The Contentious Ten 06.28.10: Top 10 Surreal Moments

A few weeks ago, wrestling fans witnessed one of the strangest, wildest, and most unexpected endings to RAW when the NXT “Rookies” attacked John Cena and destroyed anything and everything around the ring. There are moments where as a wrestling fan, you mark out. And then there are moments where you can’t really do anything except sit there with your jaw open in awe of what you are seeing. Those are surreal moments.

This week features a broad topic, and I imagine there will be plenty of people who say, “You forget this!” or “What about that?” Well, this week, I actually encourage this. Today, I’m just going to list ten moments that I found to be surreal, and I want you guys to tell me what I missed. Those so many great surreal moments, so let your voices be heard.

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Paul Heyman’s Worked Shoot On Vince McMahonsize=6>


This is one of my favorite promos ever. This was three days before the Invasion angle came to its conclusion at the 2001 Survivor Series. In the context of the feud, Paul Heyman got a chance to air his grievances with Vince McMahon and what he had done to wrestling. Heyman said so many things that we wrestling fans have wanted to say to Vince for so long, how he’s turned wrestling into sports entertainment, how he’s bought out all of the competition, how he’s made his empire off the blood and sweat of the wrestlers that he always views as replaceable. Part of me still can’t believe that somebody got to say all of this to his face. But man, it made for some great television.

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Eddie Guerrero Wins WWE Championshipsize=6>


Often times, a major title change involving an underdog feels inevitable to me. And while I definitely enjoyed seeing Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio win their world titles at Wrestlemania XX and Wrestlemania 22, this was a title win that I just did not believe could happen. I felt certain that we would get Bill Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship, and Eddie was just the challenger of the month. I was cheering for Eddie, but I just didn’t think he could pull it off. And then, he did. I was elated that one of my favorite wrestlers, a guy I liked since I was five and only liked him because of his cool name, had reached the top of the wrestling world.

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Brock Lesnar And Big Show
Destroy The Ringsize=6>

This was one of Smackdown’s finest moments. Obviously, the ring breaking was a work, but it’s one of those times where you could believe, in the moment, that 800+ pounds of humanity falling from that height at that velocity could cause the ring to collapse. I remember reading about this in a spoiler report and then watching the show, and I still didn’t believe it happened. It also reminded me that WWE was still capable of pulling out shocking events from time to time, and you just don’t know when they are going to happen.

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Hogan Slams Andresize=6>


A lot of people here like to make cracks about my age and how this apparently disqualifies me from having an opinion. While I may only be twenty years of age, I have been watching wrestling for as long as I can remember. My uncles watched the WWF in the ’80’s with my mother. My older brother saw his first wrestling match in 1992, a title match where Sting defeated Vader, and my brothers and I have watched wrestling ever since. I am a legitimate life-long fan of professional wrestling. One of my earliest memories is going to Dillons and renting old Hulkamania compilation tapes, and watching Hogan take on men like Randy Savage, Sgt. Slaughter and The Big Bossman. But the most memorable was Hogan slamming Andre the Giant. If you think that’s impressive now, imagine seeing it through the eyes of a four-year old, who has been told about this legendary event, never truly believing it, and then watching it happen. That’s how I saw it.

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Hart And Michaels Bury The Hatchetsize=6>



About six months ago, when I took over this column from John Peters, I was blessed with the opportunity of my first column being posted the day of Bret Hart’s WWE return. Another legend showed up in a different promotion on that night, but I felt that fans would be far more interested in reminiscing about the Hitman’s in-ring career before he made his big return. Going into the show, there were so many questions: will Bret and Shawn interact? If they do, are they going to make nice or are they going to fight? Will it be backstage or in the ring? WWE made a smart decision by kicking off RAW with this segment. There was palpable tension throughout this discussion; you could see the anger in Bret and Shawn, and there were several fans vocally expressing their desire to see Bret get some physical retribution on HBK. In the end, they buried the hatchet with a handshake and a hug. The moment was both surreal and cathartic, and I know that it gave me a new found respect for both men for providing this very special moment for wrestling fans.

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Bischoff Named General Manager Of Rawsize=6>


This preposterous moment was made even more shocking by the simple fact that the average wrestling fan (and maybe the IWC, I don’t remember since I didn’t spend my twelfth year teabagging people on Call of Duty like some poor souls) had NO idea that Eric Bischoff was going to be on this show. Bischoff and McMahon on the same television screen at the same arena? McMahon making Bischoff the general manager of RAW, the program that Bischoff beat some 80 weeks in a row back in the 1990’s? And he’s endorsing him with a HUG? WHAT? Demons were investing in jacuzzis on this night.

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Mankind Thrown Off/Through The Cellsize=6>

Probably the moment where Foley and Vince really did take the violence too far. The first bump was relatively safe, but the second one, not just the bump itself but the fact that they did it after the first, was very dangerous. I’m not criticizing anyone involved with this; sometimes you don’t know how far is too far until you cross that line. Thankfully, they’ve never done anything this dangerous since. If you don’t think this is surreal, bring a non-wrestling fan over and have them watch up until the first big bump. Then watch their face. That’s all the evidence you need.

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The New World Order Formssize=6>


This was a surreal moment in two ways in my life. I was six years old when it originally happened, I was a huge Hogan fan, and while I knew the business was “fake” and they weren’t really trying to hurt each other, this just blew my poor, fragile little mind. Hogan was Superman…how could he be a bad guy? Years later, when I got to watch it again on the N.W.O. DVD that WWE released in 2002, I was just impressed by what Hogan was saying, and how shocking the moment worked, and by what a great and historical moment it was. Experiencing it as part of the target audience for the shock factor, and later reflecting on it as a student of the business, it’s always been a surreal moment for me.

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The Montreal Screwjobsize=6>


In most situations, I try to take a stance of neutrality, and this is no different. I’ve never been the biggest fan of either performer, although I acknowledge that they are two of the best in-ring performers the business has ever seen. I personally feel that Vince, Bret and Shawn all made bad choices, but they all had understandable personal justifications for those choices. When everybody is wrong, nobody can be right. Sometimes you just have to accept that a situation is messed up and move on. That’s my two cents, which admittedly doesn’t amount to much. Regardless of which side, if any, you are on, this moment is probably the most controversial, bizarre, unexpected moment in wrestling, and if it weren’t for my desire to end this list on a positive note, I might have put it at #1

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The Rock Challenges Hulk Hogansize=6>

There’s been a lot said about “dream matches” in wrestling. But Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock was the ultimate fantasy match-up, two extremely popular and charismatic stars, household names, separated by time and companies. Some say it should have been Austin, and while I would have loved to have seen that match, you can’t tell me that Austin would have been able to talk about believing in Hogan with the same conviction The Rock has. The challenge was made, the match was on, and any wrestling fan with the money to spend was going to see this match. To steal a phrase, this was the most electrifying moment in sports entertainment history. Well, for my money, anyway.

*****

The next two weeks will correlate with the Money in the Bank PPV; next week I’ll cover The Top Ten Ladder Matches, and the week after that I will cover The Top Ten MITB Performers.