Famous Wrestling Pranks That Deserve To Be Remembered
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Pranks, or "ribs" as they are often called in wrestling, serve a meaningful purpose for wrestlers and fans alike. For the talent, a well-crafted prank could be just thing to lighten the mood and keep the most mundane tasks interesting. Meanwhile, the rise of the wrestling "shoot interview" over the past 15-20 years has given talent a forum to broadcast some of these stories to the fans. While the fans may get a good laugh out of such stories just as the wrestlers did, stories of wrestling's greatest pranks also serve to humanize athletes who many perceive to be larger than life.
Pro wrestling ribs tend to come in different flavors, shapes and sizes. Some pranks could be chalked up as toilet humor at best, while many were done in good taste, sometimes even taking on the identity of a long con with the sole intention of getting even a momentary rise out of someone. Other pranks err more on the side of being totally offensive, and in some cases serve to create an irreparable rift between a pair of wrestlers. Perhaps those types of pranks are best left for a feature story at another time.
Here are some of the best wrestling pranks that will be sure to have the fans rolling.
The Stu Hart Bat Phone
As much as the late Owen Hart is known for being a great family man and an accomplished in-ring performer, he is perhaps best known for his unique brand of humor. Hart never let an opportunity go to waste if it meant getting a rise out of his co-workers, and all of his pranks were generally done in good taste. One day before a WWF television taping, Jim Cornette found himself the subject of Owen's latest and greatest prank, though fellow executive Bruce Prichard also found himself roped into the bit. Cornette explained on two separate occasions that while promos for the local markets were being cut before the show, Hart, along with brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith approached Cornette with a red phone that Cornette said during a YouShoot interview resembled "the Commissioner Gordon Bat Phone." Hart told Cornette his father, Stu Hart, wanted to talk to him about his daughter Diana being used as a pawn in the Shawn Michaels-British Bulldog storyline.
Of course, the youngest member of the Hart family's reputation preceded him, so Cornette answered the phone fully aware he might be on the receiving end of a rib. However, the voice on the other end sounded enough like the Hart-family patriarch, though Cornette believed Prichard to be in on the joke. As fans have come to know through his podcast, "Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard," Vince McMahon's former right-hand man is known as one of the great impressionists in wrestling. "Stu" proceeded to ask Cornette why the creative team was making his daughter out to "look like a whore," to which Cornette passed the blame to Prichard, calling him a pervert, albeit in a joking manner. The humor seemed to be lost on "Stu," however, who told Cornette he would be having a chat with Bruce soon. As Cornette hung up the phone, Prichard entered the room, albeit through a different door than the one the phone cord led out of.
"Bruce, I think I just told Stu Hart you're a f—— pervert," Cornette joked.
Eddie Guerrero Pays Back the Nasty Boys
Jerry Sags and Brian Knobbs, The Nasty Boys, spent their time in wrestling working exclusively as a tandem over three different decades. However, their antics outside the ring have long since overshadowed their accomplishments inside the ring. The duo became infamous for their pranks designed to bully younger, more naïve wrestlers. A common Nasty Boys prank would see them "H-Bomb" (short for Halcion-Bomb) a fellow wrestlers' drink at the bar, proceeding to demean them by cutting their hair, shaving their eyebrows or anything else they could think to do. Halcion is a controlled substance frequently prescribed by doctors as a powerful sleep aid to help combat insomnia. Wrestlers commonly used the Halcion-alcohol cocktail as a prank tool throughout the '80s and '90s, so the Nasty Boys' use of the drug on Guerrero was hardly groundbreaking.
Eddie Guerrero detailed in his book, "Cheating Death, Stealing Life: The Eddie Guerrero Story," one instance of the Nasty Boys breaking out the H-Bomb to sedate him during a tour of New Japan Pro Wrestling. He woke up at the end of his flight with his eyebrows completely sheared off, his mustache shaved to resemble Hitler and his trademark bangs chopped off. Footage can still be seen of Guerrero wrestling with the unique look. When "Latino Heat" found out Sags and Knobbs were the culprits, he sought retribution, buying a baseball bat with the intent of breaking their knees. However, his friend Victor Marr, better known as Black Cat talked him out of it. Instead, Guerrero and Cat took revenge on the Nasty Boys during a sponsored night out in Japan. As Sags and Knobbs had begun to fill up on booze, Guerrero and Cat started collecting table scraps of shellfish, crab and other discarded items off the wrestlers' plates. From there, they converted the scraps into a special sauce fit for a Nasty Boy before offering the sauce to Sags and Knobbs.
"They started slurping it up while me and Cat tried not to piss our pants laughing," Guerrero wrote. "That was so satisfying — feeding those a******* a big bowl of s***. And they didn't even have a clue!"
DDP - There's Cookies in My Bed!
Back in WCW, Mick Foley, Steve Austin and Diamond Dallas Page often found themselves traveling together around 1993. Page himself had only just begun to wrestle after spending the first three years of his career working in a managerial capacity. The trio would go on to become three of the biggest stars of the late '90s, but before that were struggling wrestlers looking to make their way in a crowded WCW field. Foley wrote in his book, "Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks" of his admiration for Page, but also noted he had a tendency to walk around in all his glory without batting an eye to the fact he was naked.
Spotting an opportunity to get one over on Page, Foley and Austin conspired to stuff Page's bed with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies they had received earlier in the evening from a gracious fan. Page paid no mind to the fact and got in bed anyway, but couldn't get comfortable. It was not long before he noticed the cookies, shrieking, "There's cookies in my bed! Someone put f****** cookies in my bed!" Covered in chocolate chips, a livid Page jumped out of bed and started throwing the remains of the sugary sweets at Austin and Foley, both laughing hysterically at their successful handiwork. Page screamed at Foley how he likes having cookies in his bed, possibly rhetorically, to which Foley replied that it wasn't as much the cookies that bothered him as much as Page's "naked ass" being rubbed all over him. A fair point from Foley, though one has to especially feel for the fan whose cookies were ultimately wasted on the skin of a hysterical DDP.
Curt Hennig's Ultimate Surprise
Human fecal matter and wrestling ribs have a long and storied history. X-Pac seems to stand out more than most for his feces-fueled pranks, defecating in Sable's bag on one occasion that he has since admitted to. However, Curt Hennig may have found the most creative and innovative way to incorporate human excrement into a wrestling prank, and The Ultimate Warrior ended up being on the receiving end. After all, Hennig trailed only Owen Hart as one of the most notorious ribbers in wrestling, as countless stories have been told of his backstage exploits.
When the Warrior appeared in WCW in 1998, he would often pop out through a trapdoor in the ring to make his entrance. As a result, he would have to hide under the ring for pronounced periods of time, and in some cases nearly the entirety of the show. At 6-foot-2 and somewhere between 250 and 280 pounds at the time, it could not have been comfortable for the Warrior to sit under the ring. One night in particular proved most uncomfortable, when Hennig defecated into a bucket and stuck it beneath the ring where the Warrior would lay in wait to confront the nWo. The smell was apparently so vile that the typically unflappable Scott Norton, who recounted the story in an RF Video shoot interview, ended up vomiting on the spot. For Norton to have reacted the way he did, one can only imagine how the Warrior must have dealt with the pungent smell of Hennig's excrement.
A Real Man's Man
Sometimes, a good wrestling prank requires very little thought to be truly hilarious. The rib pulled on William Regal in his native England back in November 2011 certainly fits the bill.
Many fans may forget that Regal once portrayed a different character. Shortly after debuting in the WWF, Regal took on the moniker of a "Real Man's Man," a blue-collar outdoorsman inspired by the man embroidered on the front of Brawny paper towel packaging. He wore a construction helmet to the ring and would appear in vignettes doing stereotypically "manly" actions, such as squeezing his own orange juice. As preposterous of a gimmick as it was, it did not last as Regal's battle with addiction to Renewtrient, pain medication, and Valium caught up to him, prompting his eventual release from the promotion. He would eventually return to the company, however, becoming the "goodwill ambassador" character fans know and love today.
13 years later, Daniel Bryan, a star pupil of Regal's, got the chance to wrestle his mentor on an episode of "WWE Superstars" in Liverpool, England. Prior to the match, Regal's normal music had begun to play before abruptly switching over to the "Real Man's Man," theme he used back in 1998. The abrupt change of song drew an authentic, hilarious reaction out of Regal at which point he locked eyes with Bryan as if to say, "were you in on this?" Bryan's reaction seemed to indicate such, and the two went on to deliver an instant classic on the little-watched show that is still worth checking out.
Ahmed Johnson and the Jay Leno Show
Another classic Owen Hart rib involved Ahmed Johnson and the "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Hart, who is to this day considered to be the Michael Jordan of wrestling ribs, got one over on Johnson during the week of WrestleMania XII. Johnson has recalled the rib during several shoot interviews, mentioning how he received a phone call in his hotel room from someone at "The Tonight Show" about coming on the show that week to promote WrestleMania. Johnson quickly accepted the opportunity, even going as far as to spend $4,000 on a new suit, shoes, and watch. According to Johnson, he was "pimped out from head to toe." Davey Boy Smith, a frequent accomplice in Hart pranks and a known ribber in his own right, appeared outside the hotel where he saw Johnson waiting for his limo. Upon finding out what Johnson was waiting for, he expressed disappointment that Johnson had gotten the opportunity and not him.
Johnson continued to wait for his limo, being told over the phone it would be arriving at 4 p.m. Sure enough, the 4 o'clock hour came and went with no limo to be found. Hart then appeared outside and told Johnson he thought the limo was supposed to have arrived at 4. Johnson replied that it must be late, but at that moment realized he had never told Hart about going on "Leno" and put it together that it must have been Owen's voice on the other end of the phone. Eventually, Bret Hart would come outside to give Johnson the news that he had been pranked by his younger brother, at which point all four men busted out in laughter.
Coach's Football Pool
Even Vince McMahon, the longtime owner and operator of the largest wrestling company in the world was not beneath the occasional prank. On an episode of "Insight with Chris Van Vliet," former "Monday Night Raw" announcer and "SportsCenter" anchor Jonathan Coachman detailed a story about McMahon and Gerald Brisco ribbing him with a phony football pick 'em pool. Coachman, then a backstage interviewer in WWE, was approached by Brisco in Fayetteville, North Carolina, about running a football pool for "all of the guys" at 10 dollars per entry.
After collecting the money from the wrestlers and producing photocopies of the pick 'em sheets as requested, Coachman returned to his pre-tape room to find two state troopers looking to arrest him for running a sports gambling ring, illegal in the state of North Carolina. The troopers apologized to Coachman, but noted that the law is the law and took him into McMahon's office to make him aware of the situation. An irate McMahon rhetorically asked Coachman if he had nothing else better to do with his time than run a football pool. Brisco, who put Coachman up to the task, also sat in silence. The officers then asked McMahon if he would be helping Coachman post bail, which was marked at $1,500. McMahon told Coachman to fend for himself and the cops promptly brought him into the back of their car. On their way out, Jimmy Tillis, head of security at the time, told "The Coach" to say nothing and that he would come to bail him out. The story ends with the officers eventually pulling back into the arena in Fayetteville to be greeted by the entire locker room with McMahon out in front, revealing himself to be the mastermind behind the elaborate prank.
Pepper is Missing
One of the most infamous angles of the Attitude Era in the late '90s involved Al Snow and The Big Bossman building to the much maligned "Kennel from Hell" match, an offshoot of the Hell in a Cell concept which was still very new at the time. The issue between the two wrestlers began when the Bossman kidnapped Snow's dog, Pepper, prompting Snow to appear in a series of vignettes where he would be frantically searching for Pepper. Snow begged the fans to keep an eye out for the little dog and that if they happened to hear anything to contact a phone number listed on the flier. The number on the flier turned out to be legitimate, though the number did not belong to Snow. Rather, it belonged to fellow wrestler Val Venis.
Venis told Hannibal that he had not been smartened up to the prank prior to Snow plastering the number on national television. He also had not been paying attention to the segment when it aired, though he would quickly receive a number of phone calls from fans expressing concern for Snow's dog. As the calls began to flood in, Venis initially placated the fans before ultimately settling on having to get a new phone number. Before Venis could confront Snow about the rib, Snow wisely decided to bolt out the locker room door into the night. As poor of a match as the Kennel from Hell match ended up being, Snow's rib on Venis proved the angle was not a total loss for fans. A few lucky ones even got to connect with "The Big Valbowski."
X-Pac Superglues the Smoking Gunns, Joins the Kliq
Kevin Nash once told a story on "The Steve Austin Show" about how Sean Waltman, then known as the 1-2-3 Kid, originally joined The Kliq. At just 21-years-old, the Kid was the youngest full-time superstar on the roster, and as a result became a frequent target of locker room ribbers. These included Billy and Bart Gunn, collectively known as the Smoking Gunns. The Gunns, along with Curt Hennig, had just taken the Kid out for his 21st-birthday, but The Kid ended up having one too many alcoholic beverages and woke up the next morning with one fewer eyebrow. Waltman then made the decision to shave off his other eyebrow in solidarity, albeit just in time for his first 8x10 photo with the company. He knew he had either the Gunns or Hennig to blame, but given his history with the latter going back to Minnesota, he deduced the Gunns were the likely culprits and began to weigh his options for revenge.
The Kid settled on lining the Gunn's hats with super glue at a house show one night in El Paso, Texas. The ploy worked to perfection, with Billy and Bart going through their normal entrance routine before having to take off their cowboy hats. When they reached up to remove their hats, they found the hats had been glued to their hair, which earned the respect and laughter of Nash. Nash told Austin he had been blown away by the courage it must have taken for The Kid to go through with the prank, considering how much bigger Billy and Bart were than him. From that moment on, The Kid joined Nash, Hall, Michaels, and Triple H in the Kliq and never looked back, although Hennig would later out himself as the initial eyebrow thief.
Chris Jericho and the Deaf Fan
One of the greatest long-con style wrestling pranks involves Christian, Chris Jericho, Daivari and a "deaf Fozzy fan." Christian details the story in the book, "Rumble Road: Untold Stories From Outside the Ring," and mentions he once had a deaf manager back on the Michigan independent scene. If a deaf person wants to call another person over the phone, they have to call another person first and send them what they would like to say before the other person acts as a translator for the person they'd like to talk to. Christian said his manager used to rib him by calling his telephone interpreter and saying rude things for the polite, female operator to repeat back to him, so he was well-versed in this style of prank.
Years later while in WWE, Christian had a similar experience with Daivari attempting to rib him just as his former manager used to. Ever the veteran, Christian snuffed it out, telling Daivari that while he wasn't mad, he now needed him to help him rib Jericho. Christian and Daivari posed as a "deaf Fozzy fan named Gertrude from England," and told Jericho a somber story of how while "Gertrude" can't hear his band's music, she could subconsciously tell Jericho was singing to directly to her and that he had a beautiful voice. When WWE would travel across the pond, Christian and Daivari would ramp the phone calls up and wait around a corner, watching while Jericho received messages from the "fan." Eventually, Christian and Daivari outed themselves to Jericho, and the three shared a hearty laugh over a situation that unfolded over several months.