10 Secret Messages Wrestlers Sent
Sly burials, coded signs and deafening silence - featuring Triple H, the Undertaker and more...
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 Now, wrestlers tend not to be the most subtle of creatures, bless 'em. By trade, they are
00:04 theatrical performers who are meant to project their star power and the stories they tell
00:08 to the back row of a major arena. And since wrestling is a performance art, it relies
00:13 heavily upon audience interaction. So therefore, they have to be the opposite of subtle in
00:17 most cases to get something over.
00:20 But that doesn't mean that there haven't been secret messages that wrestlers have sent
00:23 to each other, their loved ones, or even their enemies from time to time. So let's take a
00:28 look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCoach.com, and these are 10 Secret Messages Wrestlers
00:32 Sent.
00:33 Number 10. Triple H has a moment of madness on Twitter
00:36 Now, the relationship between Triple H and Vince McMahon became fascinating post-NXT.
00:42 Prior to that, it felt like they shared the same mind. Triple H did more to put over the
00:46 hulking Batista than anybody else. He was bang up for burying Daniel Bryan in 2013,
00:51 and he and Vince shared the same puerile sense of humor. And then Triple H committed the
00:55 cardinal sin. In a bid to get over by osmosis, he started promoting shorter pro wrestlers
01:00 and actually pleasing the marks.
01:02 Vince appeared to be more disgusted with his air by the month as the 2010s faded. Half-hearted
01:07 debuts on the Raw after WrestleMania evolved into Vince carelessly plugging in a total of
01:11 10 wrestlers from NXT across January and February 2019. It was clear that Vince had lost complete
01:17 faith in the process. He didn't want stars. He didn't think Triple H was capable of building
01:22 stars. He just wanted bodies under the pretense of refreshing a product so rotten that he
01:26 had to apologize, vouch. It was in December of 2018.
01:30 Triple H must have been frustrated, we all thought. And you know what? He was. In May
01:33 2019, he was caught on Twitter liking posts critical of McMahon in a telling, passive-aggressive
01:39 secret hint towards his frustration. At this stage of his corporate career, he had been
01:42 sent a grapefruit basket and he was spitting out the bloody seeds.
01:46 Number 9. Various wrestlers say the quiet part loud about the Velveteen Dream
01:50 Velveteen Dream was, and you'll understand that care must be taken when phrasing this
01:55 entry, accused of deeply unsavory sexual advances towards minors in 2020.
02:00 "WWE conducted some sort of internal investigation or other, and it can be inferred from the
02:04 fact that he continued to appear on television that WWE, at least, found no wrongdoing. We
02:09 looked into what was there," Triple H told Brent Brookhouse of CBS Sports, "and we didn't
02:14 find anything."
02:15 Certain hints cropped up that this view wasn't exactly shared by Patrick Clarke's peers.
02:20 At NXT TakeOver XXX, after Clarke was accused amidst the #SpeakingOut moment, for indeed
02:25 a second time, he worked the five-way ladder match for the North American title.
02:30 At this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, various wrestlers cosplayed as fans to emulate something
02:34 approaching to a normal atmosphere. As such, they were performative, popping for entrances
02:39 and expressing shock and awe in reaction to high spots. Not so with Clarke. Everything
02:44 he did was met with blanket, seemingly defiant silence.
02:48 Meanwhile, Rhea Ripley liked a tweet imploring Dream to be fired, and when her partner Adam
02:52 Cole was announced as working Clarke on the December 23, 2020 NXT show, Britt Baker tweeted,
02:58 "Lol," with no context.
03:00 This might be nothing. It should be noted. Perhaps this is all just connecting dots that
03:03 simply aren't there, but Clarke certainly didn't appear to be popular in wrestling circles.
03:08 Many talents seem to let their feelings be known in subtle, secretive ways.
03:11 8. Ryback is self-deprecating
03:14 Let's face it. Ryback is a pretty weird guy. He was a weird guy even before he realized
03:18 that nobody was ever going to hire him and fell off the deep end entirely. But he was
03:22 also absolute, pure banter. Now, very little of this was on purpose. He's not an intellectual.
03:28 In one of the funniest pro wrestling stories ever, according to Cody Rhodes and Bryan Danielson,
03:32 Ryback thought that James Cameron named his movie Terminator 2 because there were two
03:36 feuding Terminators in it. He was also banter in a deliberate way as well. Referring to
03:40 himself as "the big guy" in the third person was funny in a way that is difficult to articulate,
03:45 and he was prone to a bit of self-deprecation. In addition to admitting to CM Punk that he
03:49 was dumb as f—, he also sent a sly message to Creative with a message on his weight belt
03:54 in 2016. When he had officially checked out, he printed, "The pre-show stopper willfully
03:59 no-selling the mandated WWE speak of 'kickoff' as a means of sending up his role as yet another
04:04 demoted main event act that Vince had lost interest in."
04:07 7. MJF quickly deletes tweet
04:10 Now if it's difficult to ascertain what's exactly going on with MJF, then that is surely
04:14 the point. In collaboration with Tony Khan, probably, pro wrestling's most compelling
04:18 week-to-week storyteller, he's now cultivating a blurry mystery. He is legitimately pissed
04:23 off with what he's earning, as he should be, which has informed the realism of the story.
04:27 He's also so good and such a thoughtful storyteller that his nuance continues to pose questions.
04:32 He wore a "boo-hoo" face at Double or Nothing, and it was so glorious in its subtlety that
04:36 it still feels like he's on the way out, even if, ironically, him calling Tony Khan a f---ing
04:41 mark on the next Dynamite was indicative of a repaired relationship.
04:45 In another beautiful detail, MJF again, provided this is all 100% of work, used technology
04:49 to advance the arc by tweeting, "I'm running on fumes," a week or so removed from Double
04:54 or Nothing. He deleted it almost immediately after, knowing that someone, somewhere, would
04:58 screenshot it for posterity as a candid, secretive post that he thought better of sharing. In
05:03 short, it's quite brilliant, really.
05:05 6. Stardust uses subtext
05:07 When evolving his post-WWE character, Cody Rhodes was inspired by several industry luminaries.
05:13 His father was a key influence, of course. He was a very measured and articulate man,
05:17 drawing indirect inspiration from Nick Bockwinkle, albeit as a face. Cody played a besuited,
05:22 elegant, timeless figure in contrast to the athletic hybrid super-workers that had almost
05:26 become indistinguishable from one another. Deep into his AEW run, Cody, by sacrificing
05:31 his body in an artful, forward-thinking way, operated in a similar way to Mick Foley. He
05:36 was intent on putting his opponents over and accomplished it with his structural brilliance.
05:40 He was also, incredibly enough, inspired by Stardust.
05:43 On February 23, 2015, under the paint with a barely-suppressed fury, Cody cut a .com
05:49 digital exclusive promo away from the scripted confines of TV, bemoaning the state of the
05:54 industry. It was barely in character. "I want a steak," he ranted. "But before I get it,
05:58 I have to cut the fat. The slack is Goldust, but he's not alone. The slack is Big Show,
06:03 is Kane, is Mark Henry. My only word is get the attitude out."
06:07 More famously, when accepting the challenge of Dustin Rhodes again in 2019, Cody claimed
06:11 that he was here to kill the Attitude Era. In 2015, he was letting people in on a secret.
06:16 He was sick to the stomach of WWE recycling its past, and was planning, right here, to
06:21 change wrestling's future.
06:23 5. Kenny Omega's incredibly subtle burial of WWE
06:27 AEW is less than subtle when aiming digs at WWE. CM Punk enthusiastically and viciously
06:33 ripped the piss out of WWE, begging fans to attend WrestleMania with buy-one-get-one-free
06:38 offers. Several wrestlers have been glimpsed watching the action on Dynamite from physically
06:42 impossible angles. The imaginary brass ring is often referred to when an ex-WWE performer
06:47 reveals their intent to become the next best version of themselves in a promotion that
06:50 will allow them to be it.
06:51 And throughout 2021, Kenny Omega had some fun at WWE's expense as well. But it was
06:56 so subtle that it scant as a secretive in-joke of sorts. When cutting a promo building his
07:00 program with Hangman Page, he reminded Tony of a conversation that they'd had earlier
07:05 today.
07:06 Schiavone was nonplussed. They hadn't talked. This was Omega covertly burying Michael Cole's
07:10 very unconvincing signature exposition dump. Omega's patter was so sly in 2021 that it
07:16 escaped the usual toxic reception because many tribal fans just didn't pick up on it.
07:20 Perhaps that was the real punchline. His priceless non-sports-numbnuts insult didn't get a rise
07:25 out of the usual dickheads.
07:26 4. The Big Show is a Big Softie
07:29 Now, The Big Show isn't exactly famed for his loyalty. In fact, he's notorious for turning
07:33 on a once-every-few-months basis. Whenever John Cena needed a stopgap opponent for a
07:37 B-level pay-per-view, Show was there. Whenever Vince McMahon wanted an elephanteen man to
07:42 do comedy because it's just simply funnier that way, Show, cosplaying as Hulk Hogan,
07:46 was there.
07:47 Whenever Vince bloodied and pretty much murdered Kurt Angle-turned-heel and needed his babyface
07:51 murderer to feud with, Show was there. Whenever that uppity vegan Daniel Bryan needed a punch
07:56 to the mush, Show was there.
07:58 Whenever Vince remembered that his fearsome monster could cry because he was a gifted
08:02 actor by the standards of a wrestling giant, Show was there to turn face. It was a bit
08:05 like making The Undertaker wrestle in neon yellow, but still, Show was definitely there.
08:09 But Show is actually fiercely loyal to his wife, and if you've ever spotted him squeezing
08:13 his arm three times, that's Show sending a coded "I love you" message to her. That's
08:18 love as ironclad as the contract that he wouldn't shut the f--- up about in 2012.
08:22 3. Alexa Bliss checks out
08:24 According to a report from the reputable Fightful Select last year, Alexa Bliss had vocally
08:29 expressed her displeasure with the company following the bizarre aimless vignette shot
08:33 heralding her return to Raw. She actually returned to the Elimination Chamber and missed
08:36 out on a WrestleMania season. It was reported that she voiced her frustrations directly
08:40 to Vince McMahon.
08:41 If this was all hush-hush leaked stuff and not something meant for public consumption,
08:45 Alexa Bliss said a lot without saying much on the May 23rd edition of Raw Talk on the
08:49 WWE Network.
08:50 Now, what follows is pure speculation, but the interview conducted by Sarah Schreiber
08:55 following Alexa's actual return to Raw was deeply, deeply awkward.
08:59 Alexa was asked what it meant to pick up her third straight victory opposite former partner
09:03 Nikki Ash. "Yeah," she said, appearing apprehensive. "Nikki is on her own path," she offered up,
09:08 which was clearly a euphemistic code for "she's trapped in a s--- DOA gimmick."
09:12 And when asked about her own path, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Alexa looks to the ground.
09:17 When asked about her momentum, Alexa's eyes darted, as she says, insincerely that she
09:21 was "really excited" about where it takes her.
09:24 This all might be a reach, but Alexa really does seem to be communicating that she hasn't
09:28 got a f---ing clue what this new character is or what she'll actually be doing next.
09:32 2. The Undertaker and pals are bonded by ink
09:35 Now, the Bone Street crew has to be the funniest gang name ever. It's even funnier if you try
09:40 to picture the discussion in which the name was arrived at. "We're tight, like brothers.
09:43 We're in a gang. We need to come up with a name," the Undertaker must've said at one
09:46 point, and his brothers nodded along. "Hell yeah, we do. It needs to sound tough, like
09:50 Henry O. Godwin said. We ain't no Namby Bamby click types."
09:54 "I reckon you're right," Taker said. "Hey, what about this? We kick ass, right? We break
09:58 bones. Bones. What if we break so many bones that we could make a street full of them?"
10:03 And then Phineas Godwin said, "What about the Bone Street Boys?" and Taker just spat
10:06 out his tobacco, disgusted, saying that it sounded like a boy band.
10:09 But it's all less funny when you recall that "bone" was actually an informal word for "dominoes,"
10:13 which Taker and pals played backstage. But the misspelling of "crew" is still priceless.
10:18 1. There was a secret subliminal lyric in the Brood's theme
10:22 Now, let's face it. The Brood were, on reflection, pretty cringeworthy. However, at the time
10:28 and as a lover of floofy shirts, I absolutely love them. Gangrel, Edge, Christian, just
10:35 look at them rising out of there. I mean, yeah, sure, the spitting of the blood and
10:38 all the other gimmicks with the vampire stuff, absolute bollocks, but I loved it. Yeah.
10:43 And you have to admire Gangrel as well, who went the absolute distance and put shoot fangs
10:47 in his mouth. And the level of commitment wasn't actually merely physical. In a bid
10:51 to develop a cult following, which was the aim, after all, Gangrel, in league with then-in-house
10:55 composer the great Jim Johnston, apparently inserted subliminal backward lyrics into the
11:00 stable's entrance theme. He said,
11:02 "If you have the right skills and technology to play it backwards, it says, 'I buried Paul,
11:07 walk with me.'"
11:08 Gangrel said that Johnston's love of the Beatles informed the 1980s-style "Moral Panic" tribute,
11:13 and there also appears to be a Twin Peaks reference there in addition to the "Paul is
11:16 dead" myth.
11:17 And there we go, my friends. Those were 10 secret messages wrestlers sent. I hope that
11:21 you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments
11:24 section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Instagram, where
11:27 it's @retroj but the O is a zero. Hope to see you over there and you can check out all
11:31 my Warhammer paintings that I've been doing. Yes, I'm a nerd. As always, I've been Jules,
11:35 you have been awesome. Never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.