7 Wrestling Matches You Won't Believe Actually Happened
You'd better Bayley-ve it.
In a world where a 51 year-old Jean-Pierre Lafitte is not only still on the go, but thriving, and The Undertaker and Goldberg are scheduled to meet in Saudi Arabia of all places, combined age 106, it's difficult to retain a sense of incredulity for just about any wrestling match.
This is the Banter Era after all, and it isn't just Joey Janela's painfully ironic Spring Breaks pushing it. WWE are fully engaged - even if they aren't necessarily doing it on purpose.
Wrestling wasn't always so barmy. Well, it was, but there was at least a sort of inherent logic to it all. Matches happened for internal, storyline reasons, and not just for the sake of it, or because it'd pop a certain snarky subset of the crowd. PCO wasn't the most over guy on the planet in 1995; he was a pirate with a predilection for Canadian leather. And that's probably why.
It's only with the context of hindsight that we can look back at a set of matches which stretch the premise of believability, sliding doors moments where paths going in other directions inexplicably crossed. And because this predated blanket recording of everything ever, sometimes it's only apocrypha of these encounters which exists.
Which sadly means we'll never get to actually see The Undertaker vs. New Jack. Well, unless it happens at the next Saudi or AEW PPV. You can't rule anything out these days.
7. The Road Warriors Vs. The Hardy Boyz
The Road Warriors and The Hardy Boyz are arguably the two most totemic tag teams of their respective eras, yet their in-ring styles couldn't have been more in contrast. Whilst Hawk and Animal, the dominant duo of the late '80s, bruised opponents across two continents with their stiff, power-based offence, the North Carolinian siblings did about as much damage to their own bodies innovating a high-risk form of death-defying, ladder-based stunt shows.
The proverbial chalk and cheese, then, albeit equally successful. In a sliding doors moment, the duo of duos actually ran into one another on the 1 November 1998 episode of Sunday Night Heat. Well, sort of: Hawk was subbed for Droz at the time, as part of the dreadful story incorporating Michael Hegstrand's very real struggles with addiction.
'Puke' proves an entirely inadequate replacement, as the green Hardys pull of a shock of all shocks, double-teaming a distracted Animal for a career-boosting win. You could argue the torch had been passed, had the Road Warriors' torch not all but extinguished by this point.