10 Times Wrestlers Went Totally Off Script

Wrestling rookies are forever being told to seize their opportunity with both hands - and yet when Daniel Puder innocently applied an immensely painful submission hold on Kurt Angle during what was supposed to be a scripted segment, he got slapped on the wrist (or, in this case, chest).

It would have been, if nothing else, interesting to see how WWE might have tried to justify their resident Olympian being given the runaround by a lowly Tough Enough apprentice had the referee not had the presence of mind to count a dubious pin when his opponent's shoulders were (sort of) adjacent to the mat.

Unfortunately, Puder wasn't afforded the same luck. Instead of earning praise for his go-getting spunk - which is, presumably, what he was hoping for - WWE veterans Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero and Hardcore Holly chopped him around the ring at the Royal Rumble by way of comeuppance.

Angle, of course, wasn't blameless in all of this himself, having raised the stakes in what was originally supposed to be a worked segment by cracking a couple of poor Chris Nawrocki's ribs. Puder, sensing that he could be the one to bring the veteran down to size, was simply following suit.