10 Hidden Times WWE Stars Broke Character

7. Earthquake Kicks Some Ass

Triple H kid crying
WWE/SWS

Koji Kitao's place in WWE history can mostly be boiled down to two remarkable apperances in early 1991, but his abbreviated tenure was anything but incident-free.

After working a WrestleMania VII tag team match against Demolition to get over WWE's relationship with Super World of Sports in Japan, Kitao caused a far bigger stir with Earthquake mere days later. Midway through something of an inter-promotional match between the former sumos in Kobe, Kitao decided to just stop selling for the WWE star. This quickly got out of hand and degenerated into an ugly real life scuffle between the monsters that the referee and various other scattered officials were too small to separate.

Sensing the gravity of what he'd created (and maybe how much worse it was about to get), Koji eventually took a swing for the ref, forcing a disqualification and a way out of a horrible mess. But the clown show wasn't over. Kitao declared wrestling as fake as a way to explain away his strange night. With multiple lines crossed, he was soon let go from SWS and never worked anything remotely WWE-adjacent again. 

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett