A little entertainment
Saint Ezzard
Posts: 160 ✭✭✭
So, everyone knows that WWE wrestling is fake, the punches that you see wrestlers absorb aren't real, they're fake and the outcomes of the matches are determined beforehand, it's scripted. Well, in 1998, a WWE wrestler named Bradshaw made a comment to his fellow wrestlers in the lockerroom, he stated that if he ever got into a real fight with any of them, he would beat the crap out of them. This comment got back to the top brass at WWE and WWE decided that they wanted to see how their wrestlers would handle themselves in an actual combat situation, a real fight, so they decided to hold a tournament and let their wrestlers actually fight with boxing gloves on, a real boxing tournament, they called it the "Brawl for All." The tournament ended up being a complete disaster, resulting in multiple wrestlers getting knocked out and getting injured pretty badly, sidelining or outright ruining their wrestling careers. Anyway, a wrestler named Bart Gunn ended up making it to the final of the tournament and he would have to square off against none other than Bradshaw, the wrestler that made the comment in the lockerroom that started this whole thing to begin with. In the final, Bart Gunn ended up knocking out Bradshaw and winning the tournament, Gunn had a good left hand and he knocked out most of his opponents. Well, WWE was upset with Bart Gunn for winning the tournament, they were hoping that Bradshaw would win the final. They were also upset that Bart Gunn had knocked out and injured one of their wrestlers earlier in the tournament that they valued very highly by the name of Steve Williams, aka Dr. Death, ruining Dr. Death's career as a wrestler. So, WWE decided to punish Bart Gunn for winning the tournament and injuring Dr. Death, and WWE made a phone call to Butterbean, an intimidating 300+ pound actual fighter famous for being a hard punching knockout artist, and WWE made Bart Gunn fight him at WrestleMania 15. It lasted one round, and WWE got their revenge on Bart Gunn, in brutal fashion. Enjoy your Friday everyone!
https://youtu.be/J9fmrvYXgtY?si=3lMb-GlhrxKo3LYC
Comments
@perkdog
hey ya perkdog...
I Wanna Go In The Yard...
Don't get me wrong, wrestlers are as tough as they come, their bodies take a ton of punishment, professional wrestling is an extremely physical thing. The chair shots are real, the bumps they take falling off cages and ladders are real, and you can't fake having thumb tacks stuck in your body. Just take Mick Foley for example, one of the toughest guys I've ever seen, he's almost died multiple times in the ring. He got his ear ripped off in a match with Vader. His neck got hung up in the ropes, the ropes were made of really strong cable and he couldn't get free, he almost choked to death. Finally, he managed to free himself but his ear was ripped off in the process by the tight cable from the ropes. Crazy son of a gun continued wrestling and finished the match.
Speaking of Vader, he was involved in a incident in Tokyo Japan, he was wrestling Stan "The Lariat" Hansen, and Vader was known throughout his career for being stiff with his opponents in the ring. Well, Vader started getting stiff with Hansen and Hansen decided to give it back to Vader, and he ended up hitting Vader with so much force that he knocked Vader's eye out of it's socket. So, Vader just popped it back in and kept wrestling and finished the match. There's an unwritten rule in professional wrestling, if you really get hurt during a match, do everything you can, everything under your power to try and finish that match.
LandrysFedora is a big wrestling fan, I'm sure he knows a lot of these stories. The hell in a cell match between the Undertaker and Mankind (Mick Foley) was certainly one for the books, Foley was as extreme as it gets, 287 pounds of dead weight taking a bump like this off of a 20 foot high steel cage. God only knows what would have happened if Foley would had landed on top of one of the announcers, Jim Ross or Jerry Lawler. You have to give credit to Foley, he went off the top of that cage and landed about as perfect as you can get.
There's a great documentary about that hell in a cell match and in goes in depth about everything Foley went through in that match, and how it almost cost him his life, it's part of the Dark Side of the Ring series on Vice. It's on YouTube.
And I have to give Triple H his due, he's one of the toughest guys you'll ever see. He's suffered quite a few injuries in his career, he tore his quad during a tag team match in 2001, and managed to finish the freaking match with a torn quad, and even insisted on Chris Jericho putting him in the walls of Jericho on the announcers table with a torn quad. Here are the photos from that match, you can see Triple H in the walls of Jericho, his legs bent up and backwards. Keep in mind, his quad is torn at this point. Jericho later commented that he had never heard anyone scream in pain during a match like that before.
But the worst injury Triple H suffered was during the first elimination chamber match in 2002, when Rob Van Dam jumped off the cage and did a five star frog splash on top of Triple H. What happened was, Rob Van Dam landed wrong and his shin hit Triple H's throat, crushing Triple H's windpipe and causing it to swell up, Triple H could barely breathe but the tough bastard finished the match. The doctors later said that if Triple H would have wrestled just a while longer, he would have suffocated. You can see the move that injured Triple H and after the match.
So as you can see, wrestling really is a tough gig, it's no joke, your body is going to take a beating. The outcomes of matches are pre-determined, and the punches aren't real, that stuff's fake, but it takes it's toll on the human body.
Mick Foley is the king of extreme! Theres one match vs undertaker I believe where he gets slammed from the top of the cage down into a pile of tacks! As you said DD, it is all scripted but accidents and injuries in this industrial are very real. Remember what happened to Owen Hart? Definitely not part of the script. These wrestlers have grueling lifestyles living out of a suitcase most of the year. I have a cousin Peter who had a brief stint in the early 90's with what was then called the WWF now WWE. He was a jobber. And he has some crazy stories from his short time there. He went by the ring name of Apollo Athens to honor his Greek heritage.
Here's a tough dude DD. Cody Rhodes a couple years ago on live tv tore his pec muscle and kept going. I could never imagine the extreme pain he had to be feeling as that happened.
I believe the match with Mick Foley you're referring to is that hell in the cell match, he gets choked slammed through the cage, and there's actually a steel chair on top of the cage that comes down with him and hits him and knocks him unconscious and knocks his tooth out in the process, the tooth goes down his throat and into his nasal passages and comes out of his nose and stays there, you can actually see the tooth sticking out of his nose afterwards. Just a brutal match for Foley, he really pushed the envelope further than anyone.
Love the American nightmare, I hated to see him drop the belt to John Cena at WrestleMania, hopefully they'll put him in some good storylines in the future. I found a picture of an Apollo Athens, this must be your guy!
Wrestling is definitely a grueling schedule, it's a year round thing, not seasonal like other sports, so they are always going year round. You're constantly traveling from city to city, living in hotels, barely get anytime at home, anytime for personal relationships, and your body is always hurting but you can't let anyone see it. A lot of wrestlers get hooked on pain pills and such just to stop the pain, and a lot of wrestlers have died from the drugs. The series "Dark Side of the Ring" is just littered with wild stories from the wrestling business, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see what it's really like.
Speaking of John Cena, got to give him his due as well, he's one tough hombre. In 2015, in a match against Seth Freakin' Rollins, John Cena's nose was legit broken when Rollins went too far with a knee to the face and accidentally caught Cena in the nose. John Cena toughed it out with a broken nose and finished the match.
That is my cousin Peter Weeks aka Apollo Athens!
👍
He did work as mostly a stunt man for some time after his wrestling days were over. He is retired and now living in Virginia.
A stunt man, that doesn't surprise me considering the tough nature of wrestling!
By the way, I forgot to mention, in case anyone is curious, the tallest wrestler in the history of the WWE was Giant Gonzalez, he was a 7"7', monster of a man, here is a photo of Gonzalez towering above the 6"10' Undertaker.
Just a behemoth of a man.
Speaking of big men in the WWE, this is one of the most entertaining and greatest things you'll ever see in wrestling history. Back in 2018, on an episode of Monday night Raw, 6"8', 386 lbs wrestler Braun Strowman absolutely laid waste to Brock Lesnar and Kane, and then used a rope with a grappling hook attached to it to pull down the huge lighting set on top of them. I'll never forget watching this live as it happened.
One more entertaining moment involving big men before I call it a day, back in 2017 on an episode of WWE Raw, Braun Strowman and 7"0' 400 lbs Big Show went up on the top turnbuckle and you just knew something bad was about to happen. And sure enough, Braun Strowman suplexes Big Show off the top turnbuckle and the weight of both men hitting the canvas caused the ring to implode, the place went absolutely bananas.
Brawn is a beast! I was disappointed they released him last month.
Yeah, no kidding, I couldn't believe it either. They really should have used him better, created some storylines with him just wrecking everything in his path with his raw strength, very disappointing.
Actually, I just looked into Braun Strowman a little more, and apparently his history of injuries is starting to catch up with him, his knees aren't that good anymore, that's a real shame, he was unique type of monster in his prime, his raw power and strength was unbelievable.
hey ya Landry...
My Old School Wrestling Warm-up 's...
Shawn Michaels, aka "The Heartbreak Kid" is one of my favorite wrestlers of all-time, many people consider him to be the greatest in-ring performer in the history of this business and it's hard to argue against that. What's fascinating and unique about Shawn Michaels is that his life is a story of two completely different people and it's a testament to the fact that people really can change. He had two runs, two separate careers in WWE, during his first run from 1988-98, he was a cocky and arrogant jerk that would literally do just about anything to stay on top, including screwing people over in the business, as was the case in the infamous "Montreal Screwjob", and back stabbing his fellow wrestlers to keep them from becoming top stars. Then he got injured in 1998, a back injury, and it looked like his career might be over. While he sat at home, depressed and miserable because he could no longer perform in the business he loved, something changed in him and he decided to pursue religion, and I have to hand it to Shawn, he completely changed as a human being, he became humble, kind, and caring about others, a complete 180 from the old Shawn Michaels. He eventually got his back well enough to function again and he returned in 2002 and had an epic run until 2010 when he hung up his wrestling boots for good. Like I said, I'm a huge Shawn Michaels fan and I enjoyed his second run from 2002-10 more than his first run, the storylines were phenomenal and he was involved in some of the most epic feuds you'll ever see in this business. His feud with his best friend Triple H, his feud with Vince and Shane McMahon, his feud with Chris Jericho, just ridiculously entertaining. And of course his feud with the Undertaker, in which he tried to end Taker's undefeated WrestleMania streak two years in a row, which resulted in Two of the greatest matches you'll ever see. This is one of my favorite entrances of all-time, WrestleMania 25, Shawn Michaels descends from the Heavens.
I think he would have been good as part of the Wayatt Sicks given his personal connection to Bray.
Speaking of Shane O Mack, he was another guy who did some high-risk stuff! I think he was under rated for his in-ring work.
That would have been an awesome faction!
It's amazing that Shane didn't get himself seriously injured, he did some crazy stuff, leaping from towers, leaping off the top of hell in a cell, he was hardcore!
Getting back to Shawn Michaels for a second, I love his finishing move, "Sweet Chin Music", nothing cute about it, he just straight up kicks you right in the chin, and it can come out of nowhere, in a split second. This is my favorite Sweet Chin Music of all-time, Shelton Benjamin leaps off the ropes all the way across the ring right into it, he just about takes Benjamin's head off.
As Brent Musbeger would say:
You're Lookin' Live...
Hey DD, do you ever go on Wrestling Forum? You should check it out if you haven't. Look me up over there. I go by Robert67 there.
I think you mentioned it one time but I completely forgot about it, I'll have to get over there and check it out, sounds like fun! 👍
Another finishing move I want to mention is Bradshaw's "Clothesline From Hell", there is nothing fake about this clothesline, he really throws everything he has into it, Bradshaw was notorious for being stiff with his opponents in the ring and this finishing move was always a sight to behold, just brutal.