10 Best Ever Excuses For Losing A Wrestling Match
Zack Sabre Jr and Chris Jericho trace their troubles to the very top...
Bobby Heenan was the best.
A supporter of Lex Luger to the point of nausea upon his arrival as 'The Narcissist' in 1993, the 'Brain' thought he'd found the ideal destroyer of his former charge Mr Perfect after the 'Executive Consultant' left him and Ric Flair behind at the end of 1992. Luger was a stunning physical specimen, something Bobby constantly told us was far beyond "perfection"...
...until he stopped following his orders.
When Luger emerged from a helicopter (!) on the docked USS Intrepid (!!) on July 4th to bodyslam Yokozuna ahead of a major bus tour and SummerSlam WWE Championship push out of nowhere (!!!), he did so in the face of Heenan's desperate protestations. A fighter for Old Glory instead of old Bobby, Luger had seen the light, so much so that his former cheerleader refused to even acknowledge his remarkable physical achievement.
Leaping across the fence towards his fiendish friends Mr Fuji and Jim Cornette, Heenan used his platform to suggest that it was a hiptoss, and that Luger shouldn't have had the shot in the first place. He desperately argued the same as SummerSlam 1993 featured the same extraordinary feat.
It had been that easy for Heenan to switch sides, all based on the flimsiest of excuses that played to his even flimsier moral code. Such was life as a legendary 'Weasel'. What excuse did the lot in this list have? Well...
10. "I Wasn't Ready"
A wonderful bit of Santino Marella comedy from his period peaking in the gimmick, his charge towards the ring during the 2009 Royal Rumble had all the vim and vigor of his premature celebrations when he thought he'd won the thing two years later.
For a man often cautious or cowardly, this was the one time he was only too happy to steam headlong into war instead of delicately placing one foot in front of the other for a battle. Tragically, there was to be no 'Milan Miracle' in Michigan. Rather, the total opposite of Marella's plan occured.
Breaking the record for the least time ever spent in the match, Santino's one-second wonder etched him into Rumble history, despite his hilarious protestations that he "wasn't ready" when he'd never looked more determined in his entire career.
The exact type of gag that should be attached to his bizarrely illustrious career, it was also a far more palatable use of his gimmick than what they all came up with for his involvement in WrestleMania Battle Royal later that year.