10 Most Controversial Wrestling Match Finishes Ever
8. The Danbury Fall (And Fallout)
Less a 'controversial' finish and more an 'utterly stupid' one. The furore arising from the ending of Vic Grimes' and New Jack's Living Dangerously 2000 'match' wasn't the result of any misguided wrestling booking or misplaced egos, but rather the inevitable consequences of gravity plus the temporary lunacy of two workers a few bananas short of a bunch at the best of times.
Instead of the planned finish which would see both men crash through a stack of tables from atop a balcony, the pair missed completely and plummeted to the ground below. Hard concrete rarely mixes well with soft, squidgy humans, and the consequences were predictably dire: New Jack was blinded in his right eye when Grimes fell on top him, suffering brain damage in the process.
The bout was declared a no-contest, rendering it a completely pointless exercise in masochism. Yet the repercussions didn't stop there - or so New Jack alleged.
In a gratuitous cash-grab, XPW unwisely decided to have the duo contest a rematch at their aptly named Freefall show in 2002. Anyone with even a gram of sense could have predicted it wouldn't pass without idiotic incident.
The big stunt for their return leg mimicked that of Living Dangerously, only with the stakes - and tables - raised that much higher. To complete the throwback, it went t*ts-up, with the furniture again acting as little more than set dressing. Fighting atop a scaffold with New Jack, Grimes was sent hurtling 40 feet to the ring, clipping only two of the tables on his way. Miraculously, he *only* suffered a dislocated ankle after colliding with the ring ropes.
Careful review of the footage clearly shows the near-tragedy was a botch rather than sabotage, but a grandstanding New Jack later claimed otherwise, boasting during a shoot interview of his attempts to settle the score with Grimes for the Danbury debacle. In the same session, Jack made the contradictory statement that the Living Dangerously affair was accidental. Funny how such stunts can affect your memory.