Wrestling can try hard, but things go wrong. It happens all the time and always has. Even in the “golden days,” there were botches on shows from even the biggest stars. Today, fans can be overly harsh on such miscues to the point of thinking a simple mistake ruins an entire match. But some mistakes are commonplace, either at house shows or major TV matches. That can be true with gimmick bouts and often end up throwing things off majorly. However, some mishaps are clearly bigger than others. The obvious one is in-ring injuries as WWE points out how even experienced workers can suffer a horrible injury thanks to a simple botch. Yet other times, it can be an error that ruins a match or an entire angle.

Some are famous or rather infamous to showcase how terrible a mishap can ruin things. Other times, it’s the cause of an injury and shakes up plans majorly. Rare is how a mishap actually enhances the reputation of a match or an event but that too can happen (Jake Roberts literally discovered the DDT thanks to a botched fall). There have been slews over the years from every promotion there is but some are just bigger than others. Here are 10 times WWE, 10 times WCW and 5 times TNA suffered an unscripted mishap that ended up becoming infamous and shows how some botches can truly be eternal in wrestling lore.

25 TNA: Brooke Hogan Hulks Up

Bully Ray & Brooke Hogan wedding

There’s a lot of stuff bad in TNA in relation to Hulk Hogan’s time in the company. Chief among them was trying to push his daughter Brooke as a force, including the on-screen boss of the Knockouts. Given her lack of talent in…anything, Brooke was pushed in that role hard. This led to her and Bully Ray soon in a romance that was frankly icky to watch and Bully proposing. Of course, there can never be a normal wedding in wrestling and just as they were about to exchange vows, Taz interrupted to reveal he was part of the gang Aces & Eights.

A&E then attacked the ring to beat down Bully and Hogan while holding Brooke back.

During it, Brooke’s dress ended up coming loose with the cameras having to work fast not to show her flashing. She was then shown crawling to Hulk and openly telling him “my boobs are falling out” on camera. To her credit, Brooke managed to adjust it to keep up the sell but showcasing why her entire tenure in TNA was a total disaster.

24 WWE: Jake’s Snake Goes Rogue

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There’s always a risk mixing live animals with wrestling as one never knows when things are going to go wrong. Jake Roberts had been warning guys for years to be careful as he may have some control over his snakes like Damien but they still had a tendency to do what they wanted. Proving this was in 1991 when a heel Jake feuded with Randy Savage, switching from pythons to a king cobra to make himself look more dangerous. After finishing off a jobber, Jake called Savage to the ring for a brawl.

It ended with Savage getting tied into the ropes and Jake threatening him with the cobra.

The cobra ended up sinking its fangs into Savage’s arm and instead of a brief bite, it just kept on biting.

Jake had to pull it off, creating a very ugly gash and Savage wasn’t selling his pain. Thankfully, the cobra wasn’t venomous but it showcased once more how a real snake was deadlier than Jake.

23 WCW: Heenan Freaks Out

Bobby Heenan and Brian Pillman at ringside

Brian Pillman is still an icon to fans thanks to his wild “Loose Cannon” act. Pillman was nothing but a sheer genius making it all work, convincing even good friends that he had truly lost his mind. Pillman went all out for it with various wild bits. A key one was at the Clash of the Champions as Pillman faced Eddie Guerrero. Pillman was sent to the outside, suddenly getting up and going to the announce table to grab Bobby Heenan. Heenan was as unaware as anyone else of what Pillman was doing and unprepared for Pillman to grab him by the neck.

It was well known that Heenan had serious neck problems leading to his retirement as a manager and grabbing him was off-limits.

Heenan was so taken aback that he openly screamed “what the f---- are you doing?!” on live TV. He had to walk around before returning to apologize for losing his cool. It showed how even co-workers weren’t safe from Pillman’s amazing act.

22 WWE: Shane’s Glass Bounce

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One can say a lot about Shane McMahon but even major wrestling marks have to respect the man’s utterly insane daredevil drive. When he gets going, he can be a really good worker known for taking risks most veteran wrestlers would balk at. A clear case is at the 2001 King of the Ring as Shane (having “bought” WCW) faced off against Kurt Angle in a wild match at the King of the Ring. Angle had a good hardcore edge as well and soon clashing with Shane in a stunning battle. It built up to Kurt intending to toss Shane through a plate glass window on stage with the PPV logo on it. But they found out the hard way that glass doesn’t just break like it does in the movies.

Instead of flying through, Shane slammed onto the glass, bounced off and landed square on his head. It’s astounding that he wasn’t severely injured but kept on going, taking the second bump to smash through the glass.

21 WCW: Sting Blows Out his Knee

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Some may point to this as one of the early signs of WCW’s downfall. As 1990 began, Sting was on fire as the new face of the company and the plan was clear for him to get the title. After being dumped by the Horsemen, Sting was to beat Flair at the upcoming WrestleWar PPV and have a good job with Flair booking him. After being attacked by the Horsemen at a Clash of the Champions, Sting raced to attack them during a cage match. But while coming down, Sting suffered a bad fall and tore out his knee. This meant no title change against Flair with Lex Luger turned face to take Flair on instead.

Sting was out for months, only making brief appearances (like the miserable RoboCop team-up) and his absence hurt the promotion.

He finally won the belt in July but by this point Ole Anderson had become booker and his bad ideas ruined Sting’s reign. Had this injury not taken place, WCW might have ended up much better off as one bad fall ruined so much.

20 TNA: A PPV Fire

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Some may claim this is the perfect image for TNA. In 2006, they were preparing for their Hard Justice PPV with Eric Young and Johnny Devine going at it in the opening bout. As they got going, smoke was seen floating from the ceiling as it appeared the opening pyro of the show had caused a fire. To their credit, Young and Devine managed to continue with the match as the Impact Zone security did their best to get the crowd out in a calm manner. The crowd, meanwhile, chanted “The Roof is on Fire”.

This led to the next half hour of the show featuring Don West and Mike Tenay trying to hype up the show from the parking lot while the Orlando fire department made sure things were okay. After a half-hour, everyone was let back in and the show continued (with naturally no pyro being used).

19 WWE: Perry’s Bell Beatdown

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Perry Saturn was a good worker in ECW as one half of the Eliminators. In WCW, he suffered a bit thanks to the messy politics, a good potential star but robbed of chances by the mess the company was. Thus, he jumped with the rest of the Radicalz to WWE but found himself the odd man out as the other three became highly successful. In early 2001, Saturn faced jobber Mike Bell for a TV taping. The rookie Bell started botching moves, including a slam that nearly dropped Saturn on his head.

Never the calmest guy in the best of circumstances, Saturn snapped and proceeded to smack Bell about, tossing him outside and throwing him hard onto the ring steps and barrier to the point of real injury. The brass weren’t happy but rather than just being fired, Saturn was punished with the idiotic storyline of getting a head injury and thinking a mop was his girlfriend. Maybe dumb but it was Saturn’s own fault for causing this mess.

18 WCW: The Junkyard Invitational

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Hardcore wrestling was a lot harder than ECW made it look. WCW learned that the hard way putting on a division with very ugly and horrible bouts. But the Junkyard Invitational at Bash at the Beach 1999 may be one of the worst ideas they had.

It took place at an actual honest junkyard with WCW coming up with the “genius” addition of traps to set off explosions and dropping debris down.

Being WCW, they never thought of warning those involved and thus a couple of guys nearly got crushed. The whole thing was ugly, shot from a helicopter in near darkness as Rocco Roc tried to drop an actual car on some guys below. At one point, Fit Finlay kicked over a flaming barrel, unaware it was set to explode and amazing no one got burned. Finley ended up winning this mess of a match that could have been one of the most epic disasters in the history of WCW.

17 WWE: Owen's Piledriver On Austin’s Goes Wrong

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It’s amazing to think how one mishap changed so much. By the summer of 1997, it seemed obvious that the plan was to build to a major showdown between Steve Austin and Bret Hart. Bret’s heel turn was fantastic and Austin was catching fire as the face who acted like a heel. At SummerSlam, Austin faced Owen Hart for the IC title with the plan for Owen to hit a trio of piledrivers, waste time gloating and get hit with a Stunner. But the first piledriver was botched so Austin landed on his head, compressing his neck badly. He flopped as Owen stalled for time before Austin somehow got the strength to wrap him up for the pin. It changed so much as Austin was out for months and thus shifting things to Bret and Shawn Michaels which set the stage for Montreal.

It also affected Austin, who was never quite the same and ended up cutting his career several years short. Without this mishap, the course of WWE could have been far different.

16 WCW: Funk vs a Horse

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Even by WCW’s standards, this was utterly insane. By 2000, WCW was a mess with their attempts to replicate WWE including a terribly done hardcore division. Naturally, they had to go over the top with it with a segment where Funk and Chris Candido took their feud to a brawl with them landing on a truck that took off on an episode of “Thunder.” The truck dropped them off in a huge ranch near the arena (which was in broad daylight despite the show taking place at night) as they started to fight it out.

The match led into a stall with a real horse inside as Funk piledrove Candido down.

At which point, the horse started to kick at both men, nailing Funk a few times in the back and head. Funk may have played the crazy cowboy but didn’t have much experience with horses for real and unprepared for this. Even livestock weren’t safe from WCW’s insanity.

15 TNA: Candido Takes A Bad Fall

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This was tragic on several levels. Chris Candido had been a good star for some in Smokey Mountain and later WWE. He was most famous for introducing his wife Tammy, better known as Sunny. Sadly, Candido was marked by various substance problems and other issues that held him down too much. By 2005, he’d finally kicked those habits and made a comeback in TNA. Not only was he wrestling but he was also managing the Naturals. At Lockdown, Candido was in the opening match inside a cage and took a bad dropkick from Siaki. As he flopped back, Candido clutched his leg in agony. In a sad irony, the announcers figured this was one of his usual tricks as he’d suckered in opponents like this before. But replays showed Candido had clearly broken his leg in an ugly sight.

Candido would go around on crutches to lead the Naturals to the tag titles. However, while undergoing surgery, a blood clot would burst and lead to Candido’s passing. Thus, a sad mishap led to his too-soon passing, making this mishap even worse.

14 WWE: Undertaker Suffers A Pyro Glitch

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The Undertaker is well known for being as tough off screen as he is on it. But this is something else. At Elimination Chamber 2010, Taker was part of the big Chamber match with CM Punk, Chris Jericho, John Morrison, R-Truth and Rey Mysterio. Undertaker made his usual slow entrance with pyro exploding around him, the kind he’d made countless times before. But somehow, something went wrong as one of the pyro bursts was too high and too close.

As a result, Undertaker actually caught on fire, suffering massive burns across his chest.

Incredibly, Taker still went through with the battle with the cameras not showing how he was dousing his chest with water bottles as he waited in his pod. He then got into the match and showed his usual routine. To suffer that type of burn and still spend a half hour in the ring won Taker massive respect and shows the Deadman is one of a kind.

13 WCW: Dustin and Bully Get Color

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1995 was not a good year for WWE but WCW wasn’t much better. In March, the company put on Uncensored, their attempt at an ECW-like event. It soon got famous as one of the absolute worst PPVs in history. Among the messy bouts was one where Dustin Rhodes took on the Blacktop Bully on the back of a moving 18-wheel rig. To call it a “match” is to give it too much of a compliment as they just fought it out, including tossing bales of hay on each other. It was a total mess with each nearly falling off the truck at one point and laughable how it was shown that traffic was flowing past the truck on this “closed-off road”.

Even worse was that each guy got busted open and WCW was against blood then so they had to work hard not to show their faces which just made it more of a mess. Both guys were fired immediately to show how the worst match on a horrible PPV was just one insane botch.

12 WWE: The Rockers’ Phantom Title Win

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Few tag teams were as amazing to watch as the Rockers. Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty were terrific with their high-flying and astounding double team moves, wowing fans constantly. Many consider them the best team to never hold the titles. But for a brief time, they did. In October of 1990, the Rockers were to beat the Hart Foundation for the titles on Saturday Night’s Main Event and thus a feud with Power & Glory. It was set up in a two-out-of-three falls battle and both teams giving it their all. But midway through the match, the second rope snapped and came loose. This threw the entire bout off. In the end, the Rockers won and that seemed to be that.

However, because the rope break caused such a mess, WWE made the decision to never air the switch and let the Foundation keep the belts.

Then, politics interfered with the Nasty Boys getting a push for the titles instead. Thus, the Rockers never got the title run they deserved thanks to a messy rope break.

11 WCW: Sid’s Cage Powerbomb

Sid powerbombs Brian Pillman

War Games is known for some extreme battles but this was something else. At SuperBrawl in 1991, the battle was set as the Four Horsemen took on Sting, Brian Pillman and the Steiners. A set-up had Pillman “injured” by the Horsemen and selling a bad shoulder as he charged into the ring first to take on the heels. It was the typical wild battle as everyone entered and doing a crazy job selling stuff. Sid grabbed Pillman and lifted him up for a power bomb. However, as Sid nearly touched the top of the cage as it was, that meant that he couldn’t get the proper height and ended up crushing Pillman right onto his neck.

It was a jarring sight as Pillman came within inches of having his neck broken. Sid did managed to hit the move again, correctly, with Pillman using the real pain to sell being out. This led to El Gigante calling the match for Pillman’s injury. Ironically, this made Pillman look better but still shows why Sid is disliked for his botches.

10 TNA: Jesse Sorensen

If you want a reason to really hate TNA, here it is. Jesse Sorensen was a rising star in the company, a great high-flyer and technical worker getting himself over well. It seemed only a matter of time before he’d win the X Division title and be a good way to build up the belt. At Against All Odds 2012, Sorensen was facing off against Zemma Ion in a bout for the number one contender. Zemma did a moonsault from the top rope, his knee smashing right onto the top of Sorensen’s head. What looked to be some great selling soon turned into serious concern as Sorensen laid motionless on the floor. Raced to the hospital, it was revealed that he had a C-1 vertebrae fracture with spinal cord edema. He came within inches of full paralysis and was out for a year.

Dixie Carter openly stated that Sorensen had “a job for life” with TNA and the company ready to take him back. Finally, in 2013, Sorensen was cleared, ready to come back…and then laid off as part of a slew of talent drops.

The guy nearly got killed for this company and they ended up firing him, a bad move that makes TNA look even worse.

9 WWE: Mankind’s Chokeslam Through the Cell

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It’s a moment that made Mick Foley an icon but it wasn’t planned. He and The Undertaker were worried about their Hell in the Cell match at the 1998 King of the Ring with Taker having a broken leg and they were worried about topping the previous one. They decided to start on the top with Foley taking his famous fall. To the shock of everyone, he kept right on fighting, climbing back on top of the cage for a big fight. This had Taker hitting Foley with a chokeslam that he would later cite as poor as he barely got one foot off the cage. But ironically, that helped as had he’d taken it correctly, he might well be dead. In an utterly unplanned move, Foley went right through the roof of the cage, smashing down into the ring.

Once more, he kept right on going despite the agony to make himself an instant star. But it’s notable how this was one part of this epic match that ended up being an accident.

8 WCW: The Shockmaster

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You can’t do a list of major mishaps and not include this. It’s almost legendary in wrestling and one of the most famous botches in WCW history. As the build to Fall Brawl ’93 began, the main event was War Games as Vader, Sid and Harlem Heat were to face Sting, Davey Boy Smith, Dustin Rhodes and a mystery partner. On a “Flair for the Gold” segment, Sting announced their partner was the Shockmaster, who the crowd had never heard of. Cue a big explosion as the guy burst through the wall in jeans, a vest jacket and a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet with glitter on it.

He came out…and tripped on a wood plank someone had put down to land flat on his face.

The helmet flew off, showing him as Fred Ottoman, last seen as Typhoon in WWE. He leapt up as Ole Anderson’s voiceover went out making threats to the heels, who were fighting not to laugh. Any chance the character had died right off and ironic how the mishap made the character even more notable than he would have been.

7 WWE: Mercury Eats a Ladder

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At Armageddon 2006, the tag title match was set with Paul London and Brian Kendrick to defend against William Regal and Dave Taylor. Just before the bout started, general manager Teddy Long came out and decided to spark things up by making it a ladder match and then adding MNM and the Hardys to it. It was a wild battle with major spots abounding but one that went horribly wrong. At one point, MNM double-teamed Matt Hardy only for Jeff to break it up. The ladders were set with one on top of the other and as Matt held Nitro and Mercury, Jeff leapt off the top rope, sending a ladder smacking into the duo’s faces.

But Mercury was out of position with the ladder smashing him full on. He was soon falling out of the ring with blood pouring out of his face. It smashed his orbital bone and cheeks, causing Mercury to lose 40 percent of the vision in one eye. He never fully recovered and it shows how dangerous those bouts truly are.

6 WCW: Hogan-Warrior II

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It was the rematch fans had waited years for. The bout WWE could never do, WCW was going to. Hulk Hogan and the Warrior (without the Ultimate) to face off and Hogan to silence the doubts of the one guy he could never beat. But it soon became obvious how badly Pat Patterson’s planning had been needed to make that earlier bout work. What fans got was an absolute disaster of bad timing, botched moves and more.

It’s telling that Hogan has actually taken a lot of the blame for how things worked out.

The most notable is how he was going to hit Warrior with a fireball and set up a big comeback. Instead, Hogan just produced a minor flash of light that had the crowd laughing. It ended with Horace Hogan helping his uncle win but Bischoff and Hogan are up front on how badly they helped ruin what should have been a dream battle.