10 Disturbing Wrestling Bumps That Nearly Went Badly Wrong
9. Spike Dudley Doesn't Get All Of It
A lethal combination that resulted in a near-inevitable, terrifying botch, this one spot indicted WWE's approach to talent development, post-total monopoly.
WWE signed on-brand musclemen and dispatched them to Ohio Valley Wrestling for training and or seasoning. WWE's recruitment model brought with it several problems. The cookie cutter approach bred familiarity, which bred tedium, because the muscled greenhorns invariably worked fellow muscled greenhorns under one specific WWE-approved style before the call-up - which, because John Laurinaitis followed the advice of Jim Cornette about as closely as Joey Ryan does, was more often than not premature.
In this disturbing spot, René Duprée and Sylvain Grenier hoisted Spike Dudley, decidedly not an on-brand muscle man, and sought to crash him through a table. Whether through inexperience - Jim Cornette probably didn't include this spot in his curriculum - or a lack of know-how as to handle a performer of Spike's size, the La Résistance tandem under-shot the trajectory. Spike's head only just clipped the table before his skull struck barely-protected concrete with a sickening velocity.
Though he died, La Résistance lived on, winning the World Tag Team Titles under a tweaked dynamic.