Professional Wrestling/Awesome

File:Takervsmankind-kotr98.jpg

The Undertaker makes Mick Foley famous.

THIS IS AWE-SOME! (clap clap clap-clap-clap) THIS IS AWE-SOME! (clap clap clap-clap-clap) THIS IS AWE-SOME! (clap clap clap-clap-clap) THIS IS AWE-SOME! (clap clap clap-clap-clap)

HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! —One of two sure signs that you're witnessing a Crowning Moment of Awesome taking place Tonight in This Very Ring

Professional Wrestling is all about the Spectacle. Of course, there are certain points that will be really remembered by long-time fans. Five-star matches, one might say.

This page has been divided up by wrestling promotions; the WWE moments have been divided up into several different folders, and most of those folders' contents have been divided up by years/events in as close to chronological order as possible.

It would be ill-advised to link to unofficial WWE videos from YouTube, as the WWE is vigilant on its copyright.

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Individual Wrestlers

• The Big Show
• Bob Holly
• Bret Hart
• Bryan Danielson
• CM Punk
• Chris Jericho
• Edge
• Jerry Lawler
• John Cena
• John Morrison
• Mark Henry
• Mick Foley
• Randy Orton
• Ric Flair
• Shawn Michaels
• Sheamus
• Stone Cold Steve Austin
• The Miz
• The Rock
• The Undertaker

Promotions

• ECW
• TNA
• WCW
• WWE
  • Raw
  • SmackDown
  • WrestleMania
  • Royal Rumble

Ring of Honor

• For many ROHbots, the sixty-minute time-limit-draw between CM Punk and Samoa Joe was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for both men. This is fairly warranted, as The Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave the second of such matches (there were three in the series) a five-star rating, the first match in American pro wrestling to receive such a high honor in seven years.
  • This troper would argue that CM Punk's true Crowning Moment of Awesome was his promo at Wrestlerave '03 on why he hates Raven so much, as it was this promo (and his feud with Raven in general) that really helped make him a legitimate name in Ring of Honor and really, in indy wrestling in general.
  • And then, when he finally won the ROH World Championship, he did an immediate Face Heel Turn — he reminded the fans that "I'm still a snake, you idiots!", declared his intention to take the ROH belt to the WWE, and signed his real WWE contract on the ROH belt.
  • An earlier moment involving Punk took place at Death Before Dishonor 2003. As part of his feud with Raven, Punk has been ragging on ECW and its fans. Punk beats Raven in a dog-collar match, ties him to the ropes, and announces that he's going to send Raven back to rehab... but then the crowd EXPLODES as he gets jumped by Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer ties Punk to the ropes, releases Raven, and the two embrace, symbolically bringing an end to their long-running ECW feud. Then Dreamer does Sandman's "bash his forehead with a beer can until he bleeds" schtick, and Raven forces Punk to drink his first beer.
  • Joe, too, had really been deemed awesome long before the Joe/Punk series ever took place; for his crowning moment, odds are you're going back to his debut match against Low Ki at Glory By Honor. At that point in time Low Ki's kicks and chops were basically treated as the most lethal attcks in the promotion, so it's hard to put into words how stunning it was to watch Joe come in and not only trade strikes with Ki for the entire match, but at one point take an incredibly stiff-looking kick to the back... and barely register it beyond looking a little pissed off that he'd been kicked. Joe eventually lost the match, but it still set the tone for what a badass he would be in the years to come.
• The titular match of the Joe vs. Kobashi event; it featured ROH's Samoa Joe vs. Japanese legend Kenta Kobashi. To this day, it has no commentary voiceover (in order to maximize the "live" experience and prevent fan annoyance), and the show would be the company's top-selling DVD despite being essentially a one-match show.
• Jade Chung got a big one after the original Steel Cage Warfare when she used Jimmy Rave as her own personal footstool after Steel Cage Warfare.
• How did the official formation of the Age of the Fall get left off here? For this troper, the sight of Jimmy Jacobs literally covered in Jay Briscoe's blood is both a CMOA and the most surreal thing she's ever seen in professional wrestling.
  • Seconded. Some back story: A viral website starts to float around before the 161st ROH event, and the official ROH message boards swirl with confusion over what it means. At the actual show, things are relatively normal...until the tag match between The Briscoes and Kevin Steen & El Generico ends. After the match, out walks Necro Butcher, Jimmy Jacobs (who, up to that point, had only been cast as a really incompetent flunkie), and Tyler Black. All three commit a EXTREMELY VIOLENT assault on the Briscoes before stringing the barely conscious Jay Briscoe upside down, his blood LITERALLY raining down all over Jacobs. The angle had such an impact in ROH (which, while cutting-edge, was never considered an extremely bloody deathmatch-type promotion) that the official DVD release of the PPV removed the original footage and used the infamous "blood edit", which may even be worse. The fans insisted on seeing the original footage, which was later uploaded to ROH's official YouTube account as part of their videowire. To this day, it's one of the most surreal, violent, and ultimately influential debuts by any group in any promotion: the once lovable loser Jimmy Jacobs turned into public enemy #1 in a promotion notorious for CHEERING heels and Tyler Black's career was launched in full. The sheer "Holy shit, they're doing that? They're actually doing that? Oh my god" factor is hard to put into words for this troper.
• Bryan Danielson is has been a living CMOA since day one ("The Era of Honor Begins") and shows no sign of stopping six years later (although he's been in the business for longer) or even when he got socked in the left eye so hard it detached his retina and fractured the eye socket early on in a big match. That's right, early on...
  • He later got his revenge in the Fight Without Honor that main-evented the last show of 2008, Final Battle 2008. Not a hardcore match per se, but even with the lack of a formal Code of Honor unlike the early days, it's still the feud-ending match in Ring of Honor... he won with twenty consecutive elbows wrapped in chain to the head followed by his signature Cattle Mutilation hold, but its own CMOA was how the match started... the lights went dark as usual for his entrance, but the lights came on as he charged into the ring from the opposite side, threw his opponent into the crowd, dove off the top rope onto his opponent in the crowd, all while his music was still playing... and then got up in time to point to the sky as the crowd sang, "IT'S THE FI-NAL COUNT-DOOOOOOWN!!"
  • The greatest testament to Danielson's talent is probably the fact that many, many ROH wrestlers have had their Crowning Moment of Awesome while wrestling him. Nigel McGuinness engaging Danielson in a headbutt war while bleeding from a massive bulge on his face as his hometown London fans roared, Jimmy Rave countering and stealing Danielson's moveset, Austin Aries lasting 75 minutes against him in a 2 out of 3 falls match, Homicide overcoming a cheap DQ to finally win the ROH championship, Roderick Strong making Danielson's chest bleed from chops...Danielson is an expert at making other wrestlers look every bit as awesome as he is.
• After Final Battle 2008, Paul Turner owns the Referee CMOA. A fan shoved wrestler Austin Aries almost off the entrance stage, so Aries socks him right back; the guy next to the fan either freaks out, flips out, or is about to jump the rail...at which point Turner goes from the ring to right there to restrain the guy, either calming him down or choking the guy out (depending on which version you hear) and controlling the situation until finally the senior referee, Jimmy Jacobs (whom Aries had just helped in delivering a beat down to Tyler Black), and venue security got there. When Turner got back in the ring, This Troper was amongst those who gave him a standing ovation and a "Next World Champ!" chant. Pity he looked so embarrassed about getting the biggest reaction of the whole night other than the aforementioned main event...which he had inadvertently fired up the crowd for by having his CMOA, breaking a tradition of New York City crowds being exhausted by main event time. "NEXT WORLD CHAMP" indeed!
• June 14th, 2009: Austin Aries defeats defending ROH World Champion Jerry Lynn and fellow challenger Tyler Black to become the promotion's very first two-time world champion.
• September 25th, 2009: Eddie Edwards breaks his elbow during a Street Fight with Kevin Steen. This wouldn't normally be too much of an issue — go home, heal up, rehab, the usual — except Eddie and his tag partner Davey Richards were (at the time) the ROH Tag Team Championship team The American Wolves, and they had a title defense the very next night in a ladder match against Kevin Steen and El Generico. Most other people likely would have gone home and left the company scrambling to find a solution. Eddie Edwards didn't. He walked into Glory By Honor VIII alongside Davey Richards with a broken elbow and worked the entirety of Ladder War II, making him instantly over with the crowd thanks to the balls of pure titanium it took to do that. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, he and Richards won.
  • And later that night, in their final match in the company before leaving the company, Bryan Danielson (who left for WWE) and Nigel McGuinness (who signed with TNA) squared off one last time as the end of Danielson's "Final Countdown Tour". (For the record, Danielson won.)
• June 19 2010: ROH's Internet PPV Death Before Dishonor VIII featured several awesome moments and matches, including:
  • El Generico getting a jab in at WWE for their treatment of Bryan Danielson by taking a tie off of a ring announcer and choking Kevin Steen with it while beating him down during the show's intermission.

Dave Prazak: HE SHOULD BE FIRED!

• • Christopher Daniels vs. Kenny Omega, which stole the show — until...
  • Tyler Black defending the ROH World Title against Davey Richards, the show's main event and easily the best match on a show with a lot of good matches. It's also easily a Match of the Year contender, for both ROH and the entire industry.
• For this troper just the fact that ROH and CZW managed to have a succesful inter-company feud is CMOA considering how many other promotions have tried and failed.

Pro Wrestling NOAH

• For its primary belt, the GHC (Global Honored Crown) Heavyweight Championship, there are two or three CMOAs: The first being when Kenta Kobashi (by pinning the company president and "ace") went on a two-year, career-and-belt-defining reign, and when Naomichi Marufuji became the first man to win every championship (except the Great Happy Christmas joke belt) in NOAH by pinning Jun Akiyama... with a pumphandle small package, no less. In a company with "signature move power levels," he chose a "cheap flash pin" as the subject of his most unbeatable move.
• On March 2 2008, there was a tag title match where the Briscoe Brothers went to perform their (springboard) Doomsday Device, only for defending champion Naomichi Marufuji to literally catch Mark Briscoe (performing the clothesline) in midair, backflip off of Jay Briscoe (holding him up), and cushion his fall with Mark Briscoe — countering a signature move of the Briscoes with a higher level one of his own. Worse yet, in kayfabe Jay Briscoe didn't realize what happened (a testament to how fluid the counter was) and thus thinking that Mark was pinning Marufuji, Jay actually counted along with the ref and crowd.
• This troper doesn't know how he forgot to add this one in addition to the other two: KENTA KOBASHI BEAT CANCER. (Technically a kidney tumor, but.)
  • Only to then end his 2008 run before the year was up, due to an arm injury. Considering its stale booking, a questionable choice of its two GHC Heavyweight Championship reigns in 2008 (basically hot-shotting it from Mitsuharu Misawa finally to Takeshi Morishima, and then to Kensuke Sasaki soon after), NOAH's CMOA will be if it survives 2009.
    • Unfortunately, it only pulled that off by making its first roster cuts in years.

CHIKARA Pro Wrestling

• A match contested in slow motion!
  • And the fans chanting along in slow motion!
• Chuck Taylor (yes, that is his name) kills Solider Ant with a "grenade".
  • Actually, give props to Soldier Ant and his "Heroic Sacrifice".
• Ethan Page counters his opponents move by rewinding the match and using his knowledge of what he would do to counter him.
• The King of Trios 2008 tournament, which saw the surprising reemergence of Glacier, a throwback from WCW's later days; he was basically treated as another generic mid-carder after his heavily hyped debut in WCW, but when he took the King of Trios tournament by storm, he was more over there in ten seconds than he EVER was in WCW. Other Crowning Moments in the 2008 KoT include:
  • The inclusion of Team WWF, consisting of Demolition and the One Man Gang. Specifically, the fact that One Man Gang and "Sweet and Sour" Larry Sweeney had one of Sweeney's trademark strut-offs, set to "Jive Soul Bro," the theme of Gang's old manager, Slick. Made even more awesome by the fact that thanks to a cosplayiing fan, Gang had a hat resembling his old character Akeem's for the occasion.
  • Egyptian time travelers Ophidian and Amasis (collectively known as The Osirian Portal) bringing in Mecha Mummy as their teammate, who busted out his own special counter to opponent Mike Quackenbush's trademark palm strikes.
• The 2009 King of Trios event's biggest Crowning Moment has to go to Gran Akuma, Icarus, and Chuck Taylor, aka Team FIST (Friends In Similar Tights), for basically the entire weekend:
  • First, they beat the Death Match Kings (a trio that happened to include the current-day hardcore icon Necro Butcher) in the opening round, despite being seemingly in over their heads.
  • In the next round, they defeated the F1RST Family, a trio who had frequent standout matches in 2009 and 2008's Trios tournament; the team was headed by Arik Cannon, who is no stranger to going all the way in CHIKARA tourneys.
  • In the semifinals, they took out The Future Is Now...which, despite the fact that FIST were the heels and TFIN were the faces, earned them a "Thank You FIST!" chant because the fans were just that sick of TFIN (and, specifically, Lince Dorado).
  • And to cap it all off, they beat Team Uppercut (the all-star team of Claudio Castagnoli, Bryan Danielson, and Dave Taylor) in convincing fashion: first they killed what should have been a CMoA for Team Uppercut by rushing them at the entrance when they had come out to Danielson's classic ROH theme ("The Final Countdown" by Europe), then Chuck Taylor then ended up winning the match (and the tournament) for FIST by making Danielson, one of the best technical wrestlers on the planet and one of the biggest names in indy wrestling, tap out.
• Eddie Kingston delivers a warning: "You can call me sick, but the world is cold. Bundle up." Especially awesome if you're not a fan of Lince Dorado — a category which, as the above example notes, a lot of CHIKARA fans happen to fall under.
• Dragon Dragon, the only real dragon in professional wrestling.
• Eddie Kingston's passionate speech about his match with Mike Quackenbush at "High Noon" may be the best promo he's ever delivered.

All Japan Pro Wrestling

• The entire rivalry between Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada is awesome enough, but truly reached its peak in the June 9, 1995 AJPW Tag Team Championship match when Kawada and Akira Taue challenged champions Misawa and Kenta Kobashi. Not only is this match considered the best in the long history of AJPW, but this was the moment when Kawada finally pinned the near-invincible Misawa. It took over forty minutes of preying on Misawa's broken orbital bone — and the complete annihilation of Kobashi's leg — to take him out, but when the dust cleared, Kawada had the victory he had always wanted and a title to show for it.
  • Then there's their match for the Triple Crown title on 1/22/99. Kawada breaks his arm early in the match on Misawa's skull, and still comes back from behind with the dreaded Ganso bomb in order to win the title. The two wrestlers' boss, Shohei "Giant" Baba, was in the hospital with terminal renal cancer at the time. He told an assistant, after seeing the match on TV, that it was the finest bout he had ever seen, and he saw a lot.

All Japan Womens Pro Wrestling

• At Wrestle Marinepiad '89, a quartet of rookies in the opening match stole the show from the veterans. The match? Manami Toyota and Mima Shimoda vs Toshiyo Yamada and Etsuko Mita, who would go on to become four of the biggest names in joshi in the next decade (and ironically, wrestlers who were opponents in this match would go on to form top tag teams — Toyota/Yamada and, as you'll see below, Shimoda/Mita). This was also the match that kicked off...
• ...the epic three-year feud between Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada, which came to its finale in a Hair vs. Hair match. The match itself was brilliant, but the CMoA came after Toyota finally pulled off the win: Toyota declared that Yamada had earned her respect, and pleaded with officials not to subject Yamada to the humiliation of having her head shaved, even offering to have her own head shaved instead (and going so far as to start cutting her own hair to prove the point). Toyota had to be physically restrained while the shaving of Yamada's hair took place.
• AJW in the early-to-mid 90s is widely considered the Crowning Era of Awesome for women's wrestling (with their mid-80s era as runner-up), featuring stars like Manami Toyota, Akira Hokuto, Kyoko Inoue, Bull Nakano, and Aja Kong (among others) at the top of their game, and several contenders for "greatest women's match of all time", including the aforementioned Toyota/Yamada match, Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori at Dreamslam 1, and Manami Toyota and Kyoko Inoue's 60-minute draw.
  • Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori has two CMoA contenders:
    • At the opening bell, Hokuto decks Kandori, grabs the mic, and asks Kandori if that's all she's got. Kandori responds by getting up, grabbing Hokuto's arm and wrenching it nearly out of its socket.
    • Later in the match, Kandori piledrives Hokuto on a table. And we're not talking one of those wimpy, thin tables that you normally see in wrestling; this was a really thick, solid table. After the piledriver spot, the camera zoomed in on the dent left in it. Hokuto's frickin' sick bladejob after the spot just capped off the awesome.
• The cage match between Las Cachorras Orientales (Etsuko Mita and Mima Shimoda) and the U* TOPS (Tomoko Watanabe and Kaoru Ito). The entire match is basically a textbook lesson in professional wrestling storytelling, as the ladies do a great job of putting over the scrappiness of Watanabe and Ito as well as the bitchiness of Mita and Shimoda. Watanabe wrestles the match with a shoulder so messed up that she has to wear football pads and eventually escapes the cage, leaving Ito to try and fend off both Mita and Shimoda. After shenanigans involving a fire extinguisher, LCO run to opposite corners with Ito able to stop Shimoda using an armbar from the top rope. Mita, however, escapes — but upon an attempt by Ito to exit, she climbs back up the cage to stop her, only to get dragged into the ring, landing straight on her head. Ito, instead of escaping, does the Superfly pose and proceeds to double stomp Mita from the of the cage before finally making it out, dropping in a heap on the ground. The U* TOPS, though hurting, manage to leave the queen bitches of joshi crying in the ring (with Shimoda extremely bloody on top of it).

World Class Championship Wrestling

• Kevin and Mike Von Erich's "mystery partner" at Texas Stadium is revealed:

Michael Hayes: Me and my brothers have done some thinkin', and we've eliminated it down to three people who it could be: Bruiser Brody, who Kamala ran outta here, and everybody knows we beat Kamala up — Brian Adias, family flunkie — or that nephew of yours, Lance Von Erich. Now, right now, face to face, you tell me which one of them it's gonna be. Fritz von Erich: Mr. Hayes, you're wrong on all three counts. Hayes: Wha...it's not one of them? Fritz: It is not one of them. Hayes: Well, who is it? I wanna know who it is! I demand to know right now! Fritz: Oh, you demand to know right now? Hayes: Yeah, right now! Right now, I wanna know! Fritz: It's gonna be...the next man to bust you between the eyes! [He does so.] Now, just in case there's any further doubt in your mind, I'll see you May the sixth...on Badstreet!

SHIMMER

• SHIMMER's mission statement was to prove that women's wrestling was worth being taken seriously, and it didn't have to just be blatant T&A. On the very first volume, the Mercedes Martinez vs. Sara Del Rey match managed to do exactly that.
• In Volume 5, Amazing Kong made her SHIMMER debut against Nikki Roxx in what most presumed would be a Curb Stomp Battle that would be over in a couple of minutes. But Roxx managed to hang in for almost fifteen minutes, at times giving Kong a significant amount of trouble, before she was finally pinned. Roxx gained a big fan following and higher profile from her performance in that match, which eventually led to her being signed by TNA (where she would be known as Roxxi Laveaux, and then as just Roxxi).
• The weekend of tapings for Volumes 27 and 28 were a Crowning Moment for MsChif. Widely believed that she would drop the SHIMMER Championship during the weekend, she successfully defended the title twice; first, she felled Nikki Roxx in singles action, then she won a Triple Threat Match the next night against LuFisto and Awesome Kong by becoming the first woman in the history of SHIMMER to pin Awesome Kong.
• The entire match between Ayako Hamada and Sara Del Ray in Volume 28 could be considered a CMOA, with it's absolute high point being the unforgettable moonsault Hamada executes off the top rope, steel chair in hand.

Other Promotions

• The infamous Barbed Wire Deathmatch between Megumi Kudo and Combat Toyota from Japanese "hardcore" promotion Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). Infamous not only for the level of brutality for a joshi match, but because it was the first ever joshi Deathmatch (and Toyota's last match).
• During a Dramatic Dream Team (DDT) show, Kota Ibushi decided to put up his KO-D Openweight Championship (the promotion's top belt) against YOSHIHIKO's Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship. The Heavymetalweight Championship is a pastiche of the WWE's Hardcore Title, defended under 24/7 rules; it's been held by — amongst other people and things — child wrestler President Ramu, a dog, a ladder, and a promotional poster. And for the record, YOSHIHIKO is a blow-up doll. Ibushi proceeded to wrestle YOSHIHIKO for thirty minutes in a fun, smooth, highly entertaining match which apparently attempted to see if Ibushi could prove the old "(wrestler) could carry (inanimate object) to a 5-star match" true. A Crowning Moment of Awesome and a Crowning Moment of Funny rolled into one, as it's impossible to not mark out for a blow-up doll busting out a backdrop driver or eight Canadian Destroyers in a row.
  • Related to YOSHIHIKO: Kenny Omega nailing "him" with Zangief's Final Atomic Buster in real life, and word by word using the Japanese version of "FOR MOTHER RUSSIA!!".
• Dragon Gate USA's very first PPV, 2009's "Enter The Dragon", is basically a Crowning Moment in and of itself; considering the card was mainly filled with workers from Japan's Dragon Gate promotion that even a fair amount of smart marks wouldn't be familiar with, the PPV was widely hailed as one of the best wrestling shows of the year by many wrestling writers. When the smark-friendly Wrestling Observer Newsletter says that the entire show is not only worth the purchase price, but an entire repeat viewing, you know you've got gold on your hands.
• Pretty sure this is from CHIKARA, but as I'm not 100% sure of it, I'm putting here for now.

It's from Iwa-Ms

• This promo by Jon Moxley from August 2010, wherein he challenges Bryan Danielson to a match at a Dragon Gate USA show the following month.

What I want is BRYAN DANIELSON'S HEAD! ON A STICK!

• In 1995, Mick Foley (in his Cactus Jack persona) went to Japan with Terry Funk to compete in IWA's "King of the Death Match" tournament. Foley's first match was a barbed wire bat and box of thumbtacks match, the second round was a barbed wire board and box of nails match, and the final match featured barbed wire ropes (with extra spools of wire left lying around) and C-4 rigged boards that the wrestlers could be dropped on. Foley would take two C-4 blasts and would still end up defeating the legendary Terry Funk, who is even more famous in Japan, to win the tournament.

Offscreen Awesome

• John Cena deserves both a Crowning Moment of Awesome and Heartwarming for the fact that he has granted over 200 wishes (and still counting) for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, more than any other celebrity.
  • Even more so. In the current 7-11 promotion, John Cena stars on a coffee cup that with each sale gives money to the Make-A-Wish foundation. And he designed it. Even when he's not actively working for them, he's still working for them.
• Perry Saturn, a former Army Ranger, once stopped three guys from carjacking and raping a woman by himself, while unarmed. He was later checked over by cops and paramedics at the scene because he felt a bit of pain in his neck when the fight began. It was a bullethole. The man was shot in the neck and still beat the crap out of three would-be rapists.
• In July 2000, Bam Bam Bigelow received second degree burns over nearly half his body, requiring him to spend over two months in a hospital to recover. How did he get these burns? He got them rescuing three young children from a house fire near his own home.
• Back when Kayfabe was still the rule, a young John Stossel — well on his way to being the obnoxious Jerkass he later turned out to be — confronted "Dr. D" David Schultz backstage demanding to know if wrestling was fake. Dr. D's response? He cuffed Stossel on the side of the head with the same power that wrestlers would normally be smacking each other, sending Stossel to the ground, and asked him "Did that feel fake?".
  • Similarly, when promoting the inaugural Wrestlemania, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T appeared on a talk show hosted by Richard Belzer (yes, THAT Richard Belzer), who spent the entire time teasing them over the "allegedly" fake nature of wrestling. The entire time, you could see Mr. T struggling to restrain himself. Finally, Belzer goaded Hogan into trying a submission move on him. Hogan reluctantly applied a headlock, which caused Belzer to spasm, and drop unconscious (literally, he went limp and Hogan dropped him on the floor) before the show quickly cut to commercial. When they returned, Belzer was gone, but Hogan was still there, shakily trying to explain to the director that he applied the simplest hold he could think of, one that any healthy adult should have been able to handle. This either says a lot about Hogan's technical prowess, or that Richard Belzer has never exercised a day in his life.
• In 1975, a group of wrestlers were involved in a plane crash. Johnny Valentine and Bob Bruggers had their careers ended by the crash (and the pilot of the plane died), while Ric Flair, David Crockett and "Mr. Wrestling" Tim Woods eventually recovered (Flair's recovery the most astonishing of them all; doctors told him he would never be able to wrestle again, and he was back in the ring in six months). The problem with the situation was that kayfabe was still in effect at this time, and Woods was the only babyface on a plane full of heels; to make matters worse, he was even feuding with Flair and Valentine at the time. Woods used his real name in the hospital and the others tried to hide that he was there, but eventually, the rumor started to spread that he was on the plane. Two weeks later, Woods entered the ring to compete while in excruciating pain, all to "prove" that he wasn't on the plane, saving kayfabe for the time being. Flair later stated that on that day he was the man who saved professional wrestling.
• The Undertaker gets a personal off-screen CMoA for his actions after the Montreal Screwjob; after the shit had hit the fan, he pulled Shawn Michaels aside and asked him if he had anything to do with it. After getting several denials, Taker went looking for Vince, hammering on his office door until he answered. Taker then basically threatened Vince by (allegedly) telling him that "if you still want to have a company tomorrow, you'd better apologise to Bret (Hart)". Given how a number of wrestlers (including Bret's brother Owen) were furious at what had happened and were prepared to walk out, possibly to WCW — which might very well have completely destroyed the WWF — not only did Vince try to apologize to Bret, but Taker kept his spot on the card (instead of being buried completely) simply because he was that important to the company.
  • Six months later, after it became apparent that Michaels was in on it the whole time, he was bitching and complaing up until the very morning of WrestleMania 14 about having to put over Austin. There were rumors that he and Triple H were planning to screw over Austin as they had with Bret, and that Taker took him aside, and threatened to beat him to an unholy pulp if anything were wrong in the main event.
    • Sorry, in his autobiography, Michaels Jossed that rumor about Taker threatening him. Not that that makes Taker any less Badass.
      • There is some question as to whether Michaels' book belonged in the non-fiction section... so this is still an open question until/unless 'Taker writes his memoirs.
    • Shawn claims to get on rather well with Austin, working as a tag team before WrestleMania and doing a couple of segments afterwards — I believe his frustration was in regards to his back and addiction to pain pills meaning he could not wrestle any more. Shawn also cites some of the things the WWF was planning (such as draping a Austin 3:16 shirt over his face, despite protest).
    • Shawn didn't want to drop the belt, not because he didn't want to it for Austin, but because (at the time) he didn't want to do it for anyone. Shawn was in full-blown ego mode at that point and didn't like having the spotlight taken away. His actions at the press conference showed that. The fact that it was Steve was irrelevant.
      • I'd have to dispute that, since Shawn broke his back at that year's Royal Rumble and pretty much retired from active wrestling for five years after that match due to the pain he was in. Also, Vince was the one who screwed Bret over. I doubt Shawn could have organised an elaborate screwjob requiring the referee (Mike Tyson, who was being paid to help Austin win by Vince), bellkeeper, and the production crew in the back to all be in on it and to be taking their cues from Shawn instead of Vince.
      • In a Kayfabe Commentaries shoot interview, Jim Cornette said that Undertaker silently, calmly taped his fists up and watched the Austin-HBK main event on a backstage monitor to make sure there was no funny business. When Michaels lost, Taker silently and calmly got up, took the tape off and went to have his shower.
• Mick Foley claims that his ultimate crowing achievement is his autobiography Have a Nice Day!, which he wrote himself — longhand and for over 750 pages — without the aid of a ghostwriter. The book hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List and got tremendous reviews from publications that wouldn't normally have anything to do with wrestling. His other two autobiographies, Foley is Good and The Hardcore Diaries, were also bestsellers and received similar praise.
  • Foley also appeared on The Daily Show in early 2010, cutting a promo defending a young boy who refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because gay people can't marry. Mick is subtitled "Senior Asskicker".
• The entire career of Fray Tormenta counts as one long, extended Crowning Moment of Awesome. He is a Catholic priest who began moonlighting as a Masked Luchador in order to support the troubled orphanage he worked in. He was just hoping to make some quick cash to help the orphanage through a rough patch; instead, he ended up wrestling for over 20 years, and sinking every single dime into the orphanage, ministering to his fellow wrestlers along the way. One particular moment that stands out was when the local bishop discovered what he was doing, and forbade him from wrestling; he replied to the bishop, "Fine, then. Instead of going to my match on Saturday, I will come to your house, and you will give me the money to keep this orphanage open." The bishop quickly relented. These days, Tormenta is retired from the ring, but still works in that same orphanage (even conducting mass for the surrounding town, in his mask), and one of the children he raised has taken up his mantle in the squared circle.
  • Which was sort of the plot of Nacho Libre. Just more Real Life.
  • He's also the inspiration for the character of King from Tekken. Complete with legecy character.
• In April 2010, LuFisto suffered a blood clot that would have escalated into a stroke after a match. Two months later she was back performing, defeating Sara Del Rey in her first match back.
• One day in the late '80s, an aspiring wrestler gets in talks with WWE to sign a contract. Unfortunately, when visiting Africa, he contracts dysentery and comes close to death. WWE forgets about him as he struggles to recover. When he does, he incorporates martial arts into his training, and soon becomes a master. In 1997, he makes his debut as "The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman. The man nearly died of dysentery, yet still managed to become a star (or at least a memorable perfomer) during the glory days of the company. That is pretty awesome.
• In the mid-90s, Jushin Liger had a brain tumor that supposedly was going to end his career, and had a good chance of ending his life. He had risky surgery on it. Six months later he was back in the ring.
• John Bradshaw Layfield deserves both this and a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming for coming up with Tribute To The Troops. The idea was rejected at first, but JBL lobbied about Vince's office and Vince eventually accepted it.
• On an edition of a Raw talk show, Maria Kanellis got a huge CMOA when one fellow panelist rather ignorantly said that none of the WWE Divas actually wanted to be there and they were just "there to get on TV", which was a popular opinion amongst many fans. Maria's response?

Maria: "That is so horrible...You want to know my honest opinion on it? I mean, do you have any idea how much we would love to stay, we would love to be there, how we would love to do everything we dream about? The only reason a lot of us have left is because we didn't get the opportunities there we wanted or thought we'd earned, or the opportunities we fought for, that's the only reason! All that "you're just a diva"; it sounds so trashy. If you are on the road 250...350...days a year there is no way (it's just for fame)…you obviously want to be there. Sure you get on television, but every weekend (on house shows), you're getting your ass kicked, you're all covered in bruises, I look at Candice Michelle, she was a Go Daddy girl she got there. But she worked hard. I used to look at her legs; from the top to the bottom they were covered in huge bruises from all the different places Beth had grabbed her to put her in position...She worked her tail off to become champion! For you to say that, you have no clue how passionate these women are! I would still be there if I got the opportunities I wanted. We're not actresses on television playing an action star who doesn't really get hit; we were getting hit. I'm no longer there because I spoke up and because I got spoke up that's why I'm sitting here."