10 Wrestlers Who Tried To Injure Their Opponents

Listen, I am not going to put JBL and the Blue Meanie on this list. I can’t talk about that one moment in wrestling history anymore. You can’t make me.

So wrestling, the awful business that we all like, when it works the way it’s supposed to it’s a beautiful dance between two ambassadors of flesh, Da Vincis of destruction, Vince’s princes of big nerve pinches.

Seemingly horrible violence, mitigated by co-operation, wrestlers having each other’s backs, with systems in place to make sure that no one hurts themselves for super realsies.

Of course sometimes accidents happen and people get injured and that’s obviously bad, but sometimes, thankfully a much rarer sometimes, those injuries aren’t an accident, they were all part of a diabolical plan.

Strap in, let’s talk about some moments of utter unprofessional dickheadedness. Here are 10 Wrestlers Who Tried To Injure Their Opponents

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10. Koji Kitao (John Tenta)

Starting with this lad, ooft way to ensure you’ll never work in America. WWF was in Kobe Japan, co-promoting a show with Japanese promotion Super World of Sports.

A match was booked between Earthquake, A.K.A. John Tenta who’d previously been popular in Japan against Koji Kitao.

So this match is super weird and a bit scary. It’s not two lads twunking each other with pato furniture, instead its a weird standoff occasionally broken by Kitao trying to legit gouge Tenta’s eyes.

See apparently booker for SWS Great Kabuki had told Tenta to stiff Kitao a little because of some personally animosity between the two, Kitao loses his rag at this, stops wrestling entirely and just starts trying to blind the man sharing the ring with him, before kicking a ref and proclaiming that wrestling was fake before getting immediately sacked.

Fun fact I never realised before, this match happened in the Tokyo Dome. Home of Wrestle Kingdom. Hell of a place to expose the business, good job.

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9. Manny Fernandez (Invader 3)

This one’s so weird, and kinda maybe graphic, but also maybe a big work, and also there’s like a hint of conspiracy theory to it. So let’s try and unpack it.

So it’s 1988 and this takes place in a match for Puerto Rican promotion World Wrestling Council. If that name and that year sets off alarm bells for you and you’re not sure why, that’s because that’s the year that Bruiser Brody was murdered backstage at a World Wrestling Council show, allegedly by Jose Gonzalez, A.K.A. Invader 1, who attacked him with a knife in the shower.

This match apparently has Invader taking on Manny Fernandez in his Raging Bull persona. During the match, Fernandez hits Invader with a jumping knee to the midsection from the top rope, which apparently caused his stomach to rupture, with blood even spewing from his mouth.

But then Fernandez proceeds to hit Gonzalez with two further knee drops. Here’s where it gets confusing.

Some have maintained the whole thing was a work and that the blood was, get this, pig’s blood mixed with vodka, however some are adamant it was a shoot, with Fernandez himself swearing in later interviews that he intentionally injured Gonzalez as revenge for him allegedly killing Bruiser Brody.

Until you dig deeper and you find out the match between Raging Bull and Invader happened two months BEFORE brody was killed, and that Raging Bull wrestled and injured not Invader 1 but Invader 3 who wasn’t played by Gonzalez.

What? It’s SUCH a mental story.

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8. The Acolytes (Public Enemy)

Is there a company more welcoming to hot new talent than WWE? Come in, come in, say WWE, take off your shoes, have a seat, make yourself comfortable, here’s a cookie, we’ve heard so much about you and we’re going to f**king batter you for it, give me bACK THAT COOKIE.

Before the Dudleys became known as the wizards of the wicked wood, that gimmick actually was synonymous with a different tag team, east coast rappers Public Enemy, who made brutal and often use of tables during their ECW days.

In 1995 both WWF and WCW made offers for Public Enemy to sign, and they chose WCW, BIG F**KING MISTAKE LADS.

When their three-year contract expired, they jumped ship to WWF in 1999, to which the locker room reacted with Mariah Carey’s “I don’t know her”.

So three bad things happened before Public Enemy vs. The Acolytes, one of the most infamous matches in WWE history took place on an episode of heat in March 1999.

Public Enemy had snubbed WWF in the past, they had been brought in by Terry Gordy, whom the Acolytes hated, and Public Enemy tried to change the finish of the match at the last minute, not wanting to be put through tables so quickly into their ‘we’re good at tables run’.

Oh dear. Oh no. The Acolytes were instructed by management to make sure the finish happened and were otherwise given free reign to shoot all over Public Enemy, the rest is horror.

Some of the chair shots Bradshaw hits, like, it’s just legit violence. They’re not just trying to hurt them, they’re trying to run them out of the company.

It’s really gross, and Public Enemy were indeed gone within a few weeks of this airquotes “match.”

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