10 Hidden Wrestling Jokes Everybody Missed

Kenny Omega just loves to have fun! Literally...

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AEW

Wrestling's approach to comedy tends to be exceptionally broad. It's wrestling.

In WWE, there's even an entire division dedicated to comedy: the 24/7 Title picture. Now, in theory, it's not difficult to understand the "jokes". The resident idiot dresses up in various disguises in a bid to wrong-foot whomever the champion is at the time, resulting in dire wacky slapstick escapades. Meanwhile, there's a ninja besotted with and also frightened of a much larger woman, with whom he conspires to win the belt.

The "joke", if it can accurately be described as such, is that certain people from certain countries are in themselves a source of mockery!

Elsewhere, outstanding technical wrestlers are repackaged as canines that their owners are unable to put on a leash. Then again, it's probably an improvement on Pete Dunne's NXT character, who just said "I don't care" when quizzed on his goals and rivals. Imagine Orange Cassidy as directed by Uwe Boll, and you're close.

The recent Ezekiel business is silly, and not not amusing - his oblivious deadpan works so much better than it should opposite the conniption fits thrown by Kevin Owens - but it's hardly subtle, is it?

Unlike...

10. Kenny Omega Buries Michael Cole

Kenny Omega Thumb Final
AEW

On the June 30, 2021 AEW Dynamite, Kenny Omega in an interview segment mocked a horrendous WWE character development device. The punchline hit all the harder in the aftermath; it was so subtle that Omega avoided the customary wave of awful abuse because, yes, everybody missed it.

And they missed it because Omega didn't scream the joke into everybody's face.

You see, in WWE, what happens is that Michael Cole walks around the backstage area during the day and asks the talent what they're thinking, what kind of people they are. It's an extraordinarily bizarre thing to actually think about happening. Just imagine Cole, notepad in hand, using his journalistic background to get a scoop, and an automaton of a wrestler reciting their catchphrase or sole one-dimensional character attribute in response.

"You know, I was speaking to the Undertaker earlier today, and he told me that he is not alive."

Omega made the terrible writing look all the more terrible by bringing into focus just how terrible it is. He remarked that Tony Schiavone asked him such a question "earlier in the day," and Schiavone, with a priceless nonplussed look on his face, made Omega look like a f*cking lunatic.

Omega's entire Belt Collector character was a riff on the cliché of what a sports entertainer should look like, which he had evolved into having lost himself.

He also advanced this character by...

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!