10 Times Wrestlers Shot Themselves Into A Work

It's November 1995 and HBK finds himself on the wrong end of a beatdown outside a Syracuse night club. Dropping his IC title to Dean Douglas without actually wrestling (where else have we seen that from the Showstopper?), Michaels took some time off to recover before working this classic angle.

Returning to the ring at Survivor Series, Michaels shocked fans and peers alike the next night when, in the midst of a heated bout with Owen Hart, he collapsed. Sold as an unscripted catastrophe, the match was immediately called off. To keep everything as real as possible, Michaels left in an ambulance. WWE quickly began claiming he had post-concussive syndrome and would be out indefinitely.

Despite the unfortunate reality of Michaels getting his head kicked in on that fateful night, this ingenious angle became pure kayfabe. With a mega-babyface push set for '96, Mr WrestleMania needed a little more fan support. Masterfully blending reality with wrestling, WWE managed to present him as a comeback hero just in time for the Royal Rumble. An impressive feat for the often unsympathetic (at the time) HBK character.