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From NXT to the classic era, dive into seven unforgettable moments when wrestling matches went off-script, resulting in totally accidental and unplanned championship victories. See how wrestlers and the company reacted when the wrong person won the gold!
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00:00In late 2025, Thea Hale and Blake Monroe were fighting for the NXT Women's North American
00:05title, and Thea Hale won. Why is that interesting, my friends? Well, because she wasn't meant to.
00:10For one reason or another, the referee counted three when Blake didn't get her shoulders up,
00:14and look, humans make mistakes, it doesn't matter. Everybody was okay, and that's the main thing.
00:19Maybe sometimes we should just enjoy these mishaps only in wrestling. It is not the first time,
00:24and it definitely won't be the last, because wrestling is nuts, and that's why I flippin'
00:27love it. So I'm Simon Miller, I've got no hair, and let's take a trip down memory lane to enjoy
00:32these stories, because they're crazy. Number seven, Thea Hale wins the North American title.
00:37So I can't just leave you with the headlines, because that would be mean, we've got to get
00:40into it, but on the 16th of December NXT show, Hale hit a springboard sent on onto Blake, and
00:45yep, the ref counted one, two, three, and the world stopped. You could see that Thea freaked
00:50out in real time, because that wasn't meant to happen, and everybody went real quiet. Production
00:55then played Monroe's music, because she was meant to win. It was a very real situation in a predetermined
00:59world. Now we don't know what happened, but it did look like the move knocked the wind out of
01:03Blake, and as the officials were told to count as if the match was legit, well, technically it all
01:07fell apart. It was kind of wonderful to see Thea not know how to react, because understandably she
01:11was likely a bit worried. Accidentally winning a championship is likely sending a rogue email on
01:16normal jobs, but then you got the reaction of the crowd when they realised what had happened,
01:20and they accepted this change. That was really nice, the fans are in to fear. So sure it was a
01:25bit messy, but as above, as long as everybody is alright, it's fine. We also write the stories,
01:30and we can write a new one for this, which is basically what Shawn Michaels did. It did kinda
01:34suck, because NXT had sorted TV for weeks after this, so they had to re-record segments, but hey-ho,
01:39it got done. Onwards we go, and it will be a good story if either one of them ever wants
01:44to write a book.
01:45Number six, men on a mission become the tag champs. I love men on a mission. They rapped,
01:49they seemed super happy, and they wore bright colours. I mean, really, they were the most 90s
01:54thing ever. Mo and Mabel definitely got themselves over as well, so much so the latter actually got
01:58a massive push. It didn't work out, but as he was getting cheered and was massive, Vince McMahon
02:03decided to put Mabel in the main event. I mean, of course he did. That's Vince McMahon. That was 1995,
02:08mind, and in 1994, Mabel and Mo had their own moment. During a non-televised house show,
02:13they beat the Quebecers, who were indeed the WWF Tag Team Champions. Problem was,
02:18that wasn't meant to happen. Somebody just didn't kick out. This was after a 450-pound Mabel had
02:23fallen on Pierre Willett and basically stunned him. It knocked the wind out of him too, so yep,
02:28when the big man made the pin, Pierre did not kick out. For some reason as well, the WWF did
02:33acknowledge this, before the titles were switched back on another house show. I of a wonder, given it
02:37was mentioned, if the powers that be did this on purpose. I mean, why not, right? You're then telling
02:42the audience that anything can happen at a house show, so maybe you should come on down.
02:47It's been lots of money.
02:485. Mickie James and Victoria Forget
02:50As we mentioned a few times, the biggest issues when you get a wrongful winner in title change
02:55is to figure out what to do next. The immediate aftermath is always awkward because you can see
02:59the talent trying to figure it out in their heads, and if you're a true legend, you think on your
03:03feet.
03:04This is what happened in April 2007 when Mickie James accidentally pinned Victoria during another
03:08house show. Essentially, once again, Victoria forgot to kick out, so James was now the champion,
03:13which was not the plan. Melina was also in this match, and she was meant to retain. Whoops.
03:18In a true bit of fun, however, rather than wait to sort it, WWE just came out and said,
03:22ha ha, Melina is so mad. She wants a rematch later tonight, and boom, she won her title back.
03:28So now the crowd had seen two championship changes, and surprise, surprise, the audience liked that.
03:33This was another one that WWE did recognise, as well they should. Wrestling can go wrong,
03:38just make the most out of it. I mean, if we are living in a fake world, for lack of
03:41a better term,
03:42you may as well lean into the fakeness. In fact, that's why wrestling is so great,
03:46but of course it still hurts, damn it. You know what I'm talking about.
03:494. Razor Calls Unaudible
03:51People forget that Razor, Ramon and Shawn Michaels had two ladder matches for the Intercontinental title.
03:56The WrestleMania 10 encounter has been written into history,
03:58but the second at the 1995 SummerSlam is also great, and basically helped get this gimmick
04:03match going in the WWE. In May 1995, Scott Hall actually faced Jeff Jarrett on a house show,
04:09and yet once again we were using a ladder. Jeff was supposed to win the thing,
04:13but when he accidentally missed his cue to stop Razor Ramon, who was about to grab the belt,
04:17well, Ramon caught Unaudible. He could stay inactive for too long, but he didn't want to look like
04:21an idiot, so because Jarrett wasn't coming, well, he grabbed the belt and he became the flippin' champion.
04:26As other entries in this list, WWE just rematched them two days later, and I like it.
04:31I mean, how many times do we as fans get on a wrestler's case for breaking down
04:35when quite clearly, you're right there, you mother hubbard, grab the belt?
04:38Not Scott Hall. Jeff Jarrett had his chance and he was late.
04:42And I would imagine that Double J never did this again.
04:44Number 3. The Hardcore Mania Meltdown
04:46So for one reason or another, this one has gone down in infamy.
04:50I mean, people talk about it online all the time.
04:52It was back at WrestleMania 2000 when we decided to throw in as many human beings as possible
04:57to the Hardcore title match.
04:58The 24-7 rule meant a host of wrestlers felt like they deserved a shot.
05:02The title changed hands 10 times during the thing, and look at Crash Holly.
05:06He walked in as the champion, and, well, he lost it to Taz in about 25 seconds.
05:1014 minutes later, Crash won it back, before cousin Hardcore Holly cracked him with a jar of sweets
05:16and pinned him.
05:17I mean, that's not very nice at all.
05:18The problem was Crash was meant to kick out, and for some reason he didn't, which is becoming
05:23my catchphrase for this video.
05:24You can even see referee Tim White hold up his count before going, well, I've got to hit
05:27three eventually.
05:29I mean, Crash wasn't moving, and that meant Hardcore Holly left with the title.
05:33Let me just summarize this to you in one sentence.
05:35It wasn't meant to happen, and then we just went and sorted this out on Raw.
05:39Once again, though, if you do look closely enough, you can kind of see all the individuals
05:42looking at each other, because they just made one big whoops.
05:45Number 2. AJ Styles and the US title
05:47AJ Styles has been doing this at such a high level for so long, this sort of thing was
05:51always going to happen.
05:52I looked into the maths, and it's called the Law of Averages.
05:55In 2017, he was feuding with Kevin Owens as well, so yeah, fans were pumped about that.
06:00The fact we even got to a time where Kevin Owens and AJ Styles were both in WWE, we had
06:05come a flipping long way.
06:06The first battle of Backlash was really good, except the fact it had a redundant countout
06:10finished, but that just meant we got a round two at the Battleground pay-per-view,
06:13and this one ended with madness.
06:15Because Kevin Owens did reverse a crossface into the most devastating move in all of sports
06:19entertainment, the surprise roll-up, and yes, Styles was meant to kick out, and guess what
06:23happened?
06:23He did not.
06:24Who the flub knows what happened, but the referee counted three, and we soon learned
06:28this was not the plan.
06:29The word was Styles was super upset after this, but it does make sense.
06:33That man is a super pro, and it also meant the US title he'd only just won a couple of
06:37weeks ago, well, he lost it.
06:39But don't worry, because two days after this, he won it back.
06:42Kind of sums it up.
06:43Number one, Gene Konitzky gets the stipulation wrong.
06:46So there was a time when the NWA World Heavyweight title was the belt in wrestling.
06:50Legendary figures had won it and turned it into the ultimate prize, and icons like Luthez
06:54and Pat O'Connor would hold it for years.
06:56It just meant when there was a change, you were going to hear about it.
06:59The rule back in the 1960s, too, was if the championship was going to be moved on,
07:03it had to do so in a 2 out of 3 falls match.
07:06That way, if you did become the new champion, you had doubly proved you were the guy.
07:10It's also why so many of these fights went 60 minutes or more, which is why Gene's
07:13Konitzky entered his title match against Dory Funk Jr. with all this in mind.
07:17Gene has talked about it himself, but when Funk applied his spinning toehold, Konitzky submitted
07:22because he thought he was winning.
07:24This is Dory's big move.
07:25I've got two more falls to turn it around.
07:27No problem.
07:28Well, nope, that wasn't the case.
07:30Because for whatever reason, the NWA had decided they were going to shake things up
07:33with a rare singles match for the title, so Gene had just lost his belt.
07:38Amazingly, the powers that be stuck with this, too, and Dory held the title for 1,563 days.
07:45Turned out Funk was going to win it later on the year anyway, but hey-ho, we're here now.
07:49Let's just go with it.
07:50So that really is awesome, and it gets rid of this idea of, well, wrestling was way more
07:53serious back in the day.
07:55Mistakes happen, man, and you may as well embrace them, because whether it is 1942 or
08:002079, they are going to smack you right in the face.