10 Wrestlers Absolutely NOBODY Expected To Lose
Nightmare 'Mania Moments, jaw-dropping upsets, and those other losses not a soul saw coming!
Predictable isn't always terrible.
When you've spent an age building up a new babyface hero, stumbled upon a white hot character who is just one big win away from becoming the next big thing, or are in the midst of creating genuine history with a uniquely successful character, having said stars pick up an inevitable and logical victory can still be hugely satisfying to behold.
In the case of the following seemingly guaranteed winners, though, what once looked like a welcome formality soon became anything but in next to no time at all.
The occasional genuine shock is to be expected in this consistently insane business, admittedly. Without them, the likes of WWE and AEW, for example, wouldn't have produced some of the loudest vocal eruptions ever heard within an arena or stadium.
But even with that knowledge of the next unanticipated swerve or outcome never being too far away, fans were still left entirely reeling by everything from Best in the Worlds, to Undeniable protagonists somehow failing to get the job done.
Simply put, this lot had "winner" written all over them... until they didn't.
10. The Rock (Vs. Triple H Vs. Mick Foley Vs. Big Show, WrestleMania 2000)
Despite battling over the WWE Championship on a number of occasions over the years, The Rock never won the strap at WrestleMania. Though he did at least walk into the event with the belt a few times.
Yet, it wasn't as though the company didn't have an opportune moment to crown The People's Champion at the Show of Shows. Jumping back to the lead-up to WrestleMania 2000, it felt as though Rocky was very much being lined up for a crowd-popping triumph at The Showcase of the Immortals.
The eventual Hollywood megastar was unquestionably the hottest babyface in the company, with "Stone Cold" being sidelined through injury at the time. Yet, in what would act as the first-ever time a heel came out on top in the main event of WWE's biggest show of the year, it was Triple H who surprisingly walked out victorious, holding onto his title in the process.
In hindsight, holding Rocky's big win off until that year's Backlash eventually made a ton of sense businesswise, with said B-PPV pulling in 650,000 buys ('Mania 2000 had 824,000). But that still didn't change the fact that few were expecting to see McMahon stab his top face in the back en-route to a heelish Show of Shows conclusion.