10 HUGE Backstage Fights That Happened After Wrestling Matches
Looking at those shocking times when in-ring beef overflowed to real-life fights behind the curtain.
The wrestling business has for so long been built on professionalism and respect, with the in-ring responsibility of taking care of your opponent being the be-all and end-all. Granted, not every wrestler will like every other wrestler, but that’s where it’s about playing nice and realising that you’re there to do business.
That said, there are times, like in any other line of work, where you would love nothing more than to slap your co-worker silly. But while us mere mortals are usually able to restrain from giving Derek in IT a pasting, wrestlers are a different breed. In an industry where there’s most definitely an alpha complex and plentiful chips on shoulders, the real-life angst can easily explode behind the curtain.
Considering the size of your average wrestler, it’s an unenviable task to be the one having to separate two grapplers from beating the snot out of each other. If these guys and gals have it set in their mind that they want to hurt somebody, things could get extremely ugly, extremely quickly.
Keeping with that school of thought, then, here are some examples of when things got massively out of hand once the in-ring action had come to a close.
10. Haku Vs. Brutus Beefcake - 1986
Throughout the history of the wrestling business, there have been a number a fearsome real-life tough guys. Not one of them, however, can come close to touching the legendary Haku.
If you find yourself with a spare five minutes, you could do far worse than Googling “Haku tough guy” and diving into the array of anecdotes and stories based around how he isn’t somebody who you want to get on the wrong side of. Unfortunately for Brutus Beefcake, he did exactly that back in the ‘80s.
As one half of The Dream Team with Greg Valentine, Beefcake was unhappy after a match against The Islanders – Haku and Tama – and promptly complained to management. Brother Bruti’s beef was that Haku had been too rough with him during the match.
Hearing that Beefcake had taken a shot at him, Haku promptly went and found a butt-naked Brutus Beefcake in the showers. As Haku grabbed Brutus by the throat and lifted him off the ground, the locker room rushed to break up the altercation - yet not one of them could get Haku to let go of Beefcake.
In the end, according to Tama, it took the combined efforts of himself and Vince McMahon to finally get Haku to calm down.