10 Wrestling Matches You Won't Believe Happened In 2017
Vince finally embraces WCW.
For a couple of years now, people have been theorising that our planet fell onto some mad, alternate timeline - the latest piece of evidence for which being Chris Jericho's imminent return to NJPW.
Y2J taking to the ring for any company not named WWE seemed, for a long time, like a sight fans would never see again. He is one of Vince McMahon's longest-serving and most trusted performers, after all, having apparently rebuffed a host of advances from rival promotions during all that Fozzy-led down-time.
And yet, it's going to become a reality in less than a month when he rocks up to the Tokyo Dome to fight Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12, a match that can only help boost New Japan's growing popularity outside its traditional stomping ground.
That's for next year, but what about this one? No major WWE stars have jumped ship to NJPW (not yet, anyway) but there have been one or two matches we could never have seen coming - both on and away from wrestling's biggest stages.
It's matches like these that reinforce what sets the squared circle apart from every other sport: anything really can happen.
10. Sabu Vs. Gangrel
The fan-taken YouTube video of Sabu's Big Time Wrestling encounter with Gangrel back in August looks like it was shot through the bars of a jail cell - which is apt, given that both of its competitors (or at least their in-ring alter-egos) probably belong in a state correctional facility.
Neither man did anything to disabuse us of that notion during the match, which - as you might have guessed (neither man exactly being known for well-paced, technical clinics) - was essentially just a series of brutal-looking chair shots in and around the corner of a baseball stadium.
Not exactly the most intimate of settings then, but clearly the audience was liberally dotted with a smattering of hardcore fans, who were plenty entertained by the match they were given, proving that purist wrestling isn't the only way to get over.
It's commendable (if questionable) enough when a pair of twenty-somethings take harsh weapon shots in the name of entertainment, but when it's two middle-aged cult heroes - whose places in the annals of history are already cemented - you can't fail but to be impressed (or at least concerned).