Drug overdoses, cruel WWE ribs gone wrong, suspected heart attacks and more.
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00:00So we're gonna have some fun today and we're also gonna get into some murky waters, so
00:04make sure you go and put some diapers on.
00:06I don't know what that means.
00:08Do you want to relive some truly bonkers stories behind some great wrestling matches?
00:12Of course you do, that's why you clicked, so hit that subscribe button, strap yourself
00:16in and here we go.
00:1810.
00:19Kane vs The Undertaker
00:20Let's not pretend I didn't love this when I was a kid and when Kane turned up at Bad
00:23Blood 1997 I couldn't believe it.
00:26Come on now, that's gotta be Kane.
00:28The brothers then built to Unforgiven 1998, well yes, they had an Inferno match, which
00:33seemed a little bit mean, because don't forget the narrative was that as kids The Undertaker
00:38had set his brother on fire, so now here we were years later and why don't we play around
00:43with the flames again.
00:44I suppose this sort of helped the big red machine because of course he had that full
00:47suit on so he was protected, but actually behind the scenes he was meant to turn up
00:52to a venue the day beforehand to test all of this to make sure nobody was gonna die,
00:56but his cab driver got lost so by the time he did reach the venue, well, there was nothing
01:02else we could do, we were gonna have to work for the big night and see what happened.
01:05It was also hell ironically for both guys, because of course there was so much flames
01:10they couldn't get enough oxygen in so they stumbled around the ring going, I can't breathe.
01:14And you'd think the police would have been involved here too, because once more, do not
01:18forget as children this is what The Undertaker had done.
01:23He also got choke slammed through his parents grave.
01:26I tell you, Dave vs The Undertaker is the absolute best.
01:29Number 9, Mark Henry vs Nobody.
01:32June 3rd, 2011, Smackdown.
01:34The show had ended and Vince McMahon told Mark Henry, hey Mark, if you could go to the
01:38ring and have a dark match against Sin Cara, that would be absolutely faboo, and the world's
01:43strongest man arrived there and he couldn't see anyone.
01:47As it turned out, this was a McMahon rib, but as Henry told Stone Cold Steve Austin
01:51on his podcast, he was so damn livid about this, because he realised what was going on
01:56and then was like, wait a minute, I've been in this company for 15 years, and that's how
01:59I'm being treated, I feel totally disrespected, and he started to destroy the ringside area.
02:05He then decided he was gonna yell at his boss as well, but when he got backstage, everybody
02:10had left, which was also part of the practical joke, so Mark decided, that's it, I'm gonna
02:15quit.
02:16Ship.
02:17Amazingly this was the catalyst for the Hall of Pain run though, because as the story goes,
02:20they both then sat down, they watched this footage, and Vinny Mac was like, look, if
02:24you can act like this, when we're doing proper television, you are gonna get massively over.
02:29Now, a small side of me thinks maybe this was retroactively fitting around it, but still,
02:33it was a massive success, because Henry did start acting like a killer, and pretty soon,
02:39he was the world heavyweight champion.
02:40So he never really did look better, and it's all because somebody decided to piss him off.
02:45Number 8, Dean Malenko vs. Billy Kidman
02:47So we are going to WCW in 2000 here, which means we must warn you, everything is totally
02:53crazy.
02:54Happening at the sold out PPV, neither Dean Malenko or Billy Kidman were meant to be on
02:57this show, but when all of a sudden World Championship Wrestling were suffering from
03:01injuries, well, they had no choice.
03:03Because it was meant to be Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett, but poor Double J suffered a
03:06concussion, which meant Benoit was moved into the main event scene, and Malenko and Kidman,
03:11they were just thrown on the card.
03:13Billy also had to wrestle members of the Revolution Stable in three different matches, mostly
03:17because WCW would come up with this triple threat gimmick, and they were desperate to
03:22do it.
03:23Because each one had to have a theatre spin to it though, the first was a catch as catch
03:26can match with Dean Malenko, the rules being, you've got to keep it inside the ring, you've
03:31got to wrestle, and if anybody does leave, they're going to get disqualified.
03:35Well nobody told Dean about this, because it was already decided at the last minute,
03:40So Malenko, being a professional wrestler in 2000, of course at one point he went to
03:45the outside, but the ref had no choice, he went, you're disqualified, and that was not
03:50meant to happen.
03:51Unsurprisingly too, Dean Malenko left WCW after this, I wonder why.
03:567.
03:57Chris Jericho vs. Steve Austin
03:58So we all remember back at Vengeance 2001, Chris Jericho beat the Rock and Stone Cold
04:02Steve Austin in one night to become the WWF Champion for the first time.
04:07Well Chris had to go through a right hazing here, because he learned about this in catering
04:12when The Undertaker and Vince McMahon were going, business must be in the toilet, if
04:16we're going to make Jericho the champion, he was probably suffering from imposter syndrome
04:21straight away.
04:22As Jericho was retold many a time though, as he soon learned, you may get to the tippity
04:26top of the wrestling tree, but it's still pretty damn lonely.
04:29Because not only had everybody left the building to beat the traffic, meaning he was by himself,
04:34When he went to his hotel room, he lost his key, and when he went to ask for another one,
04:38they wouldn't give it to him, because how the hell do we know you're Chris Jericho.
04:41He had to tell them that if they did go into his room, they would see two championships
04:45belts.
04:46When he finally got back in there, he had to eat some pizza that had gotten really cold.
04:51There you go my friends, you may be dreaming of being WWE Champion, but you're still
04:56going to have to eat a bunch of crappy food.
04:596.
05:00Rikishi vs. Kurt Angle
05:01So turn away now if you're not into disgusting things.
05:03If you are still watching, you're a weird person.
05:06Happening at the King of the Ring 2000 though, this was a massive night for Kurt Angle, because
05:10he was going to win the one night tournament, and as we now know, start his ascensity to
05:15superstardom.
05:16I suppose Big Kish thought differently though, as he decided to play a little bit of a joke.
05:21Because it stood to reason that Angle at one point was going to have to suffer the fate
05:25of the stink face, and Rikishi decided, well maybe I'll go to the toilet before the match,
05:30I won't clean my rear end, so when I stick it in Kurt's face, he will have poo on his
05:37nose.
05:38I mean, I don't want to see these words, but that's what we're getting at here.
05:41Now to be fair, Angle on his podcast said he can see the humour in this, although I'll
05:44take over, I can't at all, and we also then learned that Rikishi would do this all the
05:49time.
05:50It's like a damn epidemic.
05:51I mean surely that breaks some kind of HR rule.
05:54If you sat down with them and said, yeah, somebody pooed on my face, they'd be like,
05:59don't worry, we're going to take some action.
06:01Didn't happen.
06:025.
06:03CM Punk vs Samoa Joe
06:04So you all know this one, because it was very recent, but we have to put it in here, how
06:08the hell could we not?
06:09It is amazing to watch back now, because when Samoa Joe and CM Punk did start All In 2023,
06:15in Wembley Arena, or Wembley Stadium I should say, CM Punk looks perfectly fine, but minutes
06:20prior to this, he had gotten into a fight with Jack Perry.
06:24It stemmed from the pre-show where Jungle Boy had made some comments about using real
06:27glass, and this was an incident that had happened on AEW Collision a few weeks prior,
06:32when Jack did want to do this, and Punk was like, no, that's really silly.
06:36And then we got round two at the PPV, because of course as soon as Punk heard this quit,
06:40he took it as a slight, he met him at the entranceway, when yes, it sounds like some
06:45punches were thrown, and even poor Tony Khan got dragged into it.
06:48I mean something huge must have gone down, because of course CM Punk was fired a few
06:51weeks after this, although moving that to one side, you do have to be very impressed
06:56with CM's performance.
06:58He must have been filled with beans, but he still went out and did what he did, it was
07:03damn impressive.
07:04To be fair though, he does have this wry smile on his face, so maybe he knew friends, maybe
07:09he knew.
07:104.
07:11Mankind vs The Undertaker
07:12So most people know every single last detail from their King of the Ring Hell in a Cell
07:151998 match, because even today it's totally insane.
07:19If you've always wondered how Mick Foley got this signed off though, well he didn't
07:23actually really do it, because he pitched this idea to management, and they were like
07:27no Mick, there's no way you can start off on top of the structure, that would be nuts.
07:31Because he was like a child, and he kept prodding the bear, eventually very close to the night,
07:36someone went ok fine, but just be safe.
07:38Now this wasn't ideal, because it meant the people constructing the thing had no clue,
07:42so when they were putting it together, they weren't building it to hold two human beings,
07:46in fact they were using cable ties, that's why when you go and watch it now, as soon
07:49as Mark Calloway and Mick Foley are up there, you see the roof start to sag.
07:54It's also why it breaks when Undertaker hits that horrible chokeslam, and if you
07:58want a few more tidbits, watch when the Undertaker comes into the ring, he quite visibly winces,
08:04that's because he was working with a broken foot.
08:06It all came from the fact that Foley was terrified that they wouldn't be able to outdo what
08:10the Deadman did with Shawn Michaels back in 1997, but don't worry Mick, you managed
08:15it.
08:16Vince McMahon was also legitimately fuming after this, and while he thanked Foley he
08:18was like, please never do that again, 5 minutes later, Mankind still came out to distract
08:25in the main event.
08:26The show must go on.
08:283.
08:29Bret Hart vs The British Bulldog
08:30Do you want to know why Bret Hart claims this is one of the most successful achievements
08:33of his entire career?
08:35Minutes beforehand, the British Bulldog told him, oh hey cuz, I don't remember any of
08:40the match, because I may have gone out last night and done a bunch of drugs, whoops.
08:45Which does mean if you do go and watch it today, Bret is quite literally shouting spots
08:49to Davey Boy Smith, because the British Bulldog was such a good worker instinctively I suppose,
08:54he was just doing whatever his brother-in-law said.
08:57This is even more ridiculous because nobody had a clue, to the point, even when it did
09:01get out there in the wild, everyone was like, that can't be true, this goes to show, Bret
09:06Hart is a genius.
09:07How he did it so calmly I will never be able to understand, and when I do my wrestling
09:10matches, I can run through it 45,762 times and be standing at the curtain and turn to
09:16my opponent and go, nope, I've totally forgotten it.
09:18Very sadly the British Bulldog was released soon after this, because he was struggling
09:21so much.
09:22Still, this was absolutely the highlight of his career, and regardless of what was going
09:27on, he did win that Intercontinental title, warm and fuzzy in your tum tum.
09:322.
09:33Steve Austin vs The Rock
09:34So this is certainly a tale that has done the rounds, but it's a very important one.
09:38Because WrestleMania 19 was Stone Cold Steve Austin's last match.
09:42He didn't want to tell anyone, because The Rock was going to win, and he didn't want
09:45to steal his thunder, but because he wanted to roll into that show in the best shape possible,
09:50he was drinking a bunch of coffee and topping that off with energy drinks.
09:54A huge part of this too was because he was so injured, and he is a human so anxieties
09:58were running wild, but he basically overloaded his system, thought he was having a heart
10:02attack and had to go to the flipping hospital to make sure he wasn't about to die.
10:06He was still so bad, the doctors told him, you absolutely cannot wrestle.
10:10This is when the Rattlesnake took matters into his own hands, and he rolled into Mania
10:1419, and he still did what he did.
10:17You can say in terms of their trilogy at WrestleMania, this was the worst of the three, but you should
10:21not be using that word worst, it's still damn damn good.
10:25Essentially why now when you go back to watch it, this one has even more gravitas, because
10:2924 hours earlier, nobody even knew what was going to happen with Steve Austin, but he
10:33walked off into the sunset.
10:35This is why he is one of the best, whatever he had to do, for one Kurt Angle vs Brock
10:40Lesnar.
10:41So go and watch the 18th of September 2003 Smackdown, and you will see an Iron Match
10:46between Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle that does not get enough love.
10:49I mean it is pretty damn special.
10:51How Kurt did this I will never know though, because as he has talked about, he was essentially
10:56drugged up too.
10:57It's an absolutely horrible story as well, because 24 hours prior he got a phone call
11:01from his brother who said, oh hey Kurt, our sister has just passed away from a heroin
11:07overdose.
11:08This affected Angle on two different levels, one, he just lost a family member, but two,
11:12he had fallen out with his sister months prior because he said, if you can't kick the habit,
11:17I don't know if I can talk to you anymore.
11:19I don't know how anybody deals with that.
11:21Kurt was also dealing with his own severe drug issues, so to try and drown his pain,
11:25he reached out and took 20 extra strength Vicodin, and then unsurprisingly he passed
11:31out.
11:32He didn't wake up until 5pm the next day, meaning in four hours he had to be on TV wrestling
11:35for 60 minutes, and when he looked at his phone it just said missed call WWE, missed
11:39call WWE, missed call WWE, because somebody was probably terrified that something terrible
11:43had happened.
11:44Angle himself recounted this all on Joe Rogan's podcast, and yet when he did go out there,
11:49like I say, he had a banger with Brock Lesnar, and this just totally perplexes the mind.
11:55I mean, it should quite literally be impossible.
11:57Angle himself described it as he had to do as good a job as possible, because it was
12:00the best way to block any emotions he had towards his sister, so that would get you
12:05right in the sad gland, but it's also a great piece of evidence that when you are talking
12:09about the best wrestlers ever, you gotta throw Kurt Angle into the mix.
12:13Thank you very much for stopping by, my name was Simon Miller, I appreciate you muchly,
12:17and I'll see you soon.