10 WrestleMania Moments That Almost Ended In DISASTER

WrestleTalk

Wrestlers always take risks, but what happens when things don't go as planned on the biggest stage? Adam Blampied takes a look back at 10 WrestleMania moments that almost ended in disaster.  What's the biggest botch in WrestleMania history? Let us know in the comments!  0:00 - Introduction 1:02 - Honorable Mention 1:19 - #10 2:15 - #9 3:14 - #8 4:23 - #7 5:20 - #6 6:58 - #5 7:15 - #4 8:14 - #3 9:19 - #2 10:21 - #1 #WWE #WrestlingNews #WrestleTalk #WWETop10 #WrestleMania  WrestleTalk Podcasts are moving here   https://bit.ly/3pEAEIu Adam Blampied's lists are moving here  https://bit.ly/32JJsCv Wrestling Daily has moved here  https://bit.ly/3j3BXOZ WrestleTalk stays here  https://goo.gl/WfYA12 | SUBSCRIBE TO THEM ALL! Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!  TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/ SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/

Transcript

00:00 WrestleMania weekend is upon us and it feels like an even bigger deal than usual with an

00:05 estimated 25,000 fans in attendance making Mania 37 the first WWE show with significant

00:11 fan attendance in over a year. Even with all the medical safety measures in place it still

00:16 feels like quite a risk which got us thinking about all the times Mania nearly fell apart

00:21 because oh boy it's happened more often than you'd think. We're not trying to jinx WrestleMania

00:25 37, we promise, if anything we're putting this energy out into the world so that it

00:29 doesn't actually happen and also the world isn't governed by irony you big spatula. In

00:33 past lists we've already covered some rough Mania moments that actually happened, Taker's

00:37 Mania 24 pyro doing a crowd surf, Triple H's tummy becoming the latest cupcake at the Hummingbird

00:42 bakery, but what about the times where Big Vinny's Lil Jimmy's only just skirted calamity?

00:48 I'm Adam hailing from partsFUNknown and here are 10 WrestleMania moments that almost ended

00:53 in disaster.

00:54 Also if you're watching this and you haven't yet subscribed to partsFUNknown please do

00:57 that, please it's WrestleMania weekend, give us a subscribe please it's Mania.

01:02 Honourable mention, what's in a name? Not really a disaster I suppose but way back in

01:06 1985 Howard Finkel convinced Vince McMahon to call the show WrestleMania instead of the

01:11 Colossal Tussle. That one act alone would be enough to secure your legacy Fink, even

01:16 if you weren't f***ing brilliant at your job which you f***ing were.

01:19 10. Take a Deep Seth

01:21 Being at WrestleMania is very exciting. Competing at WrestleMania is even more exciting. Competing

01:26 first and being booked to beat Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship is the most

01:30 exciting-est of all, as Seth Rollins discovered when he legit almost fainted from excitement

01:34 during his entrance at Mania 35. In a talking head after the fact, Seth points out moments

01:39 where his heart was pounding so much and he became so light headed he nearly passed out.

01:44 You can just about see it, he hunches forward slightly, has a slightly concerned look on

01:48 his face as he's trying to take in oxygen, and then most tellingly steps forward, missteps

01:52 like a man drunk on his feet, and almost goes over. Thankfully he was able to recover in

01:57 time for Brock Lesnar to give him a beating, which I guess is a good thing, but we were

02:00 almost treated to a WrestleMania that began with a surprise appearance from the Hulkster,

02:04 a hot fire promo from Paul Heyman, and then the Royal Rumble winner immediately face planting

02:09 on the ramp and having to be stretched off while the entire show grinds to an immediate

02:13 and frightening halt.

02:15 9. Spilling the Tea

02:17 Mr. T only fears three things, not being himself when he's hungry, getting on a plane, and

02:22 being f***ed all the way up by Rowdy Roddy Piper. Hot Rod and Mr. T famously hated each

02:27 other for realsies, and Vince being Vince decided to fuel that hatred for a marquee

02:31 match, in fact possibly the most important marquee match in the history of the company.

02:35 It's well documented that Vince pretty much gambled everything on the success of Mania

02:40 1 with its cross culture mainstream baiting main event and Mr. T teaming up with Hulk

02:43 Hogan to take on Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff. Mr. T was rightfully wary about being in a

02:48 match against someone who genuinely disliked him and also was trained in wrestling, boxing

02:52 and judo. Afraid that Piper was going to go into business for himself, Mr. T almost walked

02:56 out on the day of the show. For real, on the day of WrestleMania 1, their star draw almost

03:03 bottled it. Thankfully Hogan was able to talk B.A. Baracus down and the match went ahead

03:07 and it was such a hit that Vince booked Piper and T to have another match a year later,

03:11 this time a boxing match, which is f***ing terrible.

03:14 8. A Wonderful Replacement

03:16 There are so many insane Andre the Giant stories that separating the man from the myth becomes

03:21 like trying to separate spaghetti from the sauce. He once drank 6 bottles of wine before

03:27 a match, he once drank 156 beers in a single sitting, he used to be driven to school by

03:31 Samuel Beckett, he once farted for 16 straight seconds on the set of the Princess Bride.

03:36 Wholesome tales to tell around the fireplace. By far some of the most fascinating stories

03:40 though are ones that centre around WrestleMania 3, the record breaking smash success sold

03:46 almost entirely on the back of Hogan vs Andre. There are multiple crazy stories about that

03:51 night, that Hogan wrote out a script for the match but begged Vince not to tell Andre in

03:55 case he thought Hogan didn't trust him as a worker, tales of Hogan being terrified that

03:59 Andre wouldn't in fact put him over, but most insane of all, the fact that Andre's health

04:03 and in-ring capabilities were so compromised by this point that it was down to the wire

04:08 whether he'd actually be able to complete at all, with Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorff waiting

04:13 in the wings as a last minute replacement. Thankfully Andre did compete and the match

04:18 is… you know… it's fine isn't it. It's important and it's fine.

04:24 7. Know your role and break your pelvis

04:27 Everyone enjoys the occasional staycation, especially the People's Champ who once checked

04:31 himself into the Smackdown hotel in the middle of his match against John Cena at WrestleMania

04:35 29. Evidently the gods of wrestling were unamused at being hoodwinked by the once in a lifetime

04:40 marketing and took their anger out on the most electrifying groin in all of sports entertainment.

04:45 In fact twice in a lifetime is right because Rock actually got injured in both Cena matches.

04:49 According to the Rock's own Twitter he tore his right hamstring taking a leg drop from

04:53 Big Match John at Mania 28, but his injury a year later was far more severe. At 15 minutes

04:58 into the 25 minute match he tore his abdomen and adductor muscles completely off the pelvis

05:03 bone. Sweet zombie Jesus. In the Rock's own words he briefly lost feeling in his legs

05:08 and had the injury been any more severe, or if The Rock had been anything less than a

05:12 Sherman tank in tiny pants, the match would have had to have been called off, taking it

05:16 from being a disappointing end of the night to a scary, eerily quiet one.

05:21 6. I'm the Miz and I'm flawed, son

05:24 Oh WrestleMania 27, do go away. It's the third list in a row where I've made at least

05:28 a passing reference to it. It's following me around like a shadow that wants to kill

05:31 me, or more accurately, wants to kill George Mizanin's son. So the ending of Mania 27

05:36 is bad enough to be officially classified as a disaster if everything had actually gone

05:39 according to plan. Miz and Cena would fight to the outside, both land hard and get counted

05:43 out with The Rock then coming out to actually acknowledge "hey this main event sure ended

05:47 like s*** didn't it" and call a mulligan before costing Cena the match with his patented

05:51 bookend. Except during the spot where Cena plowed Miz over the barricade, Miz landed

05:56 hard for realsies, smacking his head on the concrete and giving himself a whopper of a

06:02 concussion. It's difficult to tell if Miz was actually fully knocked out, but he's

06:05 visibly out of it for the rest of the biggest match on the biggest show of the year. And

06:09 it's just lucky that the injury wasn't worse, because if Miz couldn't continue,

06:12 no match restart, no Rock interference, no challenge for WrestleMania 28 on the next

06:17 night on Raw.

06:18 5. Big Dave's Close Shave

06:20 Sure the ending of Mania 27 was scary, but hey at least Miz had been world champion for

06:24 a few months in the builds of the show. In the main event of WrestleMania 21, a scary

06:28 moment almost put paid to Batista's entire coronation as one of the next huge faces of

06:33 the company. According to Big Dave's big DVD, I Walk Alone, he was suffering from major

06:38 back problems in the lead up to his match with Triple H, including bulging discs, which

06:43 are the worst kinds of discs. It got so bad Batista actually said his leg went numb early

06:48 in the match, and he spent pretty much the whole thing wrestling on a leg he couldn't

06:52 feel, which yeah, that's concerning. Batista is no stranger to having important runs curtailed

06:57 by terribly timed injuries, but you literally cannot get more terribly timed than during

07:01 the main event of the biggest show of the year specifically designed to get over the

07:05 two new stars of the next generation. Thankfully Batista was able to gut it out and finish,

07:10 because wrestlers are not people, they are terrifying beef puppets fuelled by ambition

07:14 and madness.

07:15 4. The Texas Rattled Snake

07:18 Wrestling is hard, almost as hard as it is to stop wrestling. Few wrestlers get their

07:22 perfect last match, but Stone Cold Steve Austin was one of those lucky few, or desperately

07:27 unlucky I guess when you consider you had to retire at 38, but anyway point is, at WrestleMania

07:31 19 Austin had one more round, a wee belter of a match, and a fitting close to his trilogy

07:37 of matches with The Rock that served as the spine of the Attitude Era. That being said,

07:41 try to imagine how he Vincent The Rock felt when Austin was hospitalized the night before

07:45 Mania 19 with heart trouble so severe the Rattled Snake genuinely thought he was about

07:49 to die. The night before his last wrestling match, a centrepiece around which Mania 19

07:54 had been built, and Austin was having his chest scanned for fear of a pulmonary embolism.

07:59 Turns out, fortunately, Austin had just been severely dehydrated, hopped up on caffeine,

08:03 and a day spent mostly exercising before his match then caused his heart to scream "I

08:08 cannot work under these conditions". Thankfully, Austin was discharged at the last minute and

08:12 the match went ahead as planned.

08:14 3. That's So Raven

08:16 Fun fact, Luke Owen's favourite wrestling match is the hardcore triple threat at WrestleMania

08:20 X-Seven between Big Show, Raven and Kane. Now to be fair to the Hilary Swank lookalike

08:24 competition runner up 2012, it's a big thick stake of endearing bollocks, people crashing

08:29 through windows, f***ing see ya Raven, but you might not know that one unplanned moment

08:34 almost had awful consequences. Or maybe you do because it's one of the most famous urban

08:38 legends in the history of WrestleMania. A particularly Looney Tunes inspired spot saw

08:42 Raven try to escape on a golf cart pursued by Kane and a ref in their own go-kart, wonderful

08:46 wonderful bollocks.

08:48 Unfortunately, the planned chase around the arena was cut short when Raven immediately

08:51 steered the cart into a chain link fence and got it stuck, blowing the spot, but it almost

08:55 blew everything else. See that fence is covered with thick black cables and along the floor

08:59 of that fence are a bunch of other thick wires. Somewhere in that jumble of electrics was

09:03 the power supply to the entire building. Shortly after the match was over, Raven was told by

09:08 production crews he came within millimetres of running over the wrong cable and plunging

09:13 the Houston Astrodome into total darkness. That is so Raven.

09:18 2. A Fallen Star

09:20 Beast was not meant to fly. Beasts fly too close to moon. Moon have revenge on beast.

09:25 Blimp Lancaster and Kurt Angle were coming to the end of their very good match in the

09:29 main event of WrestleMania 19, the match designed to get over the next big thing as the top

09:33 guy in the company moving forward. As such, Curtain Brock wanted to end the match with

09:37 something spectacular, to which Lesnar volunteered. He was able to do a shooting star press. Now

09:42 to be fair, he could bust them out like nobody's business in OVW, but when it came time for

09:46 the big moment, Lesnar slipped on the sweat drenched ropes, under rotated and landed on

09:50 his head dealing himself a severe concussion. Like that's enough to be considered a disaster

09:55 sure but they still managed to cobble together a decisive enough closing spot to slap the

09:58 belt on Brock before trying to trank his ass and take him to hospital. It could have got

10:02 so much worse. At the time Brock was being billed at just shy of 300 pounds. That amount

10:08 of weight falling from a height onto his own head and neck with slightly less rotation,

10:13 he could have very easily broken his neck live in front of millions and then the ending

10:17 of WrestleMania 19 would be remembered very, very differently.

10:21 And number one, Undertaker almost kills Streak, self. And speaking of narrowly avoided head

10:27 and neck disaster, step right up, Charlie Crone won the scariest moment in Mania history

10:31 during what many have since dubbed the greatest WrestleMania match of all time. Gary Guff,

10:35 the haunted moth took fly over the top rope to the outside with the plan spot being that

10:39 he'd land on the cameraman played by Sim Snooker. Unfortunately, Sim was too far out.

10:44 Taker rotated too far and almost lawn darted himself skull first into the arena floor.

10:49 It is a genuine miracle he didn't break his neck. But disaster still wasn't averted. On

10:54 Talk is Jericho, the referee for that match, Marty Elias, said that before the spot, Taker

10:58 had given him strict instructions to shoot count him out if he wasn't able to get back

11:03 in the ring. At the time, Elias' earpiece was also malfunctioning so he couldn't hear

11:07 the folk and gorilla tell him otherwise. If Taker had been knocked more loopy than he

11:11 had been and had been unable to get back to his feet, the streak would have ended that

11:15 night in the saddest way possible.

11:18 And that's our list. What are your favorite behind the scenes Mania stories? Let us know

11:22 in the comments. Don't forget to like and share this video around. Hit subscribe, all

11:26 that stuff and check back soon to parts of unknown for more very silly wrestling content.

11:31 Jam that jam.

11:32 [Outro]

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