One Moment WWE Wants You To Forget From Every Year (1985 to 2026)

29. 1998 - CUT!

Val Venis John Wayne Bobbit
WWE

The real tale of John Wayne Bobbitt is a long way from the wacky story of a guy tracking down his bits and bobs in a field following an uncomfortable and terrifying severing by an angry spurned lover. Even a passing glance at how he treated ex-wife Lorena before the incident that made bizarre celebrities of both of them paints such a hideous picture that sympathy for his plight is fairly hard to come by.

Meanwhile, if you're Vince McMahon, Vince Russo or most roaring arrested development adolescents involved in producing WWE in 1998, you read the headline, consider her another "crazy" ex, and get a hold of the castrated guy and link him up with the adult film star character that just suffered a similar fate via samurai sword. 

Evidently, nobody did any of the background reading on Bobbit. He came in to make a joke storyline even more preposterous, shrugged and plugged his way through a segment limper than Val's own venis during the fateful closing moments of the prior week's show. A shrinkage joke then, a shrinkage joke here, and an otherwise extremely distasteful usage of a celebrity waved away just like everything else in this extremely different time. 

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.