10 Wrestling Finishes Performed On The Fly
2. An Arrow To The Knee
Out of nowhere, one of WWE’s best rivalries of 2004 had been the slow-burning feud between daredevil babyface Lita and her real life best friend, top villain Trish Stratus.
By November, Lita had escaped from the year’s worst and most humiliating storyline with a freshly unmasked Kane, in which this supposed icon of women’s wrestling had spent the summer ‘pregnant’ by the giant, leering serial killer, playing the browbeaten valet and being taunted by a superbly heelish Stratus.
Something had to give - and following the inevitable godawful miscarriage angle, Lita was back in business and out for blood. She lifted Stratus’ WWE Women’s Championship in a career-defining RAW main event on December 6th, beginning her second run with the title: a reign that was intended to gain momentum heading into WrestleMania 21.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. In their rematch on the New Year’s Revolution card on January 9th 2005, Lita botched a Thesz press from the apron to the outside, tearing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). The injury to her knee made it impossible for her to continue.
The catastrophe came as a monumental anti-climax, as people were expecting big things of this match. Much had been made of a previous, far less serious botch in their seminal RAW title bout, in which Lita had over-rotated on yet another spot to the outside, a suicide dive, and nearly landed on her head: Stratus had heeled it up by claiming that Lita had had to nearly kill herself to beat her the first time, and couldn’t pull it off twice.
In the end, the injury occurred only a minute into the match, after the first serious clash between the two. Lita wasn’t the wrestler that she was made out to be, but she was a professional wrestler, not a flailing bikini model: she held it together for two more minutes in the ring while management came up with a new finish backstage.
Despite what must have been excruciating pain and a near total inability to place weight on the knee, Lita even stood to make a mini-comeback and throw two decent punches at a backpeddling Stratus… but the knee buckled once more. By this time, referee Jack Doan had received his instruction via earpiece: when Stratus had Lita in the ropes, he backed her away while relaying the new finish, and did likewise for Lita when checking on her in the corner.
Back on her feet, Lita gutted it out and stayed upright, even managing a kick to set up a DDT, but collapsed in the attempt (on the wrong leg, incredibly), which led to Stratus’ Chick Kick and a quick pin to regain the title. The match lasted less than four minutes, bell to bell.
Lita remained a key part of WWE storylines, but wouldn’t wrestle on TV again for over a year: Trish Stratus, on the other hand, held on to the WWE Women’s Championship for 448 days, the longest reign in twenty years.