10 Biggest Fakeouts In WWE History
The Great Pretenders.
On the January 8th 2020 edition of AEW Dynamite, Jon Moxley appeared to join Chris Jericho's Inner Circle group before smashing a glass bottle over 'LeChampion's head to reveal that he was instead gunning for his Heavyweight Championship.
There was nothing inherently wrong with the skit - Jericho's comedy carries everything and Moxley hasn't yet been neutered in the way Dean Ambrose was - but the dreaded problem of predictability went some way to sucking the fun out of it all.
With a pay-per-view forthcoming, All Elite Wrestling have teased Moxley challenging Jericho for his gold for weeks, and made use of this segment to confirm the inevitable. Unfortunately, the inevitability of the turn took some of the drama out and there was very little an otherwise adequate segment could do about it.
Admirable in its industry, there exists great precedent for segments just like this going down a storm. Managing to find both shock and surprise in a live crowd escapes through the screen and into the senses of the television viewer.
When a fakeout goes well, the visceral reaction is 100% real...
10. Linda McMahon On Jim Ross
Weird old game, pro wrestling. Punishingly weird, at times. Jim Ross was a loyal servant to Vince McMahon for decades, but he was loyal to a fault - McMahon abused his services for his own bizarre enjoyment every chance he got.
When he wasn't being forced to be the face of the fake Diesel and Razor Ramon, forced to go out on television and work as a heel because of an unfortunate bout of Bells Palsy, forced into humbling and humiliating matches or forced into having his faced pressed up against his gaffer's a*se cheek, he was written off for a colonoscopy thanks to a Linda McMahon heel turn.
If those four words don't quite seem right next to each other, it's because the segment itself probably shouldn't have. Ross was humbled by all four villainous McMahons just as he thought the matriarch would save the day.
All in good fun theoretically, until Ross actually went under the knife - the Chairman then dedicated the entire opening of a Monday Night Raw to the opening of the commentator's back passage.