Hilarious In Hindsight / Pro Wrestling

• When Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling started up, it sold itself on the premise that it was the enemy of the Japanese mainstream. By their sixth anniversary, FMW had drawn a crowd of over fifty eight thousand people, meaning they had themselves become part of the Japanese mainstream. Not even the legendary Zenjo could outdraw FMW at it's peak, the only "pure" puroresu companies that could being All Japan Pro Wrestling, New Japan, NOAH, the various incarnations of the Universal Wrestling Federation, which could also all be traced back to Rikidozan's JWA, or in layman's terms, as mainstream as it gets and Tokyo Pro Wrestling, which only lasted four years.
• While in WCW, Steve Austin suggested that he started a feud with Hulk Hogan by proclaiming "Steveamania" was bigger than "Hulkamania." It was dismissed as silly. A few years later, Austin went to the WWF and proved Steveamania was bigger than Hulkamania.
• In 1993, Lady Victoria, who would become best known for wrestling in EMLL and AAA, had earned herself the Red Baron "Sable Luna". It was a little strange, as she wasn't much like Luna Vachon and even less like Sable, a swash buckling Masked Luchador, but the idea of her being a "crazy schemer" sort of fit. After Luna Vachon had a feud with a woman named Sable about five years later it fit a lot better.
• In Adam "Edge" Copeland's autobiography, On Edge, there is a picture captioned, "One of the best ways of getting heat from the crowd is to spear Lita". A year or so later, his affair with Lita was exposed... yeah, he did get a lot of heat for "spearing" her (Lita got more, though).
  • Also at WrestleMania X-Seven, Edge and Christian, The Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz took part in TLC2. Lita ran in to assist the Hardys by pulling Edge off a ladder, to which Jim Ross called on commentary
    "...by God Lita's here. Jerking Edge off... the ladder!".
    • Also in the same vein, in 2003 WWE tried an all-Divas trading card set: WWE- Divine Divas. Card number 82 in this set: "Double Trouble- Lita & Edge."
    • The preceding card in that same Double Trouble series featured Sable and Brock Lesnar. They got engaged the following year, married two years after that and now have two kids together.
  • All Lita stuff aside, towards the end of Edge's book, he said that he thinks he's headed for a heel turn, and states that while he's okay with that, he works better as a face. In the best way possible, he was wrong.
  • At "his hair vs. hair" match with Kurt Angle at Judgment Day 2002, Jerry Lawler said Come JR, admit it, this guy needs a haircut when Edge was coming out and would later win the match. Fast forward to 2012. Edge, after retiring from wrestling, got a haircut.
  • Edge seems to get a lot of these, as he cut a promo shortly after winning the 2001 King of the Ring where he took down Billy Gunn, claiming he failed to get over after he won the 1999 KOTR and went on to say "If in two years I'm not defending a title you can just shoot me". In two years, Edge would get a broken neck and be out of action for over a year, and would struggle as a babyface before being turned heel and became WWE Champion, but only in 2006 (although he won the title several times since then). To top that, when he returned in 2010 as a face he effectively bombed and the crowd turned on him at his WrestleMania 26 match with Chris Jericho, thus forcing the creative team to turn him heel again. Fate doesn't like to be tempted, Mr. Copeland.
• Triple H vs. Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania XII, Triple H became Executive Vice President of the WWE. When he was a main event star, in order to kick out of the Pedigree, his finisher, you needed written permission from Triple H himself. During this match, Triple H used the Pedigree on the Ultimate Warrior and Warrior just stood up from it like it's nothing. If this were to happen in the Triple H lead WWE, the career of the wrestler would possibly be on life support.
  • Also, Triple H was the low man on the Clique totem pole. Warrior was coming back after a 3+ year-long absence and Vince McMahon needed someone to sacrifice to him. This paled in comparison to the Madison Square Garden incident, which took place a month and a half later, and which found him being sacrificed... again.
    • There's another aspect that's at least fascinating, if not hilarious. Prior to the MSG incident, Triple H was slated to win that year's King of the Ring. Since Trips was being punished, that was scrapped and the bookers decided to go with someone else: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. For those not aware, King of the Ring '96 was the birth of Austin 3:16 and began Austin's rise to superstardom.
  • Again concerning Triple H, the end of an old theme song of his finished with the snarky remark, "Who's sleeping with who around here?" Guess who married the boss's daughter. They also married in kayfabe before they married in real life.
• Pete Rose appeared at WrestleMania XIV, XV, and 2000 (a.k.a. XVI) and was beaten up by Kane at the first two events (he was given a stinkface in the third). In his first appearance, which was held in Boston, he insulted the Boston Red Sox (whom his team, the Cincinnati Reds, had beat in 1975 to win the World Series) and said the Red Sox couldn't win a World Series and mocked the Curse of the Bambino (before Kane came out and destroyed him to cheering from the crowd). Four World Series championships for Boston later, who's laughing now, Pete?
  • And the nickname of the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970s was the Big Red Machine, which became Kane's nickname in his first run.
  • When guest-hosting RAW in April of 2010, Rose pointed out he had three World Championships which is "three more than the San Francisco Giants." Six months later, the Giants won the first of three World Series over the next five years.
• Howard Brody wrote a column in 2002 explaining why Ring Warriors was not the NWA, and a follow up column in response to all the negativity it drew with his former friends before putting a good word in for one of the few he had left, Future Of Wrestling promoter/wrestler Bobby Rogers for getting Dusty Rhodes, Kevin Sullivan and Abdullah the Butcher together in the ring with him for FOW and drawing 4000 die hard territory fans out to attend. Come 2011 and Ring Warriors officially joined FOW in the NWA with intent to resurrect "the three sacred letters" only to be right back out at the end 2012 when Bruce Tharpe took over.
• During Jeff Hardy's first stint in TNA, his entrance video contained the words "See You in the Future." Fast forward years later, and Jeff is now back in TNA.
• During the annual WWE show in Iraq in 2003, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin actually gave John Cena the Stone Cold Stunner after being unimpressed with his "You Can't See Me" taunt. This was before Cena was made the top face of the company as Austin had been in the late '90s; the event has become both funnier and much more symbolic in hindsight.
• Triple H: "The Game". Ric Flair: "The Dirtiest Player In The Game". And then they teamed up in Evolution...
  • Deliberate homage, "The Game" is wrestling, Flair's bragging about being the biggest cheater, and Trips (who is a gigantic Flair mark) talked about how people said they were students of "The Game" but he was "The Game".
• When the rumors of Sting facing The Undertaker at WrestleMania was gaining traction on the internet, this fake poster◊ was floating around for said match to the tone of The Joker's The Dark Knight poster. Approximately, 5 months later and this was Sting's gimmick....
  • And in 2014, Sting finally joined the 'E. Too bad that we never got the Sting vs. Taker match.
• On the edition of SmackDown prior to the 2009 edition of Bragging Rights John Morrison had a confrontation with his former partner The Miz, mocking Raw and its recent parade of guest hosts, by saying it had become a "poor man's Saturday Night Live" and asking "who's next, Big Bird?". Fast forward two years and The Muppets hosted Raw on Halloween.
  • Which contained another hilarious hindsight moment; Edge had at one point called Sheamus Beaker. So come the Muppets hosting, Beaker and Sheamus meet backstage through a confrontation with Christian, and Sheamus tells Beaker he can't make it to the family reunion.
• In a backstage segment with Trish Stratus, Melina said if she beat her "wouldn't that be a kick in the head?". This◊ needs no explanation.^note Bonus protip: an old storyline friend of Trish's was involved in that picture.
• When champion body builder Lenda Murray tried out for WWE, the company got bashed for entertaining the idea of debuting a fourth "scary" black woman on the roster, after Jacqueline, Jazz and Shaniqua, complaining that all the white women bar Molly Holly were conversely being held up sex symbols. Well, WWE ended up taking all its black women off TV until the debuts of Kristal Marshal and Alicia Fox, who were complained about for opposite reasons, getting to skip developmental all together thanks to the Diva Search and getting a deal after being seen on a spread from a fashion magazine, respectively.
• Brock Lesnar returns... only in WWE 12. It took the man another year before finally returning full time.
• Just before WWE Tough Enough Season 5 premiered, contestant Ariane Andrew said in her promo "I am the next WWE Diva". She would be eliminated on the very first episode but then it became even more hilarious when she was signed anyway and also became the first of the contestants to debut on WWE TV in a regular role and make it to WrestleMania.
  • It becomes even funnier when, as of mid 2012, WWE actually released Andy Leavine, who did win that season.
• This promo for the 2000 King of the Ring. Who is the superstar that stars in the commercial? Triple H. What is one of his current monikers?
• Earl Hebner was the brother of WWF referee Dave Hebner, and a referee himself. He made his WWF debut at a 1988 card called The Main Event, (kayfabe) posing as his brother and screwing Hulk Hogan out of the title by counting three when his shoulders were clearly off the mat. Fast forward nine years...
• On March 1, 1998, Bam Bam Bigelow defeated Taz for the ECW World Television Title which Taz had held since June 1997 (Bigelow lost the belt soon after to Rob Van Dam, thus making his career in the process). Taz, never the nicest guy in the first place, got even angrier as he felt he had been passed over for shots at the ECW World Heavyweight Title while he was holding the #2 belt and how all his training and hard work had only gotten him to second place. This led to Taz targeting ECW World Heavyweight Champion "The Franchise" Shane Douglas and introducing his own title belt, the ECW FTW (Fuck the World) Heavyweight Title.^note The FTW title actually still exists and is currently held by AEW wrestler Hook, who just so happens to be Taz's son In one in-ring promo, he threatened ECW promoter Paul Heyman, and asked, "You think I'm gonna go South, to Atlanta or north, to Vince?" In January 2000, Tazz made his official WWE in-ring debut defeating Kurt Angle at Madison Square Garden at the Royal Rumble PPV.
• This 2008 parody video on WWE's switch to TV-PG has this in spades. The suggestion of WWE going TV-G finally happened four years later with Saturday Morning Slam. Also, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels eventually reconciled for real in 2010 while "Hug It" would end up as a 2012 storyline, albeit with Kane and Daniel Bryan.
• At ECW's December to Dismember 95, "Superstar" Steve Austin walked to the ring for the three-way-dance against ECW World Heavyweight Champion Mikey Whipwreck and the Sandman while flipping off the fans. Announcer Joey Styles said, "That might be a little too politically incorrect even for ECW. You're not going to be able to make a living flipping people off, Steve." Which, of course, he did.
• At Survivor Series 1992, The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer) d. Kamala the Ugandan Giant (w/Dr. Harvey Wippleman and Kim Chee [Steve "Brooklyn Brawler" Lombardi]) in a casket match. Vince McMahon and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan were on commentary and Brain asked Vince what he would do if he was in a match like this. 11 years later, Vince would not only face, but would DEFEAT the Undertaker in a Buried Alive match after Kane interfered. Also, as Paul was rolling the casket up the aisle after the match, Vince said, "Well, it is the Survivor Series and it looks like someone will be taking that proverbial dirt nap." Brain said, "The last ride." After the Undertaker returned from injuries in May 2000 with his new Biker image, he started using a powerbomb he called the Last Ride.
• Remember the Zodiac? Well, his catchphrase was "YES! NO! YES! NO! YES! NO!" Fast forward 17 years, and Daniel Bryan would use both "YES! YES! YES!" and "NO! NO! NO!" as catchphrases.
• Ray Traylor, best known as the Big Bossman, was a prison guard who became a professional wrestler. His tag team partner Akeem, real name George Gray and better known as The One Man Gang, is a pro wrestler who became a prison guard.
• New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Antonio Inoki once defeated Pakistani Champion Akram Pehalawan in Pakistan to the surprise of the crowd. After the match, Inoki stood up and raised his fists in the air in a traditional victory pose. Possibly without realizing it, Inoki may have saved his own life by doing that, since the fans were originally going to riot in protest, but Inoki's pose made them think that he was actually praying to Allah. As of 1990, although it wasn't revealed until 2012, Inoki actually would pray to Allah on a regular basis, since he in fact converted to Islam(while remaining a Buddhist).
• Mr. Hughes squashed Jason Knight on the April 26, 1993 Raw. A year later in ECW, Jason "The Sexiest Man on Earth" was Hughes' manager.
• At one point in their 'relationship', A.J. Lee proposed to CM Punk, who eventually answered by telling her that he wouldn't marry her. They got engaged and married in 2014, a mere two years after that very storyline.
  • Also related to AJ Lee: once she dressed as Mortal Kombat's Kitana. Fast forward a few years later, and NetherRealm Studios developed WWE Immortals.
• Another one for Punk. In the 2010 Royal Rumble he ended up getting beaten up by Beth Phoenix. Roughly a year later the two would end up dating off screen. Depending on your humour, this could become even more hilarious now that they've since split up - and Punk's fiancée AJ (and eventual wife) was the one that 'retired' Beth from WWE.
• Before her Survivor Series match against the Total Divas cast AJ cut a promo with her team trying to rally them up. Her specific words "Total Divas has new episodes playing on the E! Network...and none of you are on them. Total Divas doesn't want any of you". The team included divas Alicia Fox, Summer Rae and Rosa Mendes. They would all end up added to the cast of Total Divas - Summer in season 2, Rosa and Alicia in season 3. What's more is that they were also the first three Divas eliminated from the heel team. If you can't beat 'em indeed.
• TNA once had a Knockout called Peyton Banks (also known as indie wrestler Rain). Fast forward to 2015 and you have the names of two NXT Divas - Sasha Banks and Peyton Royce (previously known as indie wrestlers Mercedes KV and KC Cassidy).
• Another wrinkle in the AJ Lee/CM Punk story (this one out of Kayfabe): when AJ was just a teenager, she looked up to Lita as a heroine and an inspiration. There is a video of her tearfully receiving an autograph from Lita at WrestleMania XIX in a touching moment...which then turns into a bout of hilarity once it's remembered that Lita and Punk had dated at one time but AJ would go on to be his spouse in the end.
• Also mixed with Irony- before his debut at the 2016 Royal Rumble, TNA put a story on their website saying they were close to re-signing AJ Styles, only for him to sign with WWE instead, since they offered more money. ^note  Some believe this was a Take That! to Styles, but a number of sources act as though these negotiations were legitimate. Several months later, TNA got a measure of revenge by signing former Ring of Honor wrestler Moose the same way.
• Wade Barrett led The Nexus's invasion of the WWE. Seven years later, as GM Stu Bennett of Defiant Wrestling, he's on the receiving end of such an invasion by the IPW UK roster. The man himself lampshaded this.
• During WWE's "Wrestlemania goes Hollywood" campaign for Wrestlemania 21, John Cena and JBL parodied A Few Good Men, with Cena (during his "Doctor of Thuganomics" days) in the role of Kaffee. Cena would later adopt a Marines-inspired patriotic gimmick.
• During his days as a manager in WCW, Paul E. Dangerously gave a promo saying that Mean Mark Callous would send his opponents "straight to the wrestling graveyard". After switching to the WWF, Mean Mark Callous, AKA Mark Callaway, would adopt the persona that made him famous — that of The Undertaker.
• From Juggalo Championshxt Wrestling Volume 2: Before Chris Hero and interviewer Serious Darius Bagfelt were interrupted by Mad Man Pondo, Hero pointed to the X'ed out Superman logo on his shirt and said, "You see this? This means it's out with the old, in with the new." Eddie Kingston defeated Hero in a Loser Leaves Town match at CZW's April 7, 2007 event. The title of the event? Out With the Old, In With the New.
• In The Midnight Rockers' profile in the book The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams, Shawn Michaels says that American Wrestling Association promoter Verne Gagne couldn't grasp the concept of calling a team "The Midnight Rockers," thinking that people would associate the name with rocking chairs. "[W]hich might be a cool gimmick, riding rocking chairs to the ring!" Bray Wyatt, anyone?
• Either this or They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In WWE 2000-2001, Right To Censor were hated heels for attempting to stop wrestlers from doing hardcore matches and trying to shut down any Fanservice, and for telling the fans that they were bad people for wanting to see, well, what they wanted to see. The gimmick died out after WrestleMania XVII, with Ivory getting jobbed out on the weekend shows, Val Venis, Bull Buchanan and the Goodfather getting Put on a Bus down to OVW, and Steven Richards temporarily disappearing until it was time for the ECW invasion. Imagine if, on the October 21, 2002 Raw, when HHH's "Katie Vick" video started, it had been interrupted by the RTC crossout circle and warning buzzer, with Richards and Ivory back in the RTC gear destroying the tape. Even if it was only a for a short time (HHH would have squashed Richards like a bug, of course), it could have made RTC into the biggest babyfaces in the company, since no one (other than Vince, of course) thought "Katie Vick" was a good idea and people would likely have cheered RTC (or, frankly, ANYONE) for stopping it. If there was ever a moment in WWE history where RTC interfering would have been welcomed, that would have been it.
• During the WWE Divas Undressed competition, Dawn Marie was described by commentator Michael Cole as "heart-stopping." Al Wilson, anyone?
• Vince McMahon called Waylon Mercy a Con Man for shaking his opponent's hand before beating the hell out of him. So, he was the originator of Ring of Honor's Code of Honour, then?
• Stampede Wrestling, late 1970s/early 1980s: Ed Whalen was interviewing Dynamite Kid and manager JR Foley^note John Foley, no connection to either of those other guys. Before Dynamite started rambling about Davey Boy Smith being a "test tube baby" and how that "meant" that Davey wasn't human and should "go back to Jupiter or Mars", JR Foley said that Randy Weber, TG Stone and Mike Hammer were all ranked above Davey Boy Smith. Davey, of course, became a big international star and those three guys who were ranked above him faded away into Jobber oblivion.
• On the February 5, 2004 SmackDown, which was held in Cleveland, OH, John Cena did a rap about Paul Heyman excluding him from the #1 contender to the WWE Championship match between Kurt Angle and The Big Show at No Way Out. Cena said, "Yo! You see, leavin' Cena outta this match is completely insane/That's like cutting^note then-Cleveland Cavaliers basketball sensation LeBron James from The All Star Game." 6 years later, on July 28, 2010, ESPN aired an overblown TV special called The Decision where James announced that he would be leaving Cleveland to join the Miami Heat, drawing very negative reactions from Cleveland fans, who likely would not have minded if James was left out of any future All-Star Games.
• At CHIKARA Young Lions Cup VI Night III, June 15, 2008, Sweet N Sour Inc. (Sara Del Rey and Bobby Dempsey, representing Larry Sweeney's ROH Power Stable) faced The Osirian Portal (Amasis and Ophidian). Amasis invited Sara to come to Egypt and be his queen, which apparently involved doing his laundry. While she didn't take him up on the offer, a little over a year later, after ROH Final Battle 2009, Sara would be crowned "The Queen of Wrestling" as part of The Kings of Wrestling's reunion.
• At CHIKARA Wit, Verve, And A Bit O'Nerve, March 20, 2010, Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw/Incoherence (Hallowicked/Frightmare) defeated the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple (UltraMantis Black/Crossbones) and F.I.S.T. (Icarus and Gran Akuma). After the match, Quack and Jigsaw were talking when UMB approached them, saying, "I come in peace." UMB talked about how Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes were trying to destroy the Order and CHIKARA in general and how the tecnicos and rudos need to come together to fight them. Quack told him how his actions were responsible for the BDK's arrival in the first place and that he owes UMB nothing. Come The Dark Ciberknetico on October 23, with the main event being the Torneo Cibernetico between Team CHIKARA and the BDK, who would be the captain for Team CHIKARA? UltraMantis Black. Who would be on Team CHIKARA? Quack, Jigsaw, Hallowicked and, even crazier, STIGMA, the guy who was the mole that enabled Chris Hero to break the CHIKARA Special back in 2007 which was one of the events that set the whole storyline into motion in the first place.
• Given what Malcolm X was like when he was alive, and New Jack's "Angry Black Man" Stereotype anti-white people attitude in SMW, the sight of white guys doing the "X" sign when "Natural Born Killaz" hit in ECW must have had Malcolm X rolling in his grave.
• Freddie Blassie said that he didn't think 1980s fans kept up with current events, which is why he figured it was more effective for him to stand with The Iron Sheik than if The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the actual ruler of Iran during the 1980s, had been there. Well, as it turns out, wrestling fans have certainly paid more attention since then. On November 17, 2012, Stevie Richards faced Papadon in a First Round match for the Extreme Rising Heavyweight Title at Extreme Rising Remember November^note A reference to November to Remember, which was ECW's biggest event of the year from 1993-2000.. Papadon's gimmick is of a Greek god, and the fans taunted him by chanting, "Greece went bankrupt! Greece went bankrupt! Greece went bankrupt!"
• Mick Foley had created the "Dude Love" persona as a better, cooler version of himself who'd be able to get the girls Mick couldn't get as himself. He ended up marrying a model who met him when he was Cactus Jack and thought that he was sexy with his front teeth missing.
• Since its formation, All Elite Wrestling has managed to pick up several WWE cast-offs ^note  Rusev, The Revival, and former developmental talents Cezar Bononi, Nick Comoroto, & Tay(nara) Conti. However, WWE has since signed Ben Carter, Priscilla Kelly, & Elayne Black, all of whom wrestled at early AEW events, but were not signed by them for whatever reason.
• A MAD Magazine back cover from 1987 riffing on the official WWF magazine featured "Harold the Killer Accountant". Four years later, Mike Rotunda introduced his new persona of an actual wrestling accountant, Irwin R. Shyster.
• Bea Priestly debuted in AEW in 2019 after apparently turning down an offer from WWE, but only lasted about a year before being released. ^note  Her Wikipedia page claims it was due to not being able to travel from her home in Japan due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, but that seems a little unlikely. Nearly a year after her release from AEW, Bea signed with WWE, on NXT UK as Blair Davenport.
• A question was asked on Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru podcast in 2015 that eerily mirrored the creation of All Elite Wrestling. Jim was asked what talent he would pick if a billionaire decided to start a wrestling promotion and wanted to raid talent from around the world. This is essentially how AEW was formed. Moreover, Tony Khan consulted Cornette as Khan was forming AEW.^note At which point Cornette told him that it was going to be a disaster and he wanted no part of it, mainly because of what the "E" in AEW stands for. It took a while longer than he expected, but most of Cornette's predictions about AEW have come true Perhaps even more hilariously, Jim has been an outspoken critic of Khan's hiring decisions (and even more critical of his booking decisions).
• In 2010, Low Ki, who competed in the WWE as Kaval, was paired with LayCool as their NXT Season 2 rookie. 12 years later, former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz tweeted that there was discussion to have Ki be the secret long lost son of Michelle McCool's husband The Undertaker.

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