10 Wrestlers Who Took Kayfabe WAY Too Seriously

In the modern age of dirt sheets and vats of mimosa, kayfabe isn't quite what it once was.

For decades, the gibberish word was the key to wrestling culture, something that professionals upheld at all times. To kayfabe was to simply maintain the illusion of reality, with stars often going to great lengths to attempt to convince audiences that their personas, angles, and matches were far more legitimate than fans know them to be.

While blurring the lines between fiction and reality has frequently been a money-making strategy for professional wrestling, some instances have simply gone way too far. From prompting real-life conflicts and scandals to simply hindering their own health and well-being, a wide variety of wrestlers' total commitment to their craft has led to chaos.

With matches and angles going awry, or non-wrestlers biting off more than they could ever hope to chew in the face of some of the industry's countless hard cases, the dark side of kayfabe is almost as compelling as the good stuff. In the ever-controversial, colourful world of professional wrestling, certain instances of kayfabe being stretched too far stand out scarily more than the rest.

Chris Jericho's 2012 run in the WWE saw him portraying what essentially amounted to a heel troll character. From making light of CM Punk's familial issues to encouraging audiences to cheer for him only to bail before wrestling or cutting a promo, Y2J was on especially irritating form.

One crowd that did not appreciate the future Demo God's heat-seeking behaviour was the fans in attendance for a São Paulo house show in May of that year. In a bid to rile the fans up, Jericho snatched up a Brazilian flag and kicked it, almost prompting a riot in the process. The police in attendance then gave the rambunctious veteran two options: either apologise on the spot, or spend the night in jail.

In a desperate bid to cool the escalating tension, Jericho quickly broke character and kayfabe mid-match to apologise to the crowd. Desecrating the flag is an imprisonable crime in Brazil, and Jericho's commitment to playing a disrespectful villain almost cost him dearly.

While the show went on without any further issue, Jericho was slapped with a 30-day suspension for his antics, ruining a potentially hot feud with Randy Orton that was on the cards at the time.