10 Stories That Prove Wrestling Is The Wildest Industry EVER
8. The Fact That The Fake Fighters Are Harder Than Real Fighters
Wrestling is an oxymoron of a business by definition.
The matches are predetermined but they cause such debilitating pain that masking it has, over the years, manifested in several unimaginable tragedies, the small and unfathomably profound in scope.
The era of Inokism might disprove the following, but to further that point of bonkers line-blurring, the apparent "fake" fighters, of a certain era, were as tough or tougher than any legitimate combat athlete. Tougher, not as skilled. There's a distinction to be made. Even the toughest pro wrestlers would struggle to defeat discipline specialists under their rules.
But Rick Rude and Haku were as tough as the physical form gets, on the evidence of two specific stories.
Rick Rude was the ultimate alpha male. Muscled and moustachioed with battery of a sex drive, he was also as hard as nails. He demonstrated this toughness, when questioned by a bouncer over the legitimacy of a wrestler's toughness, by knocking him clean out. With his weak hand. Which was broken. With a slap.
Haku meanwhile was so legendarily hard that he could remove a man's nose from his face with his bare hands.
He made outrageous practical effects real, and it's not as if some weak-chinned neurotic stepped up to him either.