10 Infamous Shoot Moments When WWE Got Real
Fights, hugs, screwjobs, and a battery launched from the crowd... it's all covered in this one!
We all know the deal by now. Fake, pretend, predetermined, whichever
way you want to dress it up: professional wrestling follows a script.
Sometimes though, the action takes a slight detour from that script—and not necessarily intentionally.
I’m not talking about these “worked shoots” we’ve seen in the past, such as CM Punk’s pipe bomb from the summer of 2011, or Paul Heyman’s tirade against Vince McMahon ahead of the 2001 Survivor Series. After all, even though their words may have held elements of truth, the fact they’d been given a microphone at all meant it was in some way still part of the plan.
What I’m talking about here are the true shoots; the moments where nobody quite knew what was going on, including those in power behind the scenes.
From matches, to promos, to backstage segments, there are a whole host of scenarios in which the WWE has briefly got more real than you’d expect. This article looks back at some of the most memorable instances, as we count down ten of the more infamous shoot moments in WWE history.
10. Perry Saturn Vs. Mike Bell
On 7th May, 2001, during a taping of WWF Jakked, Perry Saturn went
one-on-one against local jobber Mike Bell.
That all sounds fairly unremarkable, but things would soon get a little more intresting after some sloppy arm drags from Bell to Saturn, who later admitted that he “freaked out.”
Saturn unloaded on the clumsy Bell with some stiff kicks and clubbing shots, before tossing him to the outside where he landed horribly on the crown of his head. Saturn later admitted that this was an accident, and that he’d simply been trying to get rid of Bell so he could cool himself down, but that didn’t make it look any less ugly.
We’ve seen moments like this on more than one occasion in
the WWE, such as when JBL got a little too real in beating the tar out of the Blue
Meanie at ECW’s One Night Stand in 2005.
In Saturn’s case though, it involved a guy who wasn’t even employed by the company, making this one all the more shocking. Saturn would later concede he messed though, so at least he learned from the error of his ways.