10 Times You Forgot Pro Wrestlers Broke Kayfabe On The Air

The boundaries of kayfabe have changed tremendously over the years, evolving from a sacred code punishable by a total blacklisting from professional wrestling to a mere guideline. Nowadays, kayfabe is a free-flowing thing, with wrestlers encouraged to push the boundaries of reality whenever a storyline can benefit from it.

In "the good old days", however, it was a big deal for someone to acknowledge the scripted nature of professional wrestling on-air. It was talked about for weeks afterward.

Some of these character-breaking acts have gained tremendous amounts of notoriety over years, such as CM Punk's infamous "Pipebomb", or any number of WCW wrestlers' worked shoots during Vince Russo's reign. But many, many others have flown under the radar, either because they weren't quite as in-your-face about it, or because they were overshadowed by something else that happened that night.

Let's dust off some of those kayfabe-breaking moments that never got their due time in the spotlight and release them back into the wild.

If professional wrestling is still real to you dammit, then you may want to brace yourself for what's about to unfold.

The term 'no-selling' is used to describe a wrestler who doesn't react to being hit. Remember how Hulk Hogan became somehow impervious to moves that would've ordinarily taken him off his feet after he 'Hulked up?' That's an extremely exaggerated version of a no-sell.

But at least in the Hulkster's case, his refusal to react to his opponent's strikes like an actual human being was still within the confines of kayfabe. That wasn't the case when Mick Foley decided to mock 'the most electrifying move in sports entertainment' during his heated rivalry with The Great One.

Leading up to his Triple Threat match against The Rock and Ken Shamrock at Breakdown, Foley, as Mankind, offered an uncharacteristically blunt assessment of a certain over-the-top - and woefully unrealistic - finishing move:

"Of all the stupid things I've seen in my life, nothing rivals The People's Elbow. So if you think that Mankind, in a pay-per-view match inside the steel cage, is going to lay down and sell that abortion...well, you're even stupider than I look."

Insider talk like that was pushed to the forefront during Vince Russo's tenure as WWE's head writer, but most fans weren't really "in on it" in those days.

As for the legitimacy of Mankind's statement, when it came time to take The People's Elbow in the match later that night, he did, in fact, sell it pretty nicely.