10 Times Wrestling Was More Hardcore Than "Real" Sports
3. Flopping & Physiques
Sports: If sport was as credible as they say, why is flopping an issue much less widely practiced by top players in every league? Unlike in WWE where all parties agree to sell each others moves, flopping in sport is manipulative, cheating, lying, bad sportsmanship and the kind of behavior one expects of jerks. Even in basketball's more innocent days flagrant flopping made men famous. Seven time NBA champion Frank Ramsey of the Boston Celtics outlined his flopping practices in a 1963 Sports Illustrated cover story. In the first year the NBA put in flopping fines, 24 players were flagged and 5 had to pay out $5,000 for frequent flopping offenses. Flopping critics like Shaquille O'Neal have even proved themselves hypocrites over time. Dikembe Mutombo was named Defensive Player of the Year in 2001, but Shaq told reporters Mutombo was an egregious flopper on the court. By 2009, Shaq was playing for the Miami Heat and fending off flopping accusations from Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy. The coach said he was "very disappointed cause knows what it's like. Let's stand up and play like men, and I think our guy did that tonight." Pro Wrestling: Forget the bodybuilder image Vince McMahon is so fond of-the strongest men in wrestling, the genuine article, toughest dogs in the game are older than your grandpa and scarier than a heart attack. Bobby "The Brain" Heenan was fond of saying, "The only two men in the world that Andre the Giant feared were Meng and Harley Race." Long before Hogan, Race actually slammed the Giant and boasted he did it better! Race claimed, "I had him fully above my head-Hogan got him about chest high. Hogan claimed to get hurt after performing the famous slam-I didn't." In his book, Bret Hart describes Race delivering a punishing backhanded slap to Honky Tonk Man when he crossed the line of good taste. Tonk was not laughing when the slap knocked him off his chair and sent him flying across the room. No one who has seen Terry Funk being cut out of barbed wire during ECW's One Night Stand could question the man's toughness, nevermind that he'd been wrestling since The Beatles were still together. On top of all that, most of Ric Flair's career took place after he broke his back in a plane crash, so suck on that sports.
