10 Wrestling Photos Taken Moments Before Disaster
Before lives - and even the wrestling world - changed forever.
In wrestling, an imminent disaster is usually something one can sense.
Consider, for example, WWE Super ShowDown 2019.
It was promoted around a time when WWE was so poor that the McMahons felt the need to apologise for the dire, unfulfilling product. All Elite Wrestling, a few weeks after that, had announced its formation and held a rally declaring its mission statement. This scene - despite not being altogether great, in truth - crystallised that the world was in fact changing. The early AEW slogan wasn't untrue.
A narrative was materialising. One company was on the rise, and, historically, an overlap happens. Beyond the incredible Japanese scene of the 1990s, the Wrestling Gods conspire to weaken a promotion when its rival catches fire.
The Fiend was set to defend the Universal title in Saudi Arabia against Goldberg, who was the entity with true superpowers on the night. He had magically reappeared just in time for WrestleMania season, and in that era, the part-time star usually got the big match.
An already jaded set of hardcore, in-the-weeds fans - those who would stay after Goldberg moved the needle for a week or two - did not want the Fiend to lose. In a trademark terrible booking decision, the Fiend lost. Handily. Embarrassingly. It was a disaster for the Fiend character's run.
But what about those disasters nobody saw coming...?
10. Shane's Still Got It
If one man's trash is another man's treasure, in this case, one man's disaster is schadenfreude for the sicko.
At WrestleMania 39, WWE attempted to tell a comedic show-long story. They succeeded, to quite remarkable effect - but not through their own doing.
The Miz and Snoop Dogg co-hosted the show. On night one, as part of the bit, Snoop suggested that the Miz - the pro wrestler who hates wrestling despite that being his job - wrestle an impromptu match. Miz was apoplectic, and lost to Pat McAfee.
The same thing was meant to happen on night two. The Miz - who can't fight them, they're too strong! - was thrust into another match, this time against the returning Shane McMahon.
Shane attempted to run through his trademark babyface shine, but, in a moment of utter brilliance, a joke not even Conan O'Brien could have written in 1993, he crumpled to the ground in agony one nanosecond after Michael Cole yelled "Shane's still got it!"
Shane did not got it. Shane's quadricep muscle detached itself from the bone.
Snoop Dogg did what multiple generations of Performance Center trainees could not, and improvised - by simply punching the Miz and covering him.