9 Wrestling Matches That Turned Into Real Life Shoots

4. Daniel Puder Embarrasses Kurt Angle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_12qn29WKA The Tough Enough competition was one that, like Total Divas, would blur the lines between shoot and work, real life and wrestling, over and over. The problem wasn€™t (and isn't) the format of each show: both have their structure, and each premise is familiar to millions from years of watching reality television; the competition and the behind the scenes drama, respectively. No, where they become confusing and weird is when they meet the odd, real/fake, fake/real world of professional wrestling: when the semi-scripted Tough Enough and the entirely fictitious Total Divas mix with the WWE€™s own worked programming. In 2004, the fourth Tough Enough show was actually a part of Smackdown itself, rather than having its own time slot on MTV as with the previous three seasons. The scripted events on the November 4th Smackdown taping called for real life Olympic gold medalist and professional wrestling prodigy Kurt Angle to call out the remaining competitors and challenge them to a squat thrust competition as part of a segment on the show. Angle challenged winner Chris Nawrocki to a shoot fight as his prize for winning the squat thrust challenge, easily taking the rookie down and making him tap with a neck crank (and incidentally, breaking a couple of his ribs in the process). Asking for a second volunteer, Angle was faced with the runner-up of the challenge€ Puder eagerly stepped up. Jockeying for position, Angle took Puder down €“ but Puder, no slouch himself, already had Angle in a keylock, better known in 2014 as the kimura. The kimura was locked in, and Angle was seconds away from needing surgery if he didn€™t tap out. The worked professional wrestling show, with its competitive reality television segment that aped a shoot challenge, had turned into a genuine shoot: the fight, short as it was, was for real. Gerry Brisco on the headsets backstage recognised quickly that Angle was in trouble, and calmly told referee Jim Korderas to call the pin on Puder, who was still on his back in a guard position, the kimura locked in. Despite Puder€™s shoulders not being fully backed onto the mat, Korderas called for the bell, and Kurt Angle was awarded the victory. Puder would go on to win the competition but fail to capitalise on it with WWE, moving on to a brief stint with Ring Of Honor and the independents, and was last seen in New Japan Pro Wrestling. In 2011, he retired from active MMA competition with a record of eight wins and zero losses.