10 Wrestling Moments Everyone Misunderstood As Kids

6. Why Are Good-Looking Men Automatically Bad?

Shawn Michaels Diesel
WWE

Shawn Michaels, following his early '90s heel turn, started to prance about a bit. He tussled his hair, and acted all sexy. In the immortal words of the best line of Bret Hart's autobiography, Michaels generally "acted like the stripper he must have been in a previous life".

This sort of body language was not exclusive to the Heartbreak Kid. Rick Martel was similarly...flamboyant, and your mother was always suspiciously close to pay attention to this hobby she reluctantly financed when Rick Rude disrobed in the middle of the ring. We were left to infer that good-looking men simply really enjoyed being good-looking, and that this was cause enough to brutalise them. For the early millennial generation, this was our first, insidious introduction to perhaps the ugliest of all pro wrestling sentiment:

Gay panic!

Those acts performed as they did in order to trigger the audience drawn to the simulated combat into a repulsed reaction which, given the young audience the WWF targeted, was a bit unseemly. The Goldust act that followed intensified this sentiment, and as the WWF relinquished the veneer of family-friendly decency, Jerry Lawler called him a "flaming f*g!" on TV.

There wasn't much misunderstanding there.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick (Creative Writing BA Hons) is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over a decade of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential UK institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!