10 Crippling Times WWE Worked Themselves Into A Shoot

5. The Curtain Call

The WWF worked themselves into a shoot in 1996, but they figured it was okay. No one would ever see it. Oh how wrong they were. Not only did millions end up eventually viewing the footage, but what transpired that night helped drastically change the business.

Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were on their way out of the company and their Kliq buddies Shawn Michaels and Triple H wanted a memorable platform to say their farewells. Michaels cleared it with his boss that he and Hunter could say goodbye in front of the crowd, so Vince agreed to a work...he just didn't like how the shoot would play out.

After Nash (as Diesel) lost to HBK, Hunter and Razor came to the ring. The group all hugged and held each other's arms up in celebration. Kayfabe was officially dead. The Madison Square Garden crowd had never seen anything like it. While fans knew what they were watching wasn't legit competition, they'd never seen the curtain so effectively torn down. They greeted what they saw with enthusiasm as each man stood on the turnbuckle and played to them. It was a great moment to watch, but the fallout was brutal.

Some of the old-school agents were p*ssed off at the incident. Michaels had to apologize face-to-face to many of them backstage, but otherwise walked away sans punishment. The disposable Hunter, though, lost his upcoming King of the Ring victory. The wrestlers backstage grew to hate the remaining Kliq members even more.

Eventually, all was forgiven, the shoot that angered so many people was even used as part of an angle later on. And while this sort of thing happens quite often in wrestling in the modern era, it's hard to fully comprehend just how mind-blowing it was at the time.