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Remember when Matt Hardy fought Evander Holyfield in a WWE ring? Probably not...
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00:00Brace yourself for one hell of a ridiculous, shocking and just generally odd history lesson
00:04folks, because it's time to unpack some of those wholly strange and sometimes mind-boggling WWE
00:10moments that have largely been forgotten by the average wrestling fan. Gareth here from
00:15WhatCultureWrestling and here are 10 Forgotten WWE Moments You Won't Believe Actually Happened.
00:20Number 10, Braun Strowman's Massive Splash, Clash of Champions 2019. Seth Rollins' Universal
00:25Championship defense against one-time tag partner Braun Strowman didn't exactly immortalize
00:30itself on the night of Clash of Champions 2019. With the pair already losing their Raw Tag Team
00:35Championships earlier in the evening, their largely forgettable rivalry was mercifully cut short on
00:40the back of the Architect's emphatic win of the Monster Among Men. There was one rather fun highlight
00:45to be found within this pre-Fiend Rollins calamity though, in the form of the absolutely sensational
00:50visual of the
00:55And flip many a vehicle, Strowman's monstrous splash from the top rope easily ranks as the
01:04most audacious of his many unexpected physical feats. But you'd definitely be forgiven for
01:09forgetting this even popped the crowd on the night. This was the same PLE that sent the audience home
01:14seemingly happy, with the fateful sight of Bray's clownish demon force-feeding his leather glove to
01:19the defending champ after all. Number 9, Baron Corbin's Forgotten Night, Smackdown 2020.
01:24Baron Corbin hasn't half had his fair share of gimmick and role changes over the years.
01:29After initially rocking up on the main roster in his Lone Wolf guys, Corbin would ultimately
01:33transition into the wholly derided Constable of Raw, before eventually shifting into everything
01:38from a kingly new look to an ill-fated modern-day wrestling god. And it was during the dying days
01:43of his spell as the aforementioned King of the Ring winning Pin in the Ass, that it's often forgotten
01:48that Corbin assembled himself yet another crew of annoying henchmen to help him achieve his
01:53dastardly goals. After being split from their fellow forgotten son, Jackson Riker, on the back
01:57of the heat sent his way for some controversial Twitter activity, Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler
02:02were suddenly revealed as Corbin's new allies on the December 4th 2020 edition of Smackdown.
02:07The hilariously titled Knights of the Lone Wolf didn't stick around too long of course,
02:11being disbanded shortly after due to Cutler and Blake eventually getting released from the company,
02:16and so they simply became yet another reminder of WWE depressingly making it up as they went along
02:20during this often painful period. Number 8, MVP's Thorn and Vink management,
02:25Raw 2020. Speaking of which, the Knights of the Lone Wolf weren't the only unit suddenly given some
02:30main rostered time to shine, before quickly being dragged off TV during the barmiest of years known
02:35as 2020. In the wake of making an unexpected return to WWE at that year's Royal Rumble,
02:40MVP eventually went on to become something of a regular on Monday Night Raw. But just before he went
02:45about putting the pieces in place for the eventual Hurt Business squad, the former United States
02:49champion actually dusted off his manager's jacket for another bunch of lads on April 27th.
02:54None other than future Retribution and Chase U members Shane Thorne and Brandon Vink respectively,
03:00had already made their presence known on the Red Show since March. Yet aligning with MVP felt like
03:04a clear attempt to elevate the TMDK members above the level of forgettable jobbers during the
03:09excruciatingly silent early crowdless era. Vink and Thorne swiftly getting sent back down to NXT
03:15before quietly being disbanded as a team, alongside the fact very few can even recall this bizarre
03:19faction becoming a thing in the first place, tells you all you need to know about how successful
03:23this thrown-together alliance ultimately was. And that very.
03:27Number 7. Shelton Benjamin's Distracted Promos. Smackdown 2019.
03:31A fun enough team-up with the ultimate tag team utility player Chad Gable would kick off
03:35Shelton Benjamin's long-awaited WWE comeback in 2017. But by 2019, the former Intercontinental
03:41Champion had largely gotten lost in the mid-card shuffle, and it was during that hugely forgettable
03:46chapter in his career that the veteran suddenly found himself being thrown into some of the
03:50strangest backstage promo segments of modern times. Dumped in front of a camera before being
03:55asked everything from who will win an upcoming WWE title match, to whether he'd be interested
03:59in competing for the 24-7 gold, Shelton's silent response and odd stares around the room
04:04were definitely something. Then they just stopped. The closest thing to a payoff came about when
04:09Benjamin finally uttered the word Shorty to his former pre-Shorty G-Pal Gable backstage.
04:13But away from that, this just ranks as one of the weirdest and most random, unremembered
04:17running segments to pop up on the blue brand.
04:20Number 6. Matt Hardy fights Evander Holyfield. Saturday night, main event 2007.
04:25This one definitely feels like something that went down in another corner of the multiverse.
04:29However, the record does somehow show that Matt Hardy once went one-on-one with a former
04:33World Championship winning boxer in our timeline. With the Hardy boy being challenged to a
04:38boxing match by then-rival MVP on the upcoming edition of Saturday Night's main event back
04:43in 2007, the fact the latter was suddenly unable to compete due to being diagnosed with
04:48Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome soon paved the way for a pretty shocking upgrade.
04:52Along with roping in Michael Buffett to announce the brilliantly ridiculous circus set to unfold,
04:56a horrified Matt Hardy found himself sharing the squared circle with genuine boxing great
05:00Evander Holyfield. And as expected, the heavyweight former champ proceeded to work beat the stuffing
05:06out of the ladder lover. The dreamlike sequence, one also equipped with everything from WWE Diva
05:11Ring Girls to Corner Men, ultimately ended in a no contest after an irritating MVP decided to intervene,
05:17a move that resulted in him eating one hell of a right for his troubles. However, while many are
05:22quick to remember the likes of Tyson Fury and Mike Tyson stopping by to KO WWE's unfortunate full-time
05:27faces, Evander's bizarre wonder into the world of sports entertainment isn't revisited anywhere near as
05:33much. Number 5, Howard Finkel's Jericho Association, SmackDown 1999.
05:37Howard the Fink Finkel has quite rightly gone down in history as one of the very best announcers
05:42ever to do it. But there were actually a number of occasions over the years when the iconic voice
05:46found himself getting a little too close to the action. And perhaps the most easily forgotten of
05:51his few on-screen storylines involved the mighty Fink eventually donning a mask and going by the name
05:56of El Dopo. That is right, whilst allying himself with a recently debuting Chris Jericho on WWE programming
06:02back in 1999, Fink suddenly wound up in a hilariously wacky scenario that involved him clashing with Y2J's
06:08then-rival Ken Shamrock under a luchador mask. Sure enough, his time as a dodgy SmackDown referee was
06:13cut somewhat short after a brassed-off Shamrock saw through Fink's incredible disguise and fake
06:18accent upon being wrongly DQ'd against Curtis Hughes on September 16th. Again, a great many fondly remember
06:25Fink's unmatched work on the stick during his 40-year stint with the company. But you'll struggle to find
06:29anyone who can honestly recall this rare sight of El Dopo doing Jericho's bidding on the blue show.
06:35Number 4, Bobby Lashley collides with Aleister Black on the strangest stage, WrestleMania 36.
06:41Returning to the all-round bizarro world that was 2020 now, and to the Performance Center show of
06:46shows that played host to countless intriguing matches that have since been generally ignored
06:50slash forgotten by both fans and WWE themselves. Now sure, the company have begrudgingly acknowledged
06:55the likes of Drew McIntyre's long-awaited WWE Championship win, the Firefly Funhouse and
07:00Boneyard matches, and even most recently shone a spotlight on Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley's
07:04first battle on the Mania stage. But when it comes to one-time dream encounters like former
07:09NXT champion Aleister Black colliding with the dominant Bobby Lashley on the grandest stage of
07:13them all, the average wrestling fan or even WWE employee likely couldn't tell you a single thing
07:18about said hard-hitting battle. Given absolutely zero build in the lead-up to the early pandemic
07:23Mania, a lashly fresh off of the god-awful Rusev love triangle saga with Lana, ate a deliciously
07:29timed Black Mask counter mid-spear for the Aleister win in the end. And while the impromptu battle
07:34wasn't dreadful by any means, it still joined the likes of Liv Morgan vs. Natalya, Cesaro vs.
07:39Drew Gulak, a SmackDown Women's Championship five-way, and Elias vs. Baron Corbin as one of
07:44the many matches few even remember being on this strangest card of them all.
07:48Number 3, Bret Hart dethroned United States Champion The Miz, Raw 2010.
07:53Had Bret Hart's hotly anticipated WWE return reached its dramatic end with his plodding
07:58beatdown of Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 26, many would have just been happy to see the
08:02hitman given one last and much-deserved moment in the sports entertainment sun.
08:06But this absolute icon was surprisingly far from finished, folks. In a marvelously insane turn
08:11of events, after falling to Tyson Kidd on the May 10th episode of Raw, The Miz offered one of the Hart
08:16family the chance to challenge for his United States Championship. And with the hopes of
08:20embarrassing the dynasty in their home country of Canada, Miz opted for a battle with good old
08:25Bret. A week on, that's precisely what went down, with Vladimir Kozlov and William Regal being taken
08:30out by Kidd and David Hart Smith early on. Cue a villainous Chris Jericho popping into the ring in a
08:35suit and getting walloped by Natalya, with Miz also soon comically eating crap in the form of a heart
08:41attack, before being locked in a glorious sharpshooter for a simply extraordinary hitman victory.
08:45In between stepping back into the ring for the first time in years at Mania, and delightfully
08:49joining Team WWE at that year's SummerSlam, most overlooked that this all-time legend also
08:54found time to add an unlikely additional piece of gold to his mighty collection, upon making his
08:59epic comeback too.
09:01Number 2, that weird 2 out of 3 falls period, the main roster 2019.
09:05Look, if it wasn't clear already based on many of the forgotten entries found in this very list,
09:102019 to 2020 was about as peculiar as it gets in this already frequently absurd world of
09:15sports entertainment. With Vince McMahon going well full Vince McMahon as the 2010s reached their
09:20end and the 2020s got underway, the one-time head of creative frequently became strangely
09:25obsessed with everything from gauntless encounters to backstage fight clubs. But amidst the always
09:29baffling content folks remember being pumped into WWE TV around this time, it's often forgotten
09:34just how much Vinnie Mac got a kick out of 2 out of 3 falls matches at one point as well.
09:40This wasn't simply a case of the boss suddenly feeling that one fall just wasn't enough though,
09:44according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the never-ending stream of 2 out of 3 falls,
09:48elimination bout, and match restarting madness was actually WWE's way of adjusting to McMahon's
09:53new edict of performers hilariously now not being allowed to wrestle during commercial breaks.
09:57Because they don't do that in real sports, damn it!
10:00As with just about any entirely odd Vinnie Mac rule, this one too was ultimately scrapped later
10:04down the road. But never forget that there was a time there when 2 out of 3 became a weird
10:09main roster gnome. Number 1, Edge speared Jeff Hardy off the ladder before WrestleMania X7.
10:14Raw 2000. The charismatic enigma famously snapped a rated R superstar in half at WrestleMania 23
10:20after falling from up high. But easily the pair's most notable instance of total innovative chaos
10:25came 6 years earlier during TLC 2. In truth though, many forget that this wasn't actually the first
10:31time Edge had executed this sort of death-defying spear on a vulnerable Hardy mid-tag-team ladder contest
10:36though. SummerSlam 2000 saw the Hardy boys battling against Edge and Christian and the Dudley boys in
10:41the inaugural TLC battle of course, and that match also saw the future world champion collide with
10:46Hardy high in the air. When it comes to the exact spot involving Jeff dangling from some belts before
10:51getting snapped in two by his soaring rival though, that precise moment actually went down a hole 6
10:56months before WrestleMania X7 on an episode of Raw. Once again fighting against E&C in a ladder bout,
11:02it's largely forgotten that the Hardy boy pretty much rehearsed the very bump that would
11:06immortalize him and Edge on the grandest stage forever during a random September 25th,
11:102000 edition of The Red Show. What a time to be alive, eh? And that's our list of any other
11:15forgotten WWE moments people won't believe actually happened. Let us know all about them in the
11:19comments section right down below, and do not forget to like, share, and click on that subscribe
11:22button while you're at it. Also, if this sort of forgotten magic is your kind of thing, then head on
11:27over to whatculture.com and find some more fantastic articles just like the one this video you're
11:31watching right now is based on. I've been Gareth from WhatCulture Wrestling,
11:34thank you as always for watching this lovely video today. Hopefully I'll see your faces very,
11:38very soon, but in the meantime, just be good to yourself. Bye-bye!
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