10 Most Brutal Acts Of Wrestling Revenge
3. One Of The Greatest Heel Turns Of All Time
Known as the most miserable prick ever to lace ‘em up, Ole Anderson’s legacy as a performer is in danger of fading away through WWE’s revisionist filter. He wasn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame alongside his original Four Horsemen brethren in 2012 because he has alienated virtually everybody of influence in the industry - including those to whom, like Ric Flair, he was once close.
He was as effective a heel in the fiction of pro wrestling as he was behind the curtain.
In 1980, career heel Ole turned face in Georgia Championship Wrestling. He slapped hands with fans on the way to the ring, he forged alliances with fellow babyfaces, he opposed the great foreign menaces of the day. He played the good guy for more a less a year purely to exact revenge on the old enemy: Dusty Rhodes.
Conceiving of a plan to do this in the most insidious - and brutal - manner imaginable, he never once approached Dusty. He didn’t tell Dusty he had changed; like the best storytellers, and this epic yarn was just one big con, he showed him. The sheer dedication to this revenge was so intricate that it both excused Dusty’s lack of smarts and reinforced Ole’s utter sh*thousery. Ole never forgot that, years prior, a bloodied Dusty told Ole and the world that their grudge would “never” be over.
How right he was.
Ole trapped Dusty in a cage with the Russians under the pretence of teaming him, and then he brutalised him by throwing his bloodied face into the mesh. Ole revelled in this ruse like the arch villain he was, cutting an incredible promo with an upset Gordon Solie, who played his compassionate role to perfection.
“A year went by and still Dusty wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t come near me. But Tommy, Stan, a lot of other guys, they said ‘Oh, yeah, come on’, and I rode a few places with him - hated every minute of it!”