10 Most Brutal Acts Of Wrestling Revenge
1. F*ck You, JBL
JBL worked himself into a shoot at the inaugural ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view.
Drunk on his own d*ck-swinging power, and growing more and more belligerent at what he perceived as a profound affront to the business, JBL, in the closing segment, targeted the doughy kid in the back of the class and beat the sh*t out of him. The dormant heat between the two men erupted in a shocking and grisly moment. The Meanie considered legal action in the aftermath but, via the proxy that was Steve Richards, instead dealt out a dose of rough, vigilante justice. Agreeing to a worked match on the July 7, 2005 SmackDown to capitalise on the furore, this was mere pretext for the glorious comeuppance that followed.
The match itself was the sort of leaden, stiff and unvarnished affair you'd expect from two limited workers working out frustrations under the guise of an uneasy truce, but nobody remembers that. Each and every one of JBL's critics instead savours the sight of Steve Richards rocking JBL with a crunching, full-force chair shot smack across the forehead.
Arguably, this marked the last time we encountered the last of ECW's original spirit; this was one last act of genuine rage against the machine before that machine subsumed it.