20 Most Infamous Real Life Wrestling Fights Of All Time
1. Bruiser Brody Vs. José Gonzalez (1988)
Perhaps one of the most famous, and certainly the most tragic, backstage altercation was the horrifying incident that occurred between Frank 'Bruiser Brody' Goodish and José 'Invader #1' Gonzalez in Puerto Rico.
Brody was a notoriously difficult customer to deal with for bookers because he was set in his ways and wanted things doing to his liking, and the office in Puerto Rico was growing frustrated with him. Wrestler and agent Gonzalez was given the task of dealing with Brody and was determined to prove to his superiors that he was up to it.
Gonzalez walked up to Brody holding a towel and asked if he could talk to him in the dressing room showers - a common place for business meetings to take place. A few minutes later, the other wrestlers in the vicinity heard a scuffle and a blood-curdling scream. Brody stumbled out of the bathroom and it was immediately evident that he had been stabbed by Gonzalez. He was bleeding everywhere and the blood was bubbling, a sign his lung had been pierced, making the situation graver than most realised.
It took almost half an hour for an ambulance to arrive due to a combination of heavy traffic leading around the stadium where the card was taking place, and the paramedics believing the call to be part of an elaborate wrestling angle. Before they arrived, Gonzalez fled the scene but once Brody was carried out on a stretcher (with wrestler Tony Atlas having to help because the attendants were not strong enough to carry him by themselves), he returned to the building and even wrestled that night.
Brody died in the early hours of the next morning, leaving behind a wife and young son. Gonzalez was never charged with his murder. No knife was found at the scene - with many suspecting Gonzalez had taken it with him when he left the building prior to the ambulance arriving - and he tried to spin the situation so he was the victim, standing up to a bully in self-defence. Nobody believed that except for, crucially, the Puerto Rican courts.
Gonzalez was acquitted and allowed to go free, and he even tried to make an angle out of Brody's death by re-enacting the incident with notorious Japanese garbage match promoter/wrestler Atsushi Onita, in perhaps one of the most disgusting acts of real-life exploitation in wrestling history.
Winner: There were no winners in this horrible situation.