10 Wrestling "Botches" That Were Totally Intentional
3. The Inverted Sequel
In Great Sasuke Vs. Jushin Liger, the worked botch was placed in the match to get Sasuke over as a dauntless underdog babyface.
Years later, on the Dynamite premiere, a worked botch sought to achieve the opposite effect.
MJF Vs. Brandon Cutler was placed on the card to introduce the former, a maverick heel prospect, to the wider audience. It was a brief and straightforward win, but the level of thought was under-looked. After a short comeback sequence, in which Cutler impressed with a suicide dive into a barrage of punches, the hapless babyface attempted a top-rope move of some sort before slipping...
...on purpose?
It worked so well for the respective characters that it was either a carefully planted story beat or a happy accident accounted for brilliantly with a spot of improv. One suspects the former; the resulting referee-as-shield spot got MJF over as a cruel, crafty little bastard, and Cutler at the time was destined for the Dark Order stable before that angle was dropped. He wasn't just beaten here; he was humiliated following his heartwarming comeback story on Being The Elite, rendering him vulnerable to the advances of a cult.