Undertaker and Triple H perform vile material on TV that has nothing on the reality of the 2000s.
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00:00We all talk about the madness WWE got up to during the Attitude Era, but what about the
00:04time we moved forward and enjoyed Ruthless Aggression?
00:07Widely regarded as the next phase, you would think things switched around to establish
00:11that we were moving on to past is new.
00:13Nope.
00:14And in fact, some of what we did was even more nuts.
00:17So please do brace yourselves, my friends, cause yeah.
00:20This is the 10 Most Infamous WWE Ruthless Aggression Era Controversies.
00:24Number 10.
00:25The Billy and Chuck Wedding
00:26This should have been a moment in time.
00:28It would have been better if we did it with two homosexual men to underline that it's
00:31perfectly fine for two males to be in love and get married, but this is what we had.
00:35If nothing else, it would be a fine message to send out to an audience.
00:38And then WWE went the other way entirely.
00:40For those that don't know, Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo did join forces in November
00:442001, with the idea being there was every chance they were gay.
00:48This was heavily insinuated without being outright said, but to get this across, they
00:52were overly flamboyant and wore pink.
00:55I mean, that was silly.
00:56We don't need to lean on stereotypes.
00:58The thing is, the company even reached out to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
01:02to consult on this storyline, so there was a little bit of confidence.
01:06Maybe this was going to be a proper finger flip to bigots across the land.
01:09GLAAD, as they're also known, admitted that WWE had promised to air the Billy and Chuck
01:13wedding too, which really did have some intrigue behind it, when we flipped that switch.
01:18Cause even though for weeks we did advertise that they were going to tie the knot, it turned
01:22out this was a publicity stunt, with Billy being scripted to say, we're not gay, as
01:28if this was a terrible thing, it is really not cool at all.
01:32Thankfully we would never do this sort of thing today, but here's the kicker, we shouldn't
01:36have been doing it then either.
01:379.
01:38The Katie Vick Angle
01:39I mean, where on earth do I begin?
01:41If you know you can just stare off into the distance for a while and cry, and if you don't,
01:45well I suppose I'm going to have to tell you.
01:48Make sure you're sitting down.
01:49In the fall of 2002, we learned that Kane had killed a woman.
01:54This was after Triple H had accused him of being a murderer on Raw, and in a bid to explain
01:58himself, the big red machine admitted his pal Katie Vick was dead, but it was because
02:02he was driving a car that he wasn't used to, and crashed.
02:06He survived, she was dead, what on earth are we doing?
02:09Hunter then pushed this boat out by telling Kane he had been drinking behind the wheel,
02:12and that's why it happened, and that when doctors did an autopsy, they found the masked
02:17man's semen in her body.
02:19I am not making any of this up.
02:22This then turned into some awful unrequited love storyline, to try and get one over Kane,
02:26Triple H did indeed sneak into a funeral parlour, and pretended to hump a corpse.
02:32I don't know how else to explain it, the absolute worst bit being this was a real place, with
02:37an actual funeral going on in the next room.
02:39The vision of Trips doing this is burned into anybody's brain who watched it live, and I'd
02:43tell ya, I took a break from wrestling after this.
02:46You will be stunned to hear I had no interest watching a man have fake sex with a mannequin
02:50that was meant to be a deceased human.
02:52I mean, who the hell could have ever called that one?
02:558.
02:56Mohamed Hassan
02:57We are getting into it now, and I'm crying again.
02:59It's just a question of taste mostly, although once again WWE actually acted like they had
03:03a nuanced idea at the start of this.
03:05The world had become a very worrying place after the 9-11 attacks, and the racism aimed
03:10at many Arab Americans was terrible.
03:12Therefore why not have a character that calls out the nation for this stance, and how it
03:15has to change.
03:16Yeah.
03:17Cool.
03:18Right.
03:19I get that.
03:20Shine the mirror onto people's biases, and let's see if we can't craft a very deep storyline.
03:23The problem as ever is that it is wrestling, so within weeks Mohamed Hassan, who had been
03:27invented to carry this idea, was turned into the worst of all stereotypes.
03:32There's that word again.
03:34While Hassan was meant to be received as a persecuted figure, WWE were soon going back
03:38to the old foreign men-ish tropes, with the absolute worst part being…
03:427.
03:43The Worst Angle Ever
03:44That's right, we bookend all of this because it feels like they deserve their own entries,
03:47and once again I'll do my best to explain.
03:50Come 2005, the Hassan gimmick was full on controversial and in bad taste, with nationalism
03:54and patriotism taking centre stage.
03:56Vince McMahon then decided The Undertaker would be a great opponent for Mohamed to defend
04:00America, when Hassan and a group of masked men turned up on Smackdown and beat up The
04:05Fiend Arm, and it was made out like it was a terrorist attack.
04:09This would have been horrendous anyway, but the real shock to the system is the fact this
04:12happened just days after the London bombings.
04:15We are now talking next level offensive.
04:17The backlash was loud and angry as it should have been, and unsurprisingly TV network UPN
04:22told the company to get this off the show instantly.
04:24I think at this stage even WWE realised they screwed up, and poor Mark Capagni, who had
04:29been cast in this role, never wrestled again.
04:32Wasn't his fault, was just doing what he was told.
04:34Either way though, this was bottom of the barrel nonsense.
04:376.
04:38Triple H vs Booker T
04:39It's only fair to say that Booker T has spoken out about this angle, and he gets to
04:43have the final say on this matter.
04:45He was in it, it was his story, so anything that comes out of my mouth moves into a lesser
04:49position.
04:50If we are talking about moments that left people reeling though, you do have to throw
04:53it in there.
04:54And the major reason for this was because WWE decided to make it about race.
04:58Yep.
04:59I'm not going to get into how they approached this, because as ever there was no nuance
05:02to it.
05:03And instead we had lines that were meant to sound like Triple H and Ric Flair thinking
05:06a black man shouldn't be in the position of a world champion.
05:09He was quite astonishing.
05:10To try and give some back and forth to this, Bruce Prichard said on his podcast this was
05:14designed to bury WCW.
05:16But if that's the case, I'm not sure why we throw in lines like nappy hair.
05:21That to me feels abusive and rude.
05:22There was also the frequent use of the term you people, which turns my stomach to be honest.
05:27But I tell ya.
05:28Even if this is what WWE wanted to do, there would have been a perfect out when we got
05:31to WrestleMania 19 and Booker T just whipped the game's ass.
05:36You damn right.
05:38prejudice without serious consequences.
05:40And then we got to that day, and Triple H won.
05:43Ah no.
05:44Even right now I don't get why we did this other than silly backstage politics, because
05:48even if you do get rid of all of the above, at WrestleMania, just have the good guy go
05:53over.
05:54This wasn't cool.
05:56This wasn't cool at all.
05:575.
05:58The Eddie Guerrero Exploitation
06:00Once again I want to make it clear that people like Rey Mysterio have spoken out about this.
06:04They get the final say.
06:06We were just the watchers.
06:07As a fan viewing this though, it did feel very uncomfortable after the tragic passing
06:10of Eddie Guerrero in November 2005, mostly because we kept on going back to it.
06:15I don't think anybody minded Rey Mysterio winning the 2006 Raw Rumble and dedicating
06:20it to Latino heat.
06:21That was emotionally heartbreaking, but it was the other side that raised eyebrows.
06:25For example, given that Randy Orton was feuding with Mysterio at the time, he was scripted
06:29to say that Eddie was in hell.
06:32I now feel rotten having to repeat that, and let's be fair to Randy too.
06:36He told everyone backstage he didn't think this was right.
06:38What could he do?
06:39I suppose the best way to underline it is that we went too far into almost using Guerrero's
06:43passing to sell stories, as opposed to having them as a loving tribute.
06:48And sure, maybe Eddie would have wanted this, which was the constant defence, but many fans
06:52still felt like it was in bad taste.
06:54They didn't want to see it either way.
06:55The real sore spot was even though it was there to send Rey to the moon, WWE never really
07:00pushed him properly.
07:01And even when he was the champion, it was something of a damp squib.
07:04He just got beaten over and over again.
07:06Not really the greatest idea when you're fighting for the memory of a friend who is
07:10no longer with us.
07:114.
07:12JBL Character
07:13Let's get it straight before we go on.
07:15JBL was a heat magnet.
07:17In 2004, I don't think anyone thought the former Bradshaw had this in him, but he made
07:22the necessary changes and became an awesome bad guy world champion on Smackdown.
07:27People hated him.
07:28When you jumped into the internet discussing, however, the controversy came in the fact
07:32that WWE had literally taken him from the APA and made him the guy from nowhere.
07:37That is true.
07:38And if you need an up-to-date version of this, it would be Jinder Mahal.
07:41Just one day woke up and boop, the guy who had been presented to us as no threat, all
07:45of a sudden had a major title.
07:47It was jarring.
07:48I think the main reason JBL gets in here is because of the direction we went in.
07:52As he was feuding with Eddie Guerrero, Bradshaw headed to the Mexican border and basically
07:57shouted about immigrants in the most racist way possible.
08:00If you were indeed Latino yourself, this probably left your jaw on the floor.
08:04Kurt Angle addressed this on his podcast too and said something similar.
08:07He felt like Eddie could have spoken to management about this, but instead saw Guerrero use it
08:11to his advantage to get as much sympathy as possible.
08:14Again though, maybe we just stay away from this stuff.
08:17There really is no need.
08:193.
08:20Dr. Hiney
08:21Oh no.
08:22Let me just tell you the truth, Vince McMahon loved taking shots at Jim Ross on air.
08:27I don't know why, fans don't know why, not even JR knows why.
08:30He has spoken about this on his podcast, and it just feels unnecessary and sometimes mean.
08:35It is a testament to Jim that he was able to basically shake this off and carry on regardless,
08:39but in 2005 when Ross underwent a colonoscopy, McMahon thought it was so funny, he was going
08:45to do a routine on Raw.
08:46I don't know about you, but even before anything else, I don't want my boss telling people
08:51that I just had a colonoscopy.
08:53The skit itself was just bonkers too, as Vince dressed up as Dr. Hiney before telling his
08:57scantily clad nurse friend to start removing massive objects out of JR's ass.
09:02I'm not even kidding, this went on for about 20 minutes.
09:05So not only did Ross have to sit through that, but his friends saw it, his family saw it,
09:09and if you were a fan tuning in, you got it too.
09:12Bruce Prichard again has defended this, saying it was done out of love and respect, but I
09:16defer to Jim's late wife on this one.
09:18By all accounts, she was in tears after this, so once again, just don't do it.
09:232.
09:24The Chris Benoit Double Murder Suicide
09:26I do not like talking about this, maybe that makes me a coward, but it is up there as one
09:31of the worst moments in wrestling history, and another time where I just stopped watching
09:35for a while.
09:36Sports entertainment didn't feel that fun anymore.
09:38It does feel important to keep the conversation going out of respect for Nancy Benoit and
09:42son Daniel though, because if nothing else, their memory should not be forgotten.
09:45Nancy too had an incredible career in pro wrestling, and deserves to have a spotlight
09:49shone on it.
09:50Nothing created as much controversy as this though, as it went far outside the world of
09:54wrestling.
09:55Major news outlets everywhere were covering it, which soon turned into an accusation of
09:58steroid use, CTE and all manner of issues.
10:01It was just horrendous.
10:02In case you don't know, the headlines are that Chris Benoit murdered his wife and son
10:06before taking his own life, and ever since the story has unraveled.
10:10The amount of drugs Chris was taking, the damage to his brain, the grief he had over
10:13the death of best friend Eddie Guerrero, I am certainly not saying any of these are
10:17excuses.
10:18It was just a narrative that continued to grow and expand.
10:20As the response to any mention of this is always, but he should still go into the hall
10:24of fame, I would just like to say, that is a mad reply.
10:27No matter what you did within a wrestling ring, it pales in comparison to such a needless
10:32and shocking tragedy.
10:33It shouldn't, and will never happen.
10:351.
10:36The Sad Amount of Deaths
10:37This is the reason that modern day wrestling wins.
10:40Even if you think it was better way back when, during the ruthless aggression era especially,
10:44so many stars passed away too young, it almost became the norm, that should never be the
10:49case.
10:50A lot of it was due to the drug use that was prevalent at the time, which was one of the
10:52reasons Eddie Guerrero passed away.
10:54He had cleaned himself up by 2005, but ultimately the damage he had done to his body was way
10:59too much.
11:00Kurt Hennig was another, as was the likes of Crash Holly, Tenson, Lance Cade, but it
11:04was the statistics that really got people.
11:06The average life expectancy of a pro wrestler, who starred in the United States across the
11:1080s and 90s, was below any other occupation in the land.
11:14As of 2015, the mortality rate was 2.9 times greater than the wider male population.
11:20We all know that wrestling is an incredibly hard industry that does a number of those
11:23within it, but this was just too much.
11:25That's why it's so important we did clean things up, and when you look at it today,
11:30yeah, it all seems much better and healthier.
11:32You can't put a price on that.
11:35If you did enjoy that too, you will see that a video has just popped up for 10 times wrestling
11:38heels were secretly the babyface, which would be much more fun than this list, but thanks
11:41for watching and goodbye.