, and start teaming up to beat the snot out of these invaders.
- One notorious example came when a fan jumped into the ring to attack "Stone Cold" Steve Austin after a house show match against Triple H. Triple H was on the fan almost immediately, suplexing the guy and then beating him up. Referee Mike Chioda also joined in, literally putting the boots to the fan until security dragged him away. As Austin says in this video
, pro wrestlers expect the fans to boo and jeer them, but if you physically attack them you will get your ass beaten.
- One notorious example came when a fan jumped into the ring to attack "Stone Cold" Steve Austin after a house show match against Triple H. Triple H was on the fan almost immediately, suplexing the guy and then beating him up. Referee Mike Chioda also joined in, literally putting the boots to the fan until security dragged him away. As Austin says in this video
- Fighting Network RINGS founder Akira Maeda found racist insults hurled his way by US servicemen at a military base, causing him to beat up four of them and make them vow to never insult Japanese people again. Maeda himself was Korean and bullied for it his entire life until Bad News Brown encouraged him not to take it anymore.
- At the Fukumen World League 1999, Dirtbike Kid not only refused to wear his mask on what was explicitly a show for masked wrestlers but no sold The Great Sasuke's spin kick, which was the finish they agreed on. So Sasuke kicked Dirtbike Kid without holding back and made him tap to a neck crank.
- John "Bradshaw" Layfield (WWE) (who was used as a backstage enforcer by Vince McMahon himself) was known as a locker room bully. He tried to pick on Steve Blackman, who was a legitimate karate black belt. Reports differ as to how much damage Blackman actually did, but all of them agree that Blackman kicked Bradshaw in the head, and Bradshaw didn't mess with him after that.
- Buff Bagwell (WCW) getting knocked on his ass by Ernest "The Cat" Miller (also a martial artist) after trying to push him around.
- This list cannot be completed without the mention of Tonga Uliuli Fifita, a.k.a. Haku/Meng. There are many real-life stories that illustrate how terrifying this guy was when things got weird, in case What Culture Wrestling's "10 Wrestling Stories That Prove Haku is Badass" isn't enough.
- In 1989, some chaps in a Baltimore hotel bar spotted Tonga and Siva Afi, and upon recognizing them they decided to taunt them as "fake wrestlers" and such. Tonga's answer was grabbing the main of the offenders and biting off his freaking nose. Naturally, a brawl had taken place, and Tonga and Siva cleaned house before leaving calmly. Fifita was sued for $2.5 million, but he just found it funny.
- A similar story by Kevin Sullivan has Tonga being rebuked by some dudes in a tavern. His answer, again, was choking one of them, knocking out another who came to aid his crony, and then biting off a chunk of the first's back and spitting it away. Sullivan was fast in pulling Tonga out of the place, and while doing so they saw police cars coming to the bar, but no charges were ever filed.
- Yet again, Rick Steiner tells how Tonga once took out five marines in a matter of seconds after they insulted him in a bar.
- Contrary to popular belief, Tonga didn't take Jesse Barr's eyeball out of his socket when he attacked him for mistreating a construction worker in Puerto Rico, but he did thrash Barr around and eye-gouged him a bit.
- Speaking about mauling actions, Ric Flair once saw Tonga breaking with his own fingers the bottom teeth of a guy who was annoying him in a bar.
- It took 13 policemen wielding mace sprays and steel handcuffs to submit Tonga during a brawl in St. Louis in which he and Ted DiBiase were involved (they were actually trying to break the quarrel up themselves, but the police mistook them for the instigators), and only for Tonga to no-sell the mace and break the cuffs they had put him behind his back. Seven of the policemen were supposedly left incapacitated in the fray.
- A large cowboy once argued with Tonga and found himself going back through at least two sets of doors with a single, one-handed push.
- Frenchy Martin saw how an unfortunate man insulted drunkenly Tonga in a club in which they were partying. The next thing Martin saw was Tonga fighting six guys before choking out two of them at once and knocking out the rest. The understandably worried club owner tried to get a bouncer to take on Tonga, but Martin reached for him and advised him to spare his man such a traumatic experience.
- In a less self-defensive variation, Tonga once attacked Brutus Beefcake in the shower and strangled him up two feet in the air for complaining about him working too stiff. It was needed to call Hulk Hogan to calm things down.
- Mexican mainstay El Canek "almost" suffered one of those beatdowns, as he was angry at Meng receiving a bigger pop than himself (a pretty notable thing, by the way) and tried to shoot on him in a tag team match. He supposedly tired himself out trying to force Tonga into a hold, only to accomplishing nothing and have the other wrestlers laugh at him.
- Matt Riddle has a tendency to badmouth both Goldberg and Brock Lesnar in real life, which has gotten him scolded for his unprofessional behavior. Riddle has stated several times that he wishes to retire Lesnar. Goldberg confronted him at Summerslam 2019, where he told Riddle to knock it off. Lesnar confronted him at Royal Rumble 2020, where he said he would never face him in a match because of his attitude.
- André "The Giant" Roussimoff was harassed about his size by four drunks in a bar. André attempted to avoid confrontation, but they persisted. Eventually, he chased them out of the bar, and when they locked themselves in their car, he rolled their car over with them in it. André was never charged, probably because the police never believed the four drunk guys ranting about an angry giant that knocked their car over.
- Davey Boy Smith, the British Bulldog, was harassed by a man in a bar who recognized him. When the man laid hands on him, Smith (at one time considered the strongest man in professional wrestling) put him in a simple headlock, from which the man was unable to extricate himself, no matter how he screamed or struggled. Sadly, Smith walked him over to the bar's bouncer, said, "Can you take care of this?" and when the bouncer said, "I have it," let go. That's when the idiot tripped over his own feet, fell down, and opened up his skull to the brain on a protruding nail. And sued.
- An example of a dragon bullying a larger dragon has Robert Sawyer, a 6'6" and 230-pound construction worker, picking on Paul "Big Show" Wight, whose initial wrestling moniker was "The Giant". Depending on who's measuring, he's anywhere between 7'2" and 7'4", weighed between 450 and 500 pounds for much of his career (though as of 2020, he's now down to "only" 380 or so), and is famous for being one of the fastest and most agile super-heavyweights of the modern era, if not ever. Sawyer, being drunk in a bar, decides to insult him and deliberately tries to pick a fight with him so he can later sue. Too bad that everyone in the bar — including the bartender, several patrons, and multiple security cameras — all witnessed Big Show try to talk the guy down for a good ten minutes, not responding until he was struck several times. Then Show punched the guy once, and that was the end of that.
- As the story goes, a mob of Hells Angels bikers learned the hard way not to tangle with the famously tough Harley Race. Convinced they could take him, Race proved just how wrong they were when they confronted him after the show. Race answered their threats by picking out the biggest biker, shattered his nose with a headbutt, and put him out with a sleeper hold. The remaining bikers wisely did not test their luck with him.
- Bob Holly was infamous for being rough and uncooperative with rookies. So as he was wrestling Brock Lesnar, a 300-pound former NCAA Division I heavyweight championnote , Holly tried stiffing Lesnar, which he didn't seem to notice, and then tried to sandbag while going up for a powerbomb. Brock just picked him up anyway and then dropped him. Holly landed on the back of his neck and ended up missing a year from the resulting injury.
- Antonio Inoki once wrestled a Canadian man named the Great Antonio. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Antonio stopped cooperating with Inoki, no-sold Inoki's offense, and began working stiff (hitting Inoki very hard). A clearly frustrated Inoki responded by grounding Antonio and kicking him in a way that resembled a near-literal Curb-Stomp Battle until Antonio was left lying in his own blood.
- In a humorous inversion, real-life tough guy Bill Goldberg reportedly got his ass handed to him by Chris Jericho of all people. It probably bears mentioning that by that point Jericho had spent decades learning different fighting styles, on top of being the son of a legendary hockey goon.
- Chavo Guerrero Jr., who is 5 foot 9 and 215 pounds on a full stomach, decided to launch himself at another wrestler during a Smackdown taping in 2004 when he overheard him mocking the smaller wrestlers on the card. Said wrestler he launched himself at was the 7-foot-tall Big Show. Chavo got himself shoved halfway across the room for his efforts.
Kayfabe examples
- During Wrestlemania 6, Bobby Heenan slapped André the Giant for losing a tag team match against Demolition. Andre went berzerk and knocked Heenan out.
- nWo member Scott Norton interfered in the match between Psicosis and Tokyo Magnum on the August 3, 1998 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. He then called out any regular WCW wrestlers for a match. "The Laughing Man" Hugh Morrus ran down, saying, "Somebody's got to do this," with manager "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart telling him that he shouldn't mess with the nWo. Of course, Norton powerbombed Morrus, thus proving Hart right.
- Chris Jericho's debut in WWE/WWF had him interrupting The Rock. That's one thing that few superstars, let alone newbies like Jericho, have the guts to do. However, his second appearance had him interrupting The Undertaker.
- "The Franchise" Shane Douglas called out Goldberg on the September 4, 2000 WCW Monday Nitro. As soon as Goldberg's music hit, Shane's eyes popped in a true Oh, Crap!/My God, What Have I Done? moment. Shane recruited the Natural Born Thrillers (Shawn Stasiak, Chuck Palumbo, Mike Sanders, Mark Jindrak, Sean O'Haire, Reno [Rick Cornell] and Johnny the Bull [John "Johnny Stamboli"/"Rellik" Hugger] doing a weak Ur-Example of what The Nexus would be ten years later) to help him, and, even with 8 GUYS against him, Goldberg was still able to win the match.
- At CHIKARA Sand in the Vaseline, Larry Sweeney, at barely heavyweight, blamed Mana The Polynesian Warrior, a super heavyweight, for a loss against Lancelot and slapped him, leading to Sweeney getting a Samoan drop.
- In 2007, Santino Marella would regularly mock "Stone Cold" Steve Austin: mangling Austin's catchphrases, cosplaying as him while acting like an idiot, bashing Austin's movies, and declaring him a horrible actor. When Austin finally confronts him face-to-face, he forces Santino to admit that he never actually watched any of his movies. Austin offers Santino a DVD of The Condemned and requests that he watch it before evaluating his acting skills, but Santino throws it down and stomps on it. Cue beatdown.
- This is pretty much Kellie Skater's gimmick, starting in QLD and especially after she joined SHIMMER's roster in 2009. She is a good bit larger than the average woman and obviously good enough to get the invite but is nowhere near as big and strong as she thinks she is. Her taunting of LuFisto, whom she stands noticeably taller than but only outweighs by a single kilogram is but a mild example.
- Michael Cole. After his 2010 Face–Heel Turn, he's bullied John Cena, Jerry Lawler (his arch-enemy), Jim Ross, The Rock (twice), Daniel Bryan, the WWE Divas (all of them), and even his own Dragon Jack Swagger (making him a somewhat literal example of the trope) to their faces. All of them could easily beat Cole to a bloody pulp if they wanted to, and half of them actually did. Cole also regularly mocked Booker T, Zack Ryder, and Ted Dibiase Jr (following Dibiase's 2011 Heel–Face Turn).
- The WWE Divas deserve special mention here. He seemed to save his venom for two very specific Divas, Natalya Neidhart and Eve Torres. While most of the Divas are accused of being Faux Action Girl Eye Candy, he decided to pick on possibly two of the most dangerous of them. Natalya is a veteran wrestler and a member of the Hart Wrestling Family. Eve is a trained Gracie Jiu-Jitsu fighter and is (in Real Life) dating a member of the Gracie Family. He decided not only to bully the two most dangerous female Dragons, he also chooses the two most-well connected.
- In the early months of 2012, Cody Rhodes made it his mission in life to mock Big Show, calling him a fat loser and continuously showing clips of Show's embarrassing moments. No matter how many times Show catches up to him and gives him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, he just won't stop. Come WrestleMania 28, Rhodes ends up paying the price, as he not only got KO'd by Show, but he lost the Intercontinental Title as a result. Show then returned the favor to Rhodes, showing humiliating moments during his matches.
- Damien Sandow interrupting the D-Generation X Army reunion. A rare occurrence where the bully openly acknowledges the consequences beforehand.
- This Prime Time Players song about Ezekiel Jackson is another self-acknowledged example:"Big Zeke ain't got no cuts! Big Zeke ain't got no cuts! He's big, he's strong, but he ain't got no cuts!"
- "Portugal's Perfect Athlete" Shanna defeated La Rosa Negra once and another victory at SHINE 20 seemed all but certain except for the fact Shanna insisted on provoking La Rosa's self-appointed bodyguard, Noemi Bosques, a then-undefeated boxer who was completely fresh besides exasperation at the dirty moves Shanna got away with. An Easily-Distracted Referee can work both ways though, so when Shanna decided to put her hands on Bosques she was quickly floored, allowing La Rosa Negra to come back.
- In 2013, Big Show is forced to watch the main event match and not do anything to get involved. During this time JBL starts taunting Big Show while he's sitting there, taunting a large man who could knock him out with one punch.
- Bo Dallas reminding Brock Lesnar that he lost to The Undertaker at Summerslam 2015.
- Dana Brooke slapping Asuka, one of the most dangerous stiff strikers in Japan, and Dana got her ass thoroughly kicked.
- Asuka herself once picked a fight with the at least 90 lbs heavier Pancrase openweight champion Minoru Suzuki, although that might have been a bizarre example of fan girlism, given she spent the money to bring Suzuki on the card.
- At times, Paul Heyman makes the mistake of his life of insulting the likes of Samoa Joe and Goldberg without the presence of Brock Lesnar.
- Two weeks before Summerslam 2017, The Miz has the balls to mock Brock Lesnar. The segment of course ends with Miz and his entourage being sent to Suplex City by the Beast.
- Miz also spent the latter half of 2017 harassing not only Arch-Enemy Dean Ambrose, but also Seth Rollins, and then Roman Reigns. So, it's only to be expected that his actions would cause The Shield to reform, much to his distress.
- Lodi faced Goldberg on the March 16, 1998 WCW Monday Nitro and one of the signs he had with him read "GOLDBERG IS A MEATHEAD." He actually stood behind the referee and jumped up and down while holding the sign. The ref moved out of the way, Goldberg grabbed the sign and you can probably guess the rest.
- This was Andy Kaufman's main gimmick as a heel wrestler. His persona was as a deluded celebrity Smug Snake who would bait better wrestlers into losing their temper and humiliating or (kayfabe) injuring him, then use underhand means to try to get revenge on them.
- At Summerslam 2019, Goldberg defeated Dolph Ziggler and then started walking to the back... until Dolph got on the mic and started insulting him and his moves, calling him a coward. Goldberg stood in astonishment for a few moments before walking back to the ring to give him another Spear to shut him up. That didn't stop Dolph from insulting him some more, so Goldberg came back down again and gave him an even bigger Spear. The commentary team were aghast.Michael Cole: Why would you poke Goldberg like this?!
Corey Graves: I knew Dolph was going through some tough times professionally. I didn't realize he had a death wish. - Rey Mysterio is usually not portrayed as a dragon due to his size, in spite of his legendary career. That changed during his feud with his son Dominik Mysterio, who spent months trying to provoke his father into attacking him. Rey being Rey, absolutely refused to so much as lay a hand on Dominik no matter what his son did to him, something said son soundly mocked him for at every opportunity. This changed when Dominik started disrespecting his mother and sister as well, causing Rey to finally hit his Rage Breaking Point and attack him. When the deed was done, Dominik showed absolute fear of his father, making it clear he never really wanted to fight Rey, just throw his weight around.
