In WWE Defections are a noteworthy occurrence. Sometimes they are bland and expected but sometimes they are drop-dead shocking! Join Adam Hailing as he explores the most shocking defections in wrestling history!
What are some defections that you know that we didn't mention in the video? Let us know in the comments!
00:00 Introduction
01:23 #10
02:26 #9
03:34 #8
04:39 #7
05:36 #6
06:37 #5
07:50 #4
08:54 #3
10:06 #2
11:07 #1
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What are some defections that you know that we didn't mention in the video? Let us know in the comments!
00:00 Introduction
01:23 #10
02:26 #9
03:34 #8
04:39 #7
05:36 #6
06:37 #5
07:50 #4
08:54 #3
10:06 #2
11:07 #1
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Well blummin' heck, some stuff happened at All Out, did it not?
00:03 Not only did the Ghost of Tony Hawk past fight the Ghost of Tony Hawk future, not only did
00:07 the lovechild of Space Jam and Def Jam fight Bulgaria's meatiest flag, but there were
00:12 three capital huge, huge debuts - Ruby Soho won the Casino Women's Battle Royal, which
00:18 is a truly lovely thing to have happened after a WWE release earlier this year - but it's
00:22 the twin debuts of Elle O'Hara and Bryan Danielson that really made it seem like a
00:29 seismic shift has occurred in the professional wrestling scene - a dual pair of proper, legitimate
00:35 defections.
00:36 WWE tried their hardest to keep both men, Ruby was pushed, Cole and Danielson jumped,
00:41 Adam to finally reunite with his one true love and also Britt Baker, and Bryan to begin
00:46 his global tour of kicking all the best wrestlers in the world in the head.
00:50 But it got us to thinking, as big news normally does, what are the other most shocking defections
00:54 to have occurred in the wrestling biz when wrestlers have taken their ball and instead
00:58 of going home, have gone to play for the other team?
01:01 I'm Adam Hailing from PartsFunknown and here are the 10 most shocking defections in
01:05 wrestling history.
01:07 Which wrestler would you like to see defect to another company?
01:10 Let us know in the comments, don't forget to like and share this video around and subscribe!
01:14 Otherwise we'll defect to you.
01:18 That doesn't make, hang on, we'll defect, we'll kill you.
01:22 We'll kill you.
01:23 10.
01:24 Brian Pillman We're starting with what might be my favourite
01:26 story on the list, because it's a goddamn heist movie.
01:28 Brian Pillman, a cavalier poodle with a gun, properly hoodwinked his way from one company
01:34 to another.
01:35 In WCW in the mid 90s, Pillman was developing a character that was years ahead of its time,
01:39 a proto-CM Punk who'd tear down the fourth wall with a series of demented workshoots,
01:43 creating a bizarre continuity, or should we say a loose canon, where no one knew if he
01:48 was a gimmick or he'd legitimately become unhinged.
01:51 Even people within WCW didn't know he'd physically accost Bobby Heenan at ringside
01:55 without warning him.
01:56 Call the WCW booker at the time, Kevin Sullivan, booker man during a match and walk out before
02:01 appearing to get fired.
02:03 The whole thing was a scheme cooked up between Bischoff and Pillman for Brian to travel to
02:06 prominent indies like ECW and stir up a hornet's nest of controversy before returning to WCW.
02:12 To make it look real, the release papers Bischoff gave him were real, and Pillman used that
02:16 legal freedom to have a short stint in ECW before immediately double-crossing Eric and
02:21 signing with WWF instead.
02:23 Hustle, disloyalty, disrespect.
02:26 9.
02:27 Mike Awesome ECW One Night Stand 2005 is a heck of a show,
02:30 famous for a number of things that we're not going to mention.
02:33 However, something we've talked a little less about is an eye-watering match between
02:36 iconic rivals Masato Tanaka and Mike Awesome, which is like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds
02:41 but with chair shots instead of birds.
02:43 One of the fascinating things about the match is Joey Styles' commentary, where he repeatedly
02:46 and ruthlessly buries Mike Awesome, so much so that you think, does Joey really hate Mike?
02:52 Yes he did.
02:53 10.
02:54 Going back to a famous defection in the late 90s, Mike Awesome was ECW Champion in April
02:59 2000, when after refusing to sign a new deal with ECW over unpaid wages, which was the
03:03 style at the time, he zipped over to WCW and appeared on Nitro to beat up Kevin Nash whilst
03:09 wearing a bum bag, which was the style at the time, with commentary screaming "THAT'S
03:13 THE ECW HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION".
03:15 The ECW belt had to be gotten off Awesome and it happened in such a wonderfully forbidden
03:20 door-shattering way, Awesome dropped the belt to Taz at an ECW show, which was crazy because
03:25 it was a WCW guy dropping the ECW belt to Taz, who was currently signed with WWF.
03:32 It was the style at the time.
03:34 8.
03:35 Lex Luger
03:36 The Monday Night Wars saw a whole host of insane industry-boggling etiquette-murdering
03:40 defections, some of which we'll get to in other entries, don't you worry.
03:43 Rick Rude appeared on Nitro while his last appearance on a pre-taped Raw was airing,
03:48 making him the first person to appear on Nitro and Raw at the same time.
03:51 Wrap your heads around that, wrestling fans.
03:53 Jeff Jarrett's acrimonious departure from the big dub is infamous, but we have to talk
03:57 about the defection that kicked off the war, the opening shot.
04:01 The first episode of Nitro aired September 4th, 1995.
04:04 The night before, on September 3rd, Lex Luger wrestled a WWF house show in Canada then,
04:09 because he was out of contract with Vince's company at the time, hopped on a flight to
04:13 Minnesota to appear on the premiere episode of Nitro, and he did it without telling anyone
04:18 at WWF.
04:20 That is bold.
04:21 And as blindsiding a betrayal as you can get, as someone who has literally been watching
04:25 a wrestling show, only to see his promotion's current top champion make an appearance in
04:29 the crowd, to find out then and there that he's signed somewhere else, that is a heck
04:34 of a feeling and one of the few things that me and Vince share, other than a birthday
04:38 and a distaste for Shane McMahon.
04:39 7.
04:40 Medusa
04:41 1995 was a year for WWF, really was.
04:44 House show attendance was in the toilet, the roster was thinner than one of those stupid
04:47 weird gel mints you put on your tongue, and Nitro kept rummaging through their allotment
04:51 at night and making off with all of their stars.
04:53 And because my dad Eric Bischoff is a messy bitch that loves drama, all these new signings
04:57 were instructed not only to jump shit, but stick the knife in and give a little twist
05:01 on the way out.
05:02 Case in point, in 1995, the woman known in WWF as Alundra Blaze crossed over to WCW to
05:08 retake her original identity of Medusa.
05:10 The issue was, she'd been let go from WWF while still being in possession of their championship
05:15 belt, and when she told Eric of this, he clapped his hands together like he'd just been told
05:19 it's Double Pudding Friday.
05:21 Medusa was told to bring the belt to WCW, appear on Nitro with it, and drop it in a
05:25 trash can live on TV where it would sit until she'd become Alundra Blaze again and fish
05:30 it out of the WWE Hall of Fame.
05:31 Oh the silly wrestling companies and their silly wrestling games.
05:35 6.
05:36 Brock Lesnar
05:37 It's always nice when your main event scene is packed with full time proven draws, aka
05:41 WWE from 1998 to 2001 inclusive.
05:45 However, as the Attuderer drew to a close, The Rock had one foot out the door, Austin
05:49 had chronic neck, Foley had retired, Undertaker had been one bad bump from retirement for
05:53 basically the last five years, Triple H's legs had exploded, so in late 2001 Vince had
05:58 the sobering realisation he had to make a new start fast.
06:02 Cue the originator of the Brock Lesnar push, Brock Lesnar, debuting the night after WrestleMania
06:06 18 and was WWE Champion by Summerslam.
06:09 WWE were super duper serious about making Brock Lesnar the new face of the company.
06:14 Brock got over and everything was going to be fine with the company as long as that new
06:17 face didn't get farm boy cross about having to travel around in those fancy planes, trains
06:21 and automobiles all the time and run away to throw balls instead of men.
06:25 Sadly, that's exactly what happened and right after WWE invested literal years in
06:29 making Lesnar the most important man in the company, he split for the NFL, leaving WWE
06:34 and its fans at Mania XX quite peeved.
06:37 5.
06:38 Mitsuhara Misawa
06:39 Time for a Japanese wrestling story, somewhere out there Tempest's little ears are pricking
06:42 up and his little tail is starting to wag.
06:44 There are a number of big wrestling companies in Japan, New Japan, Stardom, but for about
06:48 20 years in the 70s and 80s, the biggest was All Japan Pro Wrestling, founded by wrestling's
06:53 other most famous giant, Giant Baba.
06:55 However, being the biggest player in town, the company was plagued by defections and
06:59 oh man when people quit All Japan they did it in style.
07:02 The company has had like 3 different mass exoduses of talent in its history, in each
07:07 case an entirely new promotion being formed to house all the talent that ran away.
07:11 In 1990, Super World of Sport was formed by All Japan Breakaways, Ditto in 2013 when Wrestle1
07:16 was formed by Keiji Muto after a mass talent resignation, but the most famous case is the
07:21 formation of Pro Wrestling NOAH.
07:23 In 1999, Giant Baba died and the ownership of the company passed to his widow, dismayed
07:28 at the proposed direction for the company, Mitsuhara Misawa, one of the 4 major names
07:32 in All Japan history, resigned to form a new promotion, Pro Wrestling NOAH, taking with
07:37 him all but 2 of its top native talent, a bunch of big name gaijins and its goddamn
07:42 TV slot as well.
07:44 Total scorched earth policy.
07:45 Although the promotion's called NOAH so I guess it's a total wet earth policy.
07:49 4.
07:50 Ric Flair
07:51 The natural boy, the dirty player in the game and the man who's fuelled by divorce like
07:56 most cars are fuelled by petrol.
07:57 Ric Flair was synonymous with 2 major companies throughout 2 of the biggest decades in wrestling
08:01 history, the NWA and then WCW, like Cody in AEW, like Hogan in WWE and Inoki in New Japan.
08:08 He was THE guy in the company, which made it all very weird when WCW fired their biggest
08:14 star and he hopped over to their biggest competitor for a cup of coffee.
08:17 See the running of the company had been taken over by Jim Hurd.
08:20 Jim Hurd fundamentally misunderstood what WCW fans wanted.
08:24 The fans wanted Ric Flair because he was Ric Flair.
08:27 Jim Hurd wanted Ric Flair to shave his head and be renamed Spartacus and not pay him as
08:31 much because Jim Hurd eats crayons.
08:33 Flair refused, got canned and like Medusa they omitted one small thing, they forgot
08:37 to get the WCW Heavyweight Championship off him before he left.
08:40 So in an act that would cause Twitter to herniate today, he took the big gold belt to fucking
08:45 WWF with him.
08:46 WCW sued WWF so they eventually had to use a pixelated tag championship instead of the
08:51 big gold, but still, absolute scenes.
08:53 3.
08:54 Chris Jericho
08:55 AEW is a company that is built on defection.
08:58 Exodus is part of its very bone marrow, The Elite defecting from New Japan, Jon Moxley
09:03 turning new WWE contracts down, seeing WWE lifers like Paul Wight and Mark Henry popping
09:08 in to pop Vince's blood pressure, but at the very heart of it is one key defection
09:12 from a man who has a habit of it, Chris Jericho.
09:15 Sure, Cody Rhodes too, but Jericho was the bigger name, Jericho was the first champion,
09:20 Jericho was the first ballot WWE Hall of Famer, whose day one allegiance with this new brand,
09:26 this new whippersnapper of a company, helped to draw those crucial frustrated WWE fans
09:30 looking for an actual alternative.
09:32 And it's not even Jericho's first rodeo, sure his New Japan excursion was officially
09:35 sanctioned at first, but he made his bones in the big dub by making a big deal of escaping
09:40 WCW in its prolonged death throes.
09:42 Him bolting from the company and immediately being treated like a big deal, debuting in
09:46 a segment with The Rock, getting to keep his WCW name, led to other such defections like
09:51 The Radicals, all helping to give WWF the best midcard in wrestling history.
09:56 Also just a little fun fact to end this entry, while in contract negotiations with WWE in
10:00 2007, Jericho teased jumping ship to TNA by posting a picture of their logo to his website.
10:04 The man knows how to play the field.
10:06 2.
10:07 Scott Hall and Kevin Nash
10:08 Wrestling's most lucrative boom period was the late 90s.
10:11 That boom period was kicked off by WCW somehow going from dungeon of doom bullshit to suddenly
10:17 very cool indeed overnight.
10:19 WCW became very cool when Scott Hall and Kevin Nash air quote "invaded" WCW from the
10:24 WWF wink wink.
10:26 Hall and Nash saw the chance for better money in fewer days and jumped ship, but unlike
10:30 those that jumped before them, they jumped with the gimmick of being WWF guys, working
10:35 on behalf of Vince's company to bring down WCW.
10:38 "You know who I am," said Scott Hall, not explicitly calling himself Razor Ramon,
10:43 but still doing the accent.
10:44 The fans did know, and the fans flipped for it.
10:47 This seems incredibly hokey now, but after the ludicrous real life antics of Lex Luger,
10:51 it was papered over with this tangible reality that made it instantly the biggest storyline
10:56 of the year, especially after the lawsuit started flying around that's the mark you've
10:59 truly defected and not currently being wished well in your future endeavours.
11:02 However, the final cherry on the NWO cake would come a short while later, courtesy of
11:07 1.
11:08 Hulk Hogan
11:09 Single handedly, wrestling's most effective turncoat.
11:14 Way back in the early 80s, Hulk Hogan was being tipped for very big things in the AWA.
11:19 Before Vince made him an offer, he couldn't refuse, and Hulk left to become the biggest
11:22 guy in professional wrestling, leaving Verne Gagne's AWA with such crushed hopes and
11:27 dreams that the rumour persists to this day that Gagne tried to bribe Iron Sheik to break
11:32 Hogan's leg in the match at Madison Square Garden intended to crown him WWF Champion.
11:37 Hogan pledging his considerable star power to Big Vince was instrumental in setting apart
11:42 the fed as the industry leader, but then when the bloom came off the fed's rose in the
11:46 early 90s, Hogan skipped out to try and make movies, those were a lump of arse, so he returned
11:50 to wrestling for WCW, WWF's competitor.
11:55 Mr. WWF was now Mr. WCW, so he jumped from the AWA, ushered in a boom period, then jumped
12:00 to WCW, and eventually ushered in a second boom period when he turned heel with the NWO.
12:06 All your favourite wrestling memories as a kid?
12:07 Chances are most of them are down to Hulk Hogan having the brand loyalty of a Capitalist
12:11 Mayfly.
12:12 And that's our list, if you liked it, give it a share around the internet, go on why
12:16 not, make sure you subscribe to partsFUNknown for more very silly wrestling content and
12:21 above all else, never forget to Jam That Jam.
12:24 out.