10 Times Wrestlers Couldn’t Hide What They Were Doing
EXPOSED! Hidden Secrets Of The Magic (Squared) Circle.
The current generation of wrestlers - perhaps more than any before them - don't get near enough the credit they deserve for their grasp of all the stuff us mere mortals have never been meant to see.
Before stacked movesets became the norm, wrestlers relied on these vital tricks to be great at the trade. Audience manipulation has always been the most important skill for an elite performer to master, but 2021's top tier do that alongside jaw-dropping feats of athleticism.
It's said (by ornery old-timers mostly, admittedly) that wrestlers are racing to Twitter after their contests rather than colleagues, legends or Vince McMahon himself for the all-important bits of key post-match feedback. There, they're more likely to find praise for, or gifs of, the big spots. This must be tantamount to magicians watching clips of the rabbit coming out of the hat over and over again - that's the bit that requires no work at all because the hidden hard yards are already done while we're busy looking somewhere else.
These are the dark arts, which is why it's so exciting when they briefly play out in broad daylight...
10. Shawn Michaels Mocks The System - WWE Raw, September 15th 1997
It'd be nonsense to refer to the form Shawn Michaels was in as "rare" when he thrusted his figurative d*ck and literal stuffed shorts in Jim Ross' face during a September 1997 Monday Night Raw promo - he was so off the rails by that point that it was happening every week.
What's often forgotten about Michaels' darkly amusing act of on-screen insubordination was was what happened next.
Having played the raging pr*ck (again, literally and figuratively) about his impending battles with both The British Bulldog and The Undertaker, Michaels had the gall to call out 'The Deadman' safe in the knowledge that he wasn't there to answer him.
To make matters worse, Undertaker had just cut a taped promo on him from behind some mesh as a way to put over their eventual Hell In A Cell classic. Michaels' lassez faire response made a fool of his terrifying opponent and brought into question just how threatening 'HBK' even was. The unprofessionalism had been on display from the moment he'd walked out on the stage, and it was far from the first time. More on that later...