10 Forgotten Wrestling War Moments

A good old-fashioned wrestling ‘war’ tends to bring out the best and worst of companies, as they battle for supremacy and, in many cases, their professional lives.

In the heat of battle, every minor inter-promotional incident can get put under a microscope but, once the dust settles, some things tend to be consigned to history as a ‘grand scheme of things’ approach takes hold.

Well, we say sod the grand scheme of things! Let’s open old wounds, examine past beefs and look at the contentious on-screen and backstage moments that are too interesting to be mere footnotes.

These are 10 forgotten wrestling war moments.

10. Paul Heyman sues WCW

As the proud owner of Extreme Championship Wrestling, Paul Heyman had to deal with his fair share of lawsuits.

But Paul E. Dangerously – himself the son of a lawyer – was also far from afraid to litigate. It didn’t matter if you were a feared bully with an earned rep for not giving a toss about much of anything, as displayed when he sued Bill Watts and WCW after the new booker allegedly made some pretty antisemitic comments towards the manager.

Watts didn’t like Heyman and made sure that the New Yorker knew about it. Far from an isolated incident, The Cowboy reportedly lashed out in an uncouth way on several occasions prior to Paul’s dismissal.

Heyman retaliated by suing his former employer for wrongful termination and ethnic discrimination.

The suit was settled out of court, with Heyman supposedly earning enough to fund the running of ECW.

9. Sable Appears On WCW Monday Nitro

Speaking of lawsuits, Sable left WWE in acrimonious circumstances in June of 1999, subsequently filing a $110 million lawsuit against the company, citing sexual harassment and an unsafe working environment.

The Playboy cover girl was one of the hottest properties on the planet and so of course there was interest in her from WWE’s closest competition.

On the June 14, 1999 episode of Nitro, the blonde bombshell was filmed sitting in the front row. Though never referred as either Sable or Rena Mero, her appearance caused a huge stir in the arena – as well as a couple of hundred miles away in Titan Towers.

Mero was still under contract with WWE at the time and, well, Vince McMahon was not happy about her showing up on the other show.

The appearance was brokered by Kevin Nash, who felt like Rena could be a game-changer at a time  when WCW was starting to struggle.

Big Sexy made sure it was all good with Turner’s legal department, with the former Women’s Champion herself claiming that she bought her own ticket to the event.

It got people talking and almost gave Vince a coronary but, ultimately, Mero’s brief (and sole WCW) appearance was probably more trouble than it was worth for Eric Bischoff and co.

8. TNA's foiled flight over WWE WrestleMania 24

Though they were, in reality, always a very distant second, TNA did give WWE reason to glance over their shoulders from time to time.

Like in the run-up to WrestleMania 24 in 2008, when Dixie Carter’s company planned to fly a plane over the Citrus Bowl advertising IMPACT on Spike TV.

TNA had done a lot of promotion while WWE were in town for ‘Mania, but their big banner idea wouldn’t get off the ground. Literally.

The publicity stunt never ended up happening after WWE got wind of the idea and shut it down.

They tracked down the company that was going to fly the plane and somehow convinced them not to take off. The plane people told TNA management they couldn’t perform due to ‘weather’, even though several other businesses flew banners overhead at the Showcase of the Immortals.

TNA were, naturally, quite peeved by their plan being foiled. So at the arena for Raw the next night, they sent a truck with a large screen showing TNA clips. WWE duly had it kicked out of the car park.

7. The Mole between ECW and WCW

While the Monday Night Wars were primarily fought between WWE and WCW, the role of ECW shouldn’t be forgotten.

Whether it was influencing the creative direction of the two major companies or producing talent that would then move to the ‘big time’, ECW more than played their part in the mid-to-late 1990s.

While Vince McMahon had a not-so-secret agreement with Paul Heyman’s promotion and would compensate ECW when they signed one of their wrestlers, Eric Bischoff had no such relationship with the Philadelphia-based promotion.

WCW did, however, have people working with someone on the inside of ECW to help them poach talent. The so-called ‘mole’ was none other than ECW founder Tod Gordon, who assisted some extremists in secretly brokering deals with front office WCW people like Kevin Sullivan and Terry Taylor.

There was even talk of a potential ECW ‘invasion’ of WCW, but the whole scheme blew up when Tommy Dreamer overheard a damning voicemail from Taylor to Gordon.

Tod was fired, while his reported accomplice Bill Alfonso had to fight for his job in that brutal bloodbath with Beulah McGillicutty.

6. RVD refuses to do the job on WWE Shotgun Saturday Night

WCW might not have gotten their ECW invasion in 1997, but WWE certainly did.

Simultaneously freshening up a stagnant WWE product and promoting ECW’s maiden pay-per-view – Barely Legal – it was short-lived, but served its purpose.

The inter-promotional rivalry would sort-of continue following Barely Legal, with Rob Van Dam rebranding himself ‘Mr. Monday Night’ and showing up on Raw (managed by Jerry Lawler). It was a good showcase for RVD and ECW, but things soured rather quickly when The Whole F’N Show refused to do the F’N job for Jesse James on an episode of Shotgun Saturday Night.

Van Dam felt like it wouldn’t benefit him (as a main-eventer in ECW) to lose to a lower-card WWE guy, even if it was suggested that he would be counted out and not pinned in the middle.

His refusal to do the honours rubbed backstage officials the wrong way, with Heyman attempting to smooth things over while simultaneously egging his own star on.

This pretty much killed Van Dam’s WWE run and the company were at pains to remind him about who the bosses were when he went to negotiate with them a few years later.

5. Cookiegate

Remember when DX INVADED WCW on a TANK?!? Of course you do. WWE have shown it approximately fifty thousand times since.

Do you remember when TNA ‘invaded’ WWE’s 2005 West Side Story-themed Royal Rumble commercial shoot with cookies and balloons? Probably not, because there was no ‘tank’.

WWE cared a lot about it at the time, even though they should have probably expected it since they were filming on a Universal Studios soundstage not far from where TNA taped their TV.

Abyss, Traci Brooks, Shane Douglas, Konnan and BG ‘Road Dogg’ James showed up to greet the WWE crew, with the idea that there would be some juicy confrontation, but nothing much came of it.

They did film several members of the WWE roster – including Luther Reigns, Eddie Guerrero and a maskless Rey Mysterio – which prompted WWE’s legal department to request the footage be handed over, lest Jerry McDevitt start flexing his legal muscles.

TNA didn’t surrender the tape and in fact aired a heavily-edited version several weeks later at their Turning Point pay-per-view.

It wasn’t exactly a home run or anything, but it did annoy people within WWE.

4. Triple H vs. Goldberg

Come June of 2000, the would-be Monday Night Wars were, for all intents and purposes, long over.

WWE was on fire, while WCW (and ECW for that matter) were circling the drain.

The distance between Raw and Nitro was vast, but the distance between Triple H and Bill Goldberg was pretty short when they both attended the same licensing fair in New York that month.

Da Man had been seething at the Cerebral Assassin since Helmsley made some negative comments about him in interviews, referring to the former WCW World Heavyweight Champion as a one-hit wonder and inferring that Vince McMahon wouldn’t take him even if he was available.

Goldberg decided to vent his frustrations at The Game, yelling at him and looking mad while Trips reportedly just laughed the whole thing off. Stephanie McMahon (who was at the fair with her on-screen squeeze), on the other hand, was incredulous.

Most who witnessed the confrontation agreed that Goldberg came off badly and that Triple H handled it in the right way.

The residual heat persisted until they eventually worked together three years later.

3. The WCW-ECW Talent Exchange

Just because Paul Heyman took Ted Turner’s money in 1993 and used it to help fund ECW didn’t mean he was done sending letters to WCW’s legal department.

A year later, Heyman threatened to sue WCW for copyright infringement after they co-promoted the AAA pay-per-view When Worlds Collide, which was a name ECW had used for one of their big events many months earlier.

In a bit of irony, ECW had named their show in reference to a talent exchange agreement they had in place with WCW, as they were loaned Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton, with Terry Funk and others working WCW events in return.

The talent exchange agreement fell apart when ECW ran a show in Florida, which WCW claimed was ‘their’ territory.

In order to diffuse tensions due to the When Worlds Collide fiasco, WCW agreed to send three of its contracted wrestlers – Kevin Sullivan, Steve Austin and Sherri Martel – to ECW’s November 18 event.

The injured Austin was ultimately replaced by Brian Pillman, but Heyman agreed not to sue WCW.

2. Jim Ross Promotes WWE WrestleMania IX On WCW-Sponsored Radio Show

Jim Ross was unceremoniously dumped by World Championship Wrestling thanks to a shakeup in upper management in 1993.

Relegated from being the voice of WCW to a glorified salesman for the syndicated TV department, Ross saw the writing on the wall and asked for his release in February.

However, JR still had control over his ‘Wrestling with Jim Ross’ radio show and, after negotiating with WWE, used an episode of it to introduce guests Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels and Bobby Heenan.

Vince used the opportunity to reveal that Ross would be signing with the World Wrestling Federation, hyping him up as the best commentator in the business.

The rest of the show functioned as a preview for the upcoming WrestleMania 9 (where Ross would make his on-screen WWE debut).

Which is all fine and dandy, but the main sponsor of the show – which aired on Atlanta’s WSB station – was WCW.

Even though JR hadn’t formally been given his release at that point, he used a legal loophole to make the jump and then stick it to his ex-employers on the air.

The boys at Turner Broadcasting could consider their knockers well and truly slobbered on this one.

1. Rhino Shoots On WWE ECW & Vince McMahon

TNA were a company on the rise in the summer of 2006 and so WWE’s decision to relaunch ECW as a third brand must have put them on their toes, especially when some of their former stars like Sabu and Monty Brown decided to sign on for it.

One wrestler who didn’t come back for the revival was the last official ECW Champion.

Rather than accept an offer to come back to work for Vince McMahon (having been released a year prior), Rhino and TNA instead used their platform to throw down the gauntlet to the Genetic Jackhammer.

Opening the July 13, 2006 episode of IMPACT, the Man Beast took shots at Vince and ECW and praised TNA.

Going one step further, Rhino went to the backstage area and threw the original ECW World Heavyweight Title belt into a flaming garbage can, proclaiming ‘Death to ECW, long live TNA!’.

Of course, The War Machine didn’t actually set the thing on fire, but it was an impassioned promo nonetheless and a reminder that TNA weren’t going away anytime soon.