10 Times WWE Used Major News Events In Questionable Taste
6. OJ Simpson
Few matches are more baffling than Goldust's bout with Roddy Piper at WrestleMania XII in 1996. Anything involving Goldust at this time was fairly peculiar to start with, since the living Oscar statue was only just having his controversial homosexual gimmick toned down by creative.
The 'Hollywood Backlot Brawl' started out with Piper smashing up Goldust's golden limo before chasing the Bizarre One away from the stadium. The show would then periodically cut back to the car chase supposedly taking place outside the stadium. The chase wasn't just pre-taped - it was news footage from two years before, specifically of O.J. Simpson attempting to flee police who were trying to arrest him for murder.
What the WWE hoped to achieve with this is far from apparent. The Simpson case had been controversial and divisive, and involved the murders of two people. Furthermore, it was old news by 1996, so it didn't even have the novelty of being torn fresh from the evening news. That said, the same WrestleMania featured Triple H against The Ultimate Warrior, so at least Goldust/Piper wasn't the most pointless thing on the show.