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Fact or fiction? Just when wrestling has the answers, Reddit changes the question.
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00:00So I think it goes without saying, but Reddit is a very strange, weird and wonderful place,
00:05but mostly weird. And when it comes to wrestling, there have been many, many posts about some
00:10obscure, mind-blowing facts that you truly wouldn't believe, but yet somehow appear to be
00:16true. As a time capsule for everything good and bad about wrestling, Reddit is the promised land
00:21for those looking to unearth some crazy facts about the sport that we love so much.
00:25So let's take a look at them. As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:28and these are the 10 weirdest, mind-blowing wrestling facts, according to Reddit.
00:3210. Steve Blackman Nearly Died of Malaria Before His WWE Run
00:36Now, Steve Blackman was, and still is, hard as f**k, but he was given one of the toughest battles of
00:42his life long before he broke into the WWE in late 1997. Ironically, it was during his first attempt
00:48at Titan superstardom that a health concern outside of the ring almost took away his livelihood. After
00:53working for Stampede Wrestling in the mid-1980s, he was on the verge of scoring a full-time contract
00:58following some brief television appearances until he contracted near-fatal malaria during a tour of
01:03South Africa in 1989. It left him confined to a bed for almost two years, with the damage done to his
01:09health, size, and mobility enough to put paid to his hopes and dreams of ever making it in such a
01:15physically demanding trade. Until he did, because like I said before, he's hard as f**k, and wasn't
01:20going to take no for an answer. In some sweet circular synergy, it was Stampede Cornerstone's
01:25Owen Hart and Brian Pillman that helped him back through the door.
01:289. Nobody Has Held The Original ECW World Heavyweight Title
01:32There's always a caveat with belt stats, but this one only makes the slice of trivia all that more
01:40appealing. WWE World Heavyweight Title refers to any iteration of the company's top strap over the
01:46last several years, whilst the original ECW World Heavyweight Title of course discounts everything
01:52post-2006. It's an important distinction to make if only to rule out the first dual title holder,
01:57Rob Van Dam. But despite a who's who of industry icons serving as ECW's top star,
02:03none were ever selected to steward things in the WWE. That includes such luminaries as Don Morocco,
02:08Terry Funk, and Taz, as well as a host of hardcore icons that Vince McMahon just seemingly never saw
02:14as one of his top stars. It makes for slightly damning reading, if not all that shocking. Shane
02:19Douglas, arguably the most famous franchise player in the Philadelphia outfit's history,
02:24was reduced to the role of a cartoonish teacher during his short stint.
02:288. Taylor Swift Used To Babysit For Jeff Jarrett
02:32As comfortably the biggest country music-turned-mainstream megastar in music history,
02:36Jeff Jarrett knows a thing or two about making niche concerns huge. Taylor Swift, to a lesser extent,
02:41probably understands this, and it explains why the two interacted on a close personal level earlier
02:46in Swift's career. As Jarrett explained in an interview,
02:49She had a friend in the family and we became family friends. She's in the community. When
02:53Mine came out, she came over to the house and Jeremy Borash and I, we were having a creative
02:58meeting downstairs. Taylor would come over and get the girls to take them back to her house,
03:02and they'd bake cookies and all that kind of stuff. One day, Taylor brought over Joe Jonas.
03:07The Mine video is so creative, my daughter Jacqueline looked like a little Taylor.
03:11We were out on the lake, Taylor pulled up, and as bold as she always is, was just like,
03:14I want Jacqueline in the video. Okay?
03:16We flew up to Maine where we shot the video, had to turn over your cell phone on set and all that
03:20stuff. It was a good experience for the kids. Ain't she great?
03:247. Jinder Mahal's single WWE championship reign is longer than all four of Edges combined.
03:30The numbers don't lie, do they? And they spell disaster for Jinder Mahal at sacrifice.
03:35If only Scott Steiner were cutting a promo on the modern-day Maharaja back when he was the WWE
03:40champion in 2017. The reign might have actually stood half a chance. Alas,
03:44the run will be remembered for what it was, a panicked multifarious failure that served only
03:49to devalue a belt already suffering questionable prestige. Although it typically wouldn't be,
03:54this quirky statistic is unfortunately most definitely one at Mahal's expense rather than
03:59that of the rated-R superstar. Short title tenures often doomed the holder, but not here.
04:04Mahal's 170 days were painfully unremarkable, and when they weren't boring, they were too offensive
04:09to be genuinely heated. Contrast this with some legacy-enhancing runs against John Cena and others
04:15for an Edge character still very much on his ascendancy in the WWE at the time, and it is
04:19crystal clear who got the better deal.
04:216. Wrestler Talk Show Grifts Various
04:24Now, the image on screen that you'll see is a young Mickie James, innocently peering down the
04:28lens of a school photograph, not realizing that one day she'd be a contrast of herself. For a show
04:33profiling women that went from nerd to knockout in front of fictional school friends. This was the
04:38story of her appearance on a 2000 episode of Jenny Jones that's available to watch thanks to multiple
04:43uploaders on YouTube. It's extremely, uh, of its time in the worst possible ways, but at least gives
04:49you a semblance of agency to James as a budding pro wrestler. She wasn't the only one to give that
04:54era's crash TV circuit a try, according to some well-informed Redditors. Apparently, Justin Roberts
04:59was on Jerry Springer playing a guy whose girlfriend was cheating on him with his own
05:03sister. OK Volume 1 noted that Bill Dundee and JC Ice were on Springer pretending Jamie was pimping
05:09out some kid, and user Mr. Darks recalled watching New Jack pretend to be a guidance counselor on the
05:15Jenny Jones show. Wrestling and daytime scandal shows have never been so thematically close as they
05:20were back then. It's a wonder that almost every major name ever scribbled down on a format by Vince
05:25Russo didn't ply this trade at least once.
05:27Number 5. Jeff Jarrett almost took a Val Kilmer Hollywood role. Back to Double J again, with
05:33comments from a Cheap Heat interview, and big shout-out to Fightful for the transcript, that
05:37made it to Reddit about an intriguing Neely moment for the King of the Mountain. He said,
05:41That opportunity literally dropped out of thin air sitting in my desk. I'll never net because I've
05:46told this story. I've got an email. They said, hey, Val Kilmer was supposed to read for this part,
05:50but he dropped out. They're like, would you like to read for this? I'm like, yeah, sure. I thought it
05:54was a joke because it was a cold email that I received. Anyway, I did the read in my office and
05:58sent them back, and you got it, and they say, oh yeah, Selena Gomez is in the movie, and Vanessa,
06:03all of these stars, and look, I've got five kids. Four of them are girls, and you know,
06:07years ago, Disney Channel and Selena and all that. I was very excited that they were going to get this
06:11opportunity to meet her, but it was a fun part. But I don't have plans to go off to Hollywood.
06:15Read that, no plans, as being just yet.
06:18Number four, Christian Cage was Nick Khan's first wrestling client. Now most notably tied to one of
06:22the most ruthless cost-cutting endeavors in WWE history, current company president Nick Khan wasn't
06:28entirely brand new to the world that he entered in 2020. According to Redditor Cactus Mac, Christian
06:33Cage was Nick Khan's first client as a sports agent, helped negotiate his move to TNA, and was friends
06:39with Samoa Joe around the same time. The specific wrestler details aren't the easiest to track down on
06:44Google, which is as good a barometer as any of how true they may be. But some of Khan's employment
06:48history is thanks to his WWE.com profile, and the following passage would at the very least match
06:54up with the timeline of Cage's departure to Orlando, which reads, Khan, a former practicing
06:59attorney, transitioned to international creative management in 2006, where he launched their sports
07:04media department and represented the biggest names in sports broadcasting. He's apparently also
07:08lifelong friends with The Rock, further tethering him to a world that he's rapidly shook up.
07:123. Vince McMahon vs. Burritos, Snow Cones, Social Media, and His Own Staff
07:17It's an oldie but a goodie at this point, but Vince McMahon chowing down on a steak wrap and not
07:21realizing that the rest of the world knew it as something different remains as delightful as the
07:26food is delicious. As were these other morsels shared by a user known as Moss-Covered Gradunza,
07:31with a loose connection to the original sauce. And here we go! This is what they had to say,
07:35just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I'll respond with further when I recall more of
07:40them. The steak wrap slash burrito is absolutely true. He would, apparently, eat them all the time
07:44and never ever call it a burrito. He said he never heard the Snow Cone story before. Doesn't mean it
07:50isn't true, but he personally never heard it. When it came to social media, as it was growing,
07:54he always wanted The Miz to become one of the first guys they were really promoting. It sounded like he
07:58had a lot of faith in The Miz to be a guy who could run it. For many other wrestlers, he was indifferent
08:02about social media use. This was years and years ago, so obviously things have changed a bit.
08:07He very much did fire people on a whim. Some my old boss felt were justified, others were not.
08:12And then concluded by saying, keep in mind, these are not first-hand accounts for me. They all come
08:16from my former boss. And I realize this means nothing coming from a random stranger on the
08:20internet, but the person I used to work for very much did work on this for WWE and Vince.
08:25Number two, WrestleMania 19's main event is the only one to feature both wrestlers using their real names.
08:31As nice as it is weird, this cute trivia note adds yet another layer to the neck-breaking
08:36onion that is slash was the terrifying conclusion to the WrestleMania 19 event.
08:40Brock Lesnar's shooting star press was the headline coming out, replacing the panic around
08:44Kurt Angle's frazzled fame on the way in, with very little remembered about an excellent match
08:49between two ex-amateurs who desperately wanted to prove who was the best to turn pro.
08:54The fact that both worked with their real names is such a neat addendum to that.
08:58Angle was an ultra-established sports entertainment polymath by 2003,
09:02and Lesnar wasn't far behind him as both The Next Big Thing and The Beast.
09:06But going by their own monikers linked each man to a simpler but no less skilled time.
09:11The record is soon to hit its 20th anniversary with no end in sight, not least with the likes
09:16of Roman Reigns and Becky Lynch, sure to be on at least one side of the ring for years to come.
09:20And number one, Finn Balor's six minutes of magic.
09:23It apparently took just six minutes for New Japan pro wrestling bosses to make up their mind
09:27on whether or not to sign the future Finn Balor.
09:29It was after Fergal Devitt had worked this match that NJPW scouts allegedly got him an offer
09:35to attend their dojo, thus opening the door for him to kick off a legendary and life-changing
09:39run for the King of Sports.
09:41This was confirmed by Reddit user and former wrestler Nikita Alonov, Soviet Shooter,
09:46who added some additional color.
09:47Holy s***, I didn't know there was actually a decent video of this show floating around.
09:51I worked this show, might have even been the match right after this.
09:54Dave Marquez was there representing NJPW, and the showcase match from the Inoki Dojo
09:59was Alex Kozlov vs. Tommy Chang.
10:02As far as I know, Devitt was the only person to get an offer to go to the dojo directly,
10:06but Chad Allegra, Chance Prophet, and myself all got offers to go to the dojo in LA.
10:11And there we go, my friends.
10:12Those were the 10 weirdest mind-blowing wrestling facts according to Reddit.
10:15I hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down
10:18in the comments section below.
10:19As always, I've been Jules.
10:20You can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJ with a zero,
10:23or you can swing by Live and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming outside of work,
10:26and it'd be great to see you over there.
10:28But before I go, I just want to say one thing.
10:30I hope that you're treating yourself well with love and respect,
10:32because you deserve all of the best things in life, my friend,
10:35and do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise, all right?
10:38You are a massive legend.
10:39I want you to go out there and absolutely smash your life goals today.
10:42I believe in you.
10:43As always, I've been Jules.
10:44You have been awesome.
10:45Never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon.
10:47Bye.
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