10 Wrestling Nightmares That Almost Came True

Steve Austin almost WASN'T the face of the WWE Attitude Era...

Kevin Owens Ezekiel
WWE.com

What's your wrestling nightmare?

Imagine a wretched place in which your investment is futile. A wrestler wins, but it means nothing; trapped in some looping hell world, they must be Sisyphus, only instead of rolling a rock up a hill, they are tasked with carrying the Miz to something presentable (despite cleanly defeating him the week prior). You watch very talented wrestlers who are gifted at telling their own story with a microphone, but a writer exists to do this for them. Newly recruited trainers are indoctrinated into what they are told is a "family", but are fired at the most inopportune time imaginable. Several wrestlers must laugh like a parody of a supervillain because that's what their employer thinks passes for high art.

Wrestlers are called worse than sh*t for not working matches for which they were advertised, and a tournament is announced to determine the next champions for the belts they vacated. No such tournament takes place. The hypocrisy is maddening. All of these complaints are ultimately extremely frivolous when you consider the horrific old boy's club culture at the rotting heart of the company.

Hold on. This is real life. Never mind.

These potential nightmares almost did come true...

10. Becky Lynch Almost Retired For Good

Kevin Owens Ezekiel
WWE.com

Becky Lynch's rise to the pinnacle of pro wrestling under the guise of 'The Man' didn't feel revelatory to the ultra-hardcores who followed the early phase of her career.

She was always a very witty and charismatic performer. She was an in-ring prodigy too. She was entirely ahead of her time, which is usually a good thing, but Becky pioneered an act that had no place in the mainstream at said time. It's not as if she was on the cusp of something, either. It took more than half a decade for western women's wrestling to catch up.

Watch her operate as pre-WWE Rebecca Knox here. Her ability to read and then immediately own the room is outstanding. There's genuinely a Rock-esque balance between charm and obnoxiousness in that promo, an irresistible love-to-hate blend.

She suffered a serious head injury in 2006 and all but retired from wrestling. While she made three cameo returns during a seven-year hiatus, she resisted the lure of returning full-time because the business remained in a woeful, misogynistic state. If the American indie scene didn't make steady, patient strides that hinted at actual, transformative change, wrestling fans may have been deprived of one of WWE's better characters in the modern era.

Hers is a very inspirational story that WWE can't actually market: "Becky rose above the adversity - that was entirely our doing! - to one day make it".

In this post: 
Kevin Owens
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential 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 former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current 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!