The Contentious Ten 01.30.12: Top 10 Best Wrestling Stunts

Posted by Nick Bazar on 01.30.2012

From Kane firing off lighting bolts and Vince McMahon's limo exploding to Taz DDTing Bam Bam Bigelow through the entrance ramp, people getting buried alive and more, 411's Nick Bazar counts down the top ten best wrestling stunts!



Hello, and welcome to The Contentious Ten! My name is Nick Bazar, and I thank you for clicking.

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This past week on Raw, we were treated to yet another "stunt" the WWE likes to gives us every now and then. This time, it was Kane chokeslamming Zack Ryder through the floor of the entrance set. Unlike some of the other stunts we've seen over the years, this one was a bit on the lame side if I can be perfectly honest. It did get me to thinking of all the great stunts wrestling companies have managed to pull off though, and I figured it would make for a fun list. And so, the Top Ten Best Wrestling Stunts…

NOTE: You know a wrestling stunt when you see it. I'm referring to those moments in or outside of a match where certain objects are gimmicked and all the necessary precautions are taken to make something look very dangerous and awe-inspiring.


X
You Just Got Forklifted


How do you get back at the man who orchestrated the events that led to you getting run over by a car? Well, if you're "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, you corner that man inside a car, elevate him with a forklift and drop him head-first onto the cement below. This took place at the 2000 Survivor Series- the night Austin would finally get his hands on Triple H after being out of commission for one full year. The match turned into a huge brawl that eventually made its way backstage and to the outdoor parking lot. A bloodied and battered HHH was desperately trying to get away from an enraged Austin, and decided to find shelter inside a car. Unfortunately for the Game, Austin was one step ahead and pulled up next to him in a forklift. Then, in true Rattlesnake fashion, he elevated the car which held the defenseless HHH and proceeded to drop the car on its head from a height of about 20 feet. Some good camera work and probably some well-placed video splicing went into this one, but the end result of watching a car fall from such a height was a fantastic image and a fitting payoff for a year-long grudge.


IX
Get Out of the Spotlight, Cena!


One month before this at Wrestlemania 25, John Cena won the World Heavyweight Championship from Edge in a Triple Threat match which also featured Big Show. This was Edge's rematch at Backlash, a Last Man Standing bout that featured quite a few memorable spots. However, the lasting image of the night was Show coming out at the end to grab Cena by the neck and slam him off the entrance stage onto a big spotlight below. Glass shattered, huge sparks flew and an unconscious Cena was revealed lying in a heap. On this night, it was enough to put down the seemingly unstoppable Cena and get the World Heavyweight Championship back around the waist of the Rated "R" Superstar. Regrettably, it also led to a Cena/Show feud which featured a 19 minute Submission Match…yikes. But this isn't about that, it's about the stunt, and it was a damn good one. It was a unique finish to a Last man Standing match and the popping of the glass inside the spotlight coupled with the tremendous explosion that followed really made it seem as though Cena could have been severely and permanently injured.


VIII
She's Hardcore


If you just started watching wrestling in past five years, you probably only know Mae Young as the horny 112 year old who called LayCool bitches and sluts. However, you should also be made aware of the fact that she birthed a hand, humped Eric Bischoff and oh yea- she's the most hardcore woman to ever grace a wrestling arena. Why? Because she took a freaking Bubba Ray Dudley Powerbomb off the Raw entrance stage and onto tables on the floor below. With a neckbrace! Coming off a wheelchair! I can't imagine how this would get tossed around at a creative meeting and approved, but someone's sick idea came to fruition and we were treated to this gem of a stunt. Obviously, the tables and debris she was powerbombed onto were gimmicked with a landing cushion, and that's what makes it a proper wrestling stunt. Nowadays, that's the kind of stunt that would get teased but not delivered on- I mean, it's a huge guy threatening to injure a poor old lady- but in this case, they went the whole way with it.


VII
Now That's What I Call a DDT


The Taz/Bam Bam Bigelow feud is one of the many big encounters many fans of the old ECW remember fondly, and it was thanks to stunts like this. In fact, there were two similar stunts these two men pulled off together in the span of a few months. The first took place at Living Dangerously 1998 when Bigelow put Taz and himself through the ring as a counter to the Tazmission. The second is what takes the Number VII spot on my list- Taz DDTing Bigelow through the entrance ramp at Heat Wave 1998 as payback. While clearly a callback to the original spot, it remains one of the classic images in ECW history and in my opinion, stands out as the superior stunt. For one, it had some history to play off of with Taz getting back at Bigelow for putting him through the ring. Second, it was a ridiculously sick looking DDT. And seriously, who could forget the image of Taz coming out of that hole in the ramp with a triumphant slash of the throat? They pulled it off very well and both shined because of it.


VI
Light ‘Em Up


When it comes to a guy like Kane who has been doing "supernatural" stunts for 15 years now, there is definitely a lot of material to choose from. There's him setting Jim Ross on fire, him setting MVP on fire, him tossing Shane McMahon into a huge dumpster (or whatever it was) of fire and even him catching his own arm on fire. Those are all certainly worthy of discussion on this list, but I'm going to go way back to the beginning of his run as Kane- the series of stunts that set the trend for his on-screen obsession with fire, and in my opinion, the most visually awesome of all the stunts he's been a part of. During the period of time when Kane was trying to goad The Undertaker into accepting a match, he started going all Joker on him by creating chaos all over the place- chaos in the form of shooting lightning out of his finger and setting stuff on fire. He targeted the lighting rig above the ring, the announcers table, the entrance set and a helpless crewmember at ringside. Yes, he struck a crewmember- a human being- with a bolt of lightning and set him on fire. Keep in mind, this was back in 1997. It could have easily looked fake and hokey, but it didn't. In some instances, it even looked as if the bolts were actually coming from his hand. Not entirely sure how they did it, but it was a fantastic stunt.


V
Through the Ring


Here's the distinction between this Mick Foley moment in a Hell in a Cell match and the more infamous fall he took at King of the Ring 1998 which I don't consider a "stunt": the latter was just a dive off a cage. There wasn't a gimmicked aspect to it, there wasn't a precaution being taken. Nobody in charge had a clear idea of what the result would be- it was a much less controlled environment. The Cactus Jack stunt at No Way Out 2000 was more meticulously planned ahead of time. Triple H would backdrop Cactus on the top of the cell, the cell would give way, he would hit the mat and the mat would be gimmicked to break through. Put it all together and you get an eye-popping, crowd-pleasing stunt that did exactly what it was intended to do: paint the Hell in a Cell match as a death-defying spectacle and Cactus Jack as one tough son of a bitch. Some people were down on the actual match itself, but that stunt definitely stood out as one of the best the WWE has pulled off.


IV
Collapsed


When something from a random episode of Smackdown back in 2003 still gets glowing mentions on Best of DVDs and highlight packages, you know it was memorable. What am I referring to? The Brock Lesnar/Big Show superplex that collapsed the ring of course. Two huge men flying through the air, crashing onto the ring below, causing it to implode on impact- it's something that you can only see on a wrestling show and it's pretty damn impressive. Just look at the reaction in the arena when it happened. That's genuine excitement and surprise. It's a mark out moment shared by thousands of people at one time. Combine all that together and you have one of the greatest stunts ever displayed in wrestling. What was even better was that nothing like that had really been seen before. All four ring posts caving in and the canvas hitting the floor because of the impact of a monstrous superplex? Amazing is the only word I can come up with. It also explains why they decided to recreate that stunt years later- it worked as well as it possibly could have, why not try it again. Not only that, but look at the referee. The poor guy sells it so hilariously well as he awkwardly tumbles off his feet.


III
Buried Alive


While in 1996 the WWF didn't have the technology or funds to pull off big budget type stunts, they did have one thing that trumps that- ingenuity. By that I mean they came up with a very clever way to execute the finish to a Buried Alive match without looking fake and cheesy. Think about it- how do you televise a fake burial on live television without having it look fake? What they did was build a hidden trap door inside the grave. The wrestler to be buried would quickly sneak into the door while his opponent covered the grave with dirt. A simple concept, but it worked every time they did a buried alive match. My favorite though was the original between The Undertaker and Mankind. What put this stunt over the top for me on this particular occasion was the post-match Taker "resurrection" so to speak, where after a bolt of lightning, we see his classic purple glove emerge from the dirt in a Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers type moment.


II
Vince Blows Up


If you haven't noticed by now, over-the-top stunts in wrestling that wouldn't be out of place in an action movie are usually a big hit with me. It shouldn't be a surprise then that I was a big fan of the Raw-closing moment back in 2007 when Vince McMahon's limo blew up "with him still inside." Obviously, it's not something you can do every week because it would lose its luster, but when done the way they did it, it works very well. Believe it or not, many fans actually believed that Vince had died. Call them dumb or gullible, but I find that kind of reaction refreshing during an era when almost nothing in wrestling can trick or "work" people. The lead up to the limo explosion was brilliantly done as well. For weeks, Vince was acting like a broken man, as if he knew something bad was going to happen soon. He wasn't his normal cocky and boastful self, and as a viewer, I was very curious as to what it was leading to. Then the payoff came. The cameras followed Vince all the way to the parking lot where for a split second, he showed a sign of relief. He steps into his limo, does a suspicious double take, then slams the door shut. That instant, the limo blows up. It was very well done, and it had people talking. Too bad that it was also one of the worst cases of bad timing in that the Benoit tragedy happened a couple weeks after and the whole storyline had to be thrown out.


I
Shane Plummets


Not only is this easily the most visually impressive "big fall" stunt of all time, it's quite simply the best wrestling stunt I've ever seen. We've seen Mae Young get powerbombed off a stage, Kane leg drop Big Show off a stage, Jeff Hardy hit a Swanton off the entrance rig onto Randy Orton and Matt Hardy hit a Side Effect on Edge off a stage. Those are all of the same category as Shane McMahon's insane fall off the Backlash entrance set, and while they were all great-looking stunts in their own right, they don't compare. We've always known that Shane has a set of balls on him (in fact, that might be why Kane tried to electrocute them that one time) but this was just on a whole other level. It's obviously a dangerous stunt to pull off, but to their credit, they took every precaution necessary to make it as safe as it possibly could be. Shane was clearly primed on how to take such a fall- kicking his legs out and falling on his back- and there was a nice big (but concealed) landing pad waiting for him at the bottom. It's basically the blueprint on how to pull off big stunts in wrestling.