10 Wrestlers That Knew They Were Saying Something Stupid As They Said It

1. AJ Styles Creates The Boneyard Match

Undertaker AJ Styles
WWE.com

This isn't WWE's fault. But they've had this sort of thing in their locker for years.

AJ Styles is wrestling The Undertaker at not-quite-WrestleMania, and in promos before the company begun operating almost exclusively from the empty Performance Center the deal was that he wanted to end what remained of the legend of 'The Deadman'. To expose the mythology and bury him deeper beyond the graves or coffins he's been thrown into in various other gimmick matches over the decades.

It's an Undertaker programme. It's deathy. And the optics aren't good around that at the moment.

The mind flashes back to that unlisted "Work For WWE" in which a bunch of ex-sitcom scribes thrashed about a bunch of nothing for a product they'd never seen before. The whiteboards in the background told better stories than the writers themselves. Zany brainstorming stuff that wouldn't ordinarily make it out of those four walls.

These are not ordinary times. The feud and match required one of those 'Taker-style stipulations, not least because of the bloody-minded insistence of Vince McMahon that the show go ahead in the first place, and at some point, "boneyard" somehow moved from corny to confirmed.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett