10 Wrestling Shock Signings You NEVER Saw Coming
Deadman Jumping.
In a promo as tone-deaf to the industry as the performer himself was to the room, Diamond Dallas Page infamously once begged The Undertaker to make him famous.
The implication - and it hadn't been made apparent by weeks of salacious video footage of 'The Deadman's wife being shot without her notice by stalker Page - was that the former WCW World Champion was happy to dive in to WWE's choppy waters via any means necessary. If that involved poking the biggest bear (or specifically, the biggest bear's wife) with his...ahem, biggest stick, then that's exactly what he'd do.
It foreshadowed the failure of the entire 2001 WCW Invasion storyline, summarising exactly how the programme would ultimately collapse. Vince McMahon had won a wrestling war without ever focussing heavily on what his rivals were doing, and more power to him for that. But others - his trusted advisors, those that sat in the war room with him - were tasked not with being critical voices on the world outside the bubble, but simply saying "yes" to the whims of the man they now needed more than ever for their paycheques.
A WCW World Champion - the first, post buyout, to appear on Raw - was a sub-sex offender jobber already, and it wasn't going to get much better.
There are ways to deliver signings for maximum impact. Shocks that reverberate in the moment and linger for a lifetime. The Undertaker himself has unexpectedly become the subject of the most recent...
10. The Undertaker To Starrcast 2
Not since he booted Brock Lesnar in the spuds has 'The Deadman' himself felt quite so relevant.
This isn't the simple "Undertaker to AEW" story some may report it as, but the significance of Mark Calaway's appearance at the major meet and greet the night before the company's Double Or Nothing debut mustn't be understated.
Undertaker signed for WWE in 1990 and has performed as the character entirely under their auspices ever since. For most of that time he's fiercely protected the gimmick even when the industry's ever-changing grip on kayfabe didn't call for it. It's perhaps why, now, his willingness to finally dive into this side of the wrestling business seem so shocking
Yet, various interviews and talk-ins he'd lined up were nothing in comparison to the Starrcast 2 reveal.
All Elite Wrestling have laid out a statement of intent that relies mostly on the implication - it's the implication - that they're here to take on WWE. They're not telling audiences as much, but it's implied. Dropping coin on their cornerstone furthers and enhances that statement more than just about any other, and raises expectations on both sides accordingly.