10 Most Brutal Acts Of Wrestling Revenge
"This is an ax, and this is an arm."
On very rare occasions, even in this era of eerie smiling babyfaces and supplicant "Superstars", we still see receipts in pro wrestling.
At this year's Royal Rumble, Braun Strowman threw a few too many stiff knees in the direction of Brock Lesnar. The Conqueror didn't take too kindly to this, and responded by wobbling Braun's skull like it was jelly. The force must have had some serious long-term effects, for a few months later, Braun seemed to have forgotten that he'd spent an age trying to get over as a rogue babyface, and up and decided to turn heel with some buddies as back up. Two buddies, which makes three...and guess which three-man stable has just reformed!
Revenge is a dish barely served by WWE in this modern, heel-driven era. Carmella punked Asuka by distracting her with James Ellsworth. Asuka did kill him off, but she didn't emerge on SmackDown the following week, ax in hand, and carve her arm open to swear literal, bloody revenge on Carmella. She sort of disappeared for a few weeks, then helped Naomi out like good, docile little babyface. Then she misunderstood the word "glow" for "go", and actually promised to leave. This is both a huge, tone-deaf racist shame for the performer and the great lost theme alike.
Revenge is such stuff as pro wrestling is made on, both in front of the audience and behind the crazed curtain...
10. The Blood Oath
"This is an ax, and this is an arm."
On August 5, 1978, Joe DeLuc entered the convivial confines of Lance Russell's Memphis wrasslin' studio...and sliced his arm open...on a Saturday morning. DeLuc was such a convincing mad man that he terrified grown men, let alone the young children he traumatised here. Wearing proudly the seeping head wound opened by rival Jerry Lawler, DeLuc, the whites of his eyes peeled like the manifestation of intensity he was, his disturbed head bobbing to mirror his internal derangement, promised revenge.
"So what?" he said, of the untreated wound. "I had a busted head when I was born!"
DeLuc took a blood oath, on what was once family-friendly programming, to remind himself of the revenge he was to dole out to the 'King'. In the old lumber camps in Canada, he explained, a man would scar himself to never forget the oath he has taken. DeLuc then took that oath by taking a non-gimmicked ax - DeLuc was no gimmick - and opening a hole in himself so deep that Jim Cornette swears he could have lost his index finger inside of it. This angle has become enshrined into legend so thoroughly that it has taken on an aura of some idealised version of pro wrestling's genuinely rugged, badass past - but it was measurably real.
At the sight of an open gash, Lawler, for once, was terrified.