Attraction matches have always had a fun spot on the card. Usually it’s a spot meant for comedy. The Popcorn Match was a term for old school fans. But for everyone who didn’t get up to get some snacks, they got treated to fun and silly matches like a tag team match featuring now middle-aged and long retired Pat Patterson and Jerry Brisco. Managers often got in the mix. When it was time to get his comeuppance, Bobby Heenan would Don the trunks, get batted around the ring and placed into a weasel suit.
Vince McMahon gets a kick out of putting some of non-wrestlers in the ring. Usually when that happens, you can be sure some sort of schmozz, involving blood, or varying degrees of flabby male nudity would happen. Yes, the Boss has a strange sense of humor. Here are 10 Non-Wrestlers We Can't Believe Had A Match In WWE.
10 Howard Finkel
This side of the Buffer brothers, Howard Finkel is the best fight sports ring announcer of all time. The WWE’s first employee you could also say was the company’s first fan.
The guy must have been tickled to not only be part of a match but in a whole angle. He was involved in a small feud with Harvey Wippleman. It eventually culminated in the two having a tuxedo match on Monday Night Raw.
9 Earl Hebner
The match wasn’t even three minutes, but it was still two minutes and fifty seconds worth of proof why the WCW Invasion angle was never going to work.
The story idea of showing how everyone from the top down from both companies were at war with each other was easy to understand - but to have WWE referee Earl Hebner do battle with WCW referee Nick Patrick - and on a PPV no less was a little ridiculous. At least special guest referee Mick Foley got a payday.
8 Jim Ross
Not only is it slightly unbelievable that Jim Ross has had a wrestling match. But Good Ol’ JR has amassed a slew of matches under his belt to have a bowling shoe ugly in-ring career. He’s teamed up various times with Jerry Lawler, Stone Cold, and even John Cena.
But the big match that JR can always have a claim to fame of “selling out” Madison Square Garden, headlining and defeating Triple H (with some help from Batista).
7 Bill Alfonso
Once a member of the WWE referee crew and later known as the Manager Of Champions, Bill Alfonso, of all people has the distinction of having one of the bloodiest bouts in ECW history. Fonzie was beloved by everyone in the ECW locker room.
But for some reason, Fonzie decided to betray them by helping Tod Gordon and WCW sign away some top talent. Heyman had planned to fire him after jobbing him to Beulah, who never wrestled a match before. But after the buckets of blood that poured out Fonzie, Heyman decided to leave well enough alone.
6 Brother Love
With the except of about the last decade and brief hiatus in 1992, since 1987, Bruce Prichard hasn’t just been a fixture of the WWE, he’s been part of its creative fabric. Before becoming one of wrestling's most popular podcasters, Prichard’s biggest claim to fame was playing Brother Love. Despite being in the business for years before joining WWE, he never got in the ring.
He would occasionally mix it up in intergender matches with Dusty Rhodes, Sapphire, and Elizabeth against himself, the Macho King and Sherri. But his first actual match came during WrestleMania X7, as part of the Gimmick Battle Royal.
5 Paul Heyman
Paul E. Dangerously once arm-wrestled Missy Hyatt but had seldom seen in-ring action. In the WWE, if he was forced to do battle, he would usually do so with Brock as his tag team partner (and anyone would be willing to stand on the apron while Brock obliterated the competition).
Even with the Beast as his partner, Heyman has still been beaten to a pulp in tag matches. Without Brock in his corner, he once nearly took Eddie Guerrero to the limit - but the then-WWE champion had both hands tied behind his back.
4 Michael Cole
Not only did Michael Cole have a few wrestling matches several years ago, one of them was an anticipated match with Jerry Lawler at WrestleMania, one that he won no less!
No matter what anyone wants to say about Cole, he can claim that he is undefeated at the show of shows, that’s something that not even the Undertaker can claim anymore.
3 Vince McMahon
While he actually had some decent brawls over the years, it was completely unbelievable that the owner of the company would (in-character) sully his hands and get in the ring. When he finally did, it was actually against his hated rival, Stone Cold.
The stakes were raised considerably when Vince had actually entered the 1999 Royal Rumble and won the thing! He’d put his title opportunity on the line one month later against Austin in a steel cage no less. It quickly became apparent that the Chairman was not going to half-ass his way in the ring.
2 Coach
As far as average-looking joes go, Jonathan Coachman didn’t look half-bad. His natural good looks also helped him to become a pretty decent heel commentator. He also worked out with the boys and learned how to take a few bumps since it was becoming more and more apparent that The Coach was going to get his comeuppance against someone.
1 Vickie Guerrero
WWE fans first met Vickie Guerrero during the battle over the custody of Dominick. After Eddie’s unfortunate death, Vickie became more and more prominent in the storylines until she became the General Manager.
But the idea of her getting in the ring seemed a little far fetched for someone who was supposedly only needed for a few weeks. Years later, she was the most over heel in the company. But she actually had several matches in her career, always finding a way to work an Eddie tribute into them.