6 Most Insane Wrestling Reports Ever Published
5. WHO Thought Vince McMahon Died In A Wrestling Angle?!
Every adult knows that professional wrestling is a work. We all just play along like others do with movies and TV shows.
Kids are either told this by a spiteful schoolyard peer, work it out for themselves, or are let down gently by their parent or guardian, who might fret over the idea of their darling child getting bullied for being such an oblivious idiot mark.
Most of the time, wrestlers don’t get bruised despite absorbing repeated strikes to the face. They go several conspicuous years without blading, depending on which demographic the promoter is chasing. Wrestlers stand around waiting to catch dives instead of simply moving out of the way. When a wrestler in WWE gets punched, they theatrically throw themselves to the mat and immediately pop back up, several times, to take yet more strikes. This is dumb enough as it is, but it’s even more stupid when one considers that colliding with the mat otherwise is meant to really hurt and incapacitate them. The thing about wrestling is that, the more you think about the mechanics of it, the less it makes sense. You have to be attuned to its wavelength. You have to ignore how stupid that it fundamentally is when you are swept up by its strange magic. Nobody past a certain age thinks that it is real - with the unfortunate exception of the profoundly influential leader of the free world.
When Vince McMahon was blown up in the abandoned limo explosion and death angle, nobody believed it. If this had actually happened, and the cameras just happened to very conveniently catch it, you still wouldn’t have seen it; the several-seconds tape delay would have spared you. In addition to that fact, it was the most obviously staged ratings grab imaginable.
Donald Trump believed it, and it wasn’t just Dave Meltzer reporting that; Triple H confirmed years later that a panicked Trump called WWE to check whether Vince had survived.
“It was a big explosion, wow. They’re saying it was the biggest explosion. Vince was very strongly blown up, like a firework, high in the sky. Now I want to know who did it. There are very bad people in WWE, very bad. You know some of them break the rules. That Carlito, he’s crooked. Referee turns his back, and he cheats, it’s terrible. Very terrible. Very dishonest. He does not play by the rules at all. One of the great sleazebags of our time.”