10 Ridiculous Wrestling Rumours People Actually Believed

You won't believe what people used to believe

Lewis Howse smiling with a pint of beer

Jan 25, 2025

Mabel as the third man in a edited image from WCW Bash at the Beach 1996

Not a day goes by when the wrestling world doesn’t throw up some sort of rumour, from purported storyline plans and the contract status of a performer to more salacious stuff like backstage heat, or a juicy love triangle. 

A lot of pro wrestling rumours are true, but some of them are scarcely believable and sometimes everyone’s suspension of disbelief is stretched just a little bit too far. 

These are 10 Ridiculous Wrestling Rumours People Actually Believed. 

10. Rick Rude Dies After Being Told He Would Need To Have A Certain Body Part Amputated

Rick rude bio pic

Ravishing Rick Rude was one of the many wrestlers from a particular era who passed away before his time, a consequence of a hard-living lifestyle and choices he made with regards to certain substances he indulged in. 

The 40-year-old former WWE Intercontinental Champion’s official cause of death was heart failure, with the autopsy report noting that he had overdosed on several prescription medications. The overdose led some – including several of his contemporaries – to believe that Rude died by his own hand. 

The likes of Jake Roberts, The Honky Tonk Man and Ken Patera contend that Rick fell into a depression and overdosed intentionally because doctors had told him he would have to get his penis amputated. 

The rumour is that, after Rude injected viagra into it, his penis and testicles became infected and doctors saw no other option but to operate. Some versions of the rumour suggest the operation had already happened at the time of Rude’s death. 

Bruce Prichard, on the other hand, has dismissed this longstanding urban legend as ‘extremely silly’, noting that he spoke to Rick’s widow Michelle the day after she found him and that she said it was an accidental overdose as he was medicating to deal with both wrestling injuries and those recently suffered in a car crash.

9. Mabel Considered To Be The Third Man

Mabel

The professional wrestling industry changed forever at WCW’s 1996 Bash at the Beach pay-per-view when Hulk Hogan turned heel and joined Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to form the New World Order in the show’s main event. 

Prior to the show, however, there was much speculation as to who the ‘third man’ would be. 

In the July 1 edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that Hall, Nash and Eric Bischoff were discussing various names, with 1995 King of the Ring winner Mabel emerging as a possible candidate, after Crush was considered and then dismissed. 

That is Mabel, the former Men on a Mission member who was considered such a disappointment after his fleeting run on top that WWE were more than happy to see him go. 

As it was reported in the Observer, some fans expected Mabel to join The Outsiders as a former WWE guy intent on taking WCW down from the inside. 

Of course, it later emerged that, while there were doubts as to whether Hogan would go through with the angle and WCW had Sting waiting in the wings, the Hulkster was always the plan. 

8. Sycho Sids Puts A Squirrel Down His Pants

Sycho Sid WWE bio.jpeg

There were few characters in professional wrestling, either in front of the camera or behind the scenes, quite like Sid. From bringing a squeegee to a bar fight with Brian Pillman to allegedly soiling his trunks while taking a Tombstone Piledriver in the main event of WrestleMania 13, there was rarely a dull moment whenever The Master and Ruler of the World was around. 

While those stories are believable – and in the case of #SqueegeeGate have been backed up by witness accounts – there is one Sid urban legend that has never been verified that people still tend to believe. 

The popular rumour says that the former world champion travelled with a squirrel while on the road with WCW in the early 1990s. Weird enough as that may be, the story goes that Sid was once dared by a member of the locker room to put the pet in his pants for a minute. He obliged, only to have the squirrel bite his nether regions, causing the big man to fall to the ground in pain.

According to the legend, Sid needed a rabies shot and stitches after doing the job to the woodland critter, but nobody has actually verified any of this. 

7. Vince McMahon Is Going Blind

Vince McMahon September 2024 doc.jpg

In 2015, a post on Reddit had everyone convinced that Vince McMahon was going blind. According to the post, Vince had to be directed to the ring by a spotlight during a Pat Patterson Appreciation Night in Montreal, then had to be helped into and out of the ring by crew members, seemingly because he couldn’t see where he was going. 

Due to this account and McMahon’s advancing age, coupled with the fact he already wore glasses backstage, the internet was convinced that WWE’s then-owner was losing his vision. 

WWE quickly debunked the rumour, however, even if fans pointed to a clip of McMahon seemingly searching for Brock Lesnar before a WrestleMania as further ‘evidence’ that his eyesight had gone. 

6. Jennifer Aniston & Rey Mysterio

National Enquirer article about Rey Mysterio and Jennifer Aniston

A few WCW alumni found themselves in romantic relationships with actual, honest-to-goodness celebrities. 

Stacy Keibler, for example, shacked up with George Clooney once her days in sports entertainment were over, while former WCW World Heavyweight Champion David Arquette was once married to Courtney Cox. 

The wildest story involving a WCW wrestler and an actor concerned Cox’s best friend – and Friends co-star – Jennifer Aniston, however. 

According to an article that appeared in an April 1997 edition of the National Enquirer, Rachel from Friends was head over heels for none other than Rey Mysterio, and she apparently didn’t care that he was happily married.

The piece featured quotes from ‘Mysterio’, who said that wife Angie was ‘cool’ with his new friendship and he vowed to get Aniston in the ring.

Of course, the article had no basis in reality. The gossip rag would routinely publish made-up stories for the hell of it, though Dave Meltzer suggested that WCW themselves planted the story to get Rey Rey some publicity ahead of a big push.

Aniston would later clarify that she had never met any wrestler before, while Mysterio recounted the ribbing that came with the story’s publication.

5. Two Ultimate Warriors

Ultimate warrior entrance

Controversy was never far from The Ultimate Warrior, whose work in the ring was often overshadowed by his exploits outside of it, such as his firing following SummerSlam 1991, after he had written a letter demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from Vince McMahon (among other things) in return for him performing as advertised on the pay-per-view. 

Warrior would be back, of course, showing up as a surprise to help even the odds at the end of WrestleMania 8. 

But…was it the same Ultimate Warrior fans had seen on television less than a year prior? Not according to a popular rumour at the time, it wasn’t. Some were convinced that this Warrior, with his slightly deflated physique and shorter hair, was actually played by a different man. 

Some were even convinced that it was Kerry Von Erich who was portraying this new Warrior. And, not only that, but he was doing so because the original had passed away since his last WWE appearance. 

The conspiracy theory, of course, was not true and the Ultimate Warrior tragically passed away in 2014. 

4. MVP Attacks Triple H In The Shower With A Screwdriver

MVP with Triple H on the VIP Lounge

When MVP decided to leave WWE in the Summer of 2024, he made no secret of the fact that he wasn’t a fan of the company’s Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque and that Levesque, evidently, wasn’t a fan of him.

Was this a simple clash of creative philosophies and personalities or was there something more sinister at play here? 

Some fans with long memories claimed that the pair had heat dating back to an incident that took place in 2008. According to a rumour that popped up on the old WrestleCrap forum, MVP once attacked The Game in the shower with a screwdriver. 

Per the rumour, this was the reason why MVP was given a pronounced losing streak on television. 

Now, we all know that wacky things happen backstage in WWE from time to time, including fights between wrestlers. But if anyone seriously thinks that a wrestler trying to shank a top star – never mind the owner’s son-in-law – wouldn’t result in their immediate firing, then we don’t know what to say.

MVP himself later called the story his favourite ‘dirt sheet rumour.” 

3. The Montreal Screwjob Is A Work

Montreal screwjob sharpshooter

The 1997 Survivor Series was home to one of the most controversial pro wrestling moments of all time in the Montreal Screwjob. That hasn’t stopped a theory from developing that the whole thing was a work. 

A theory that persists to this day is that Bret Hart was ‘in on’ the finish of his main event match with Shawn Michaels, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. 

Many wrestlers and wrestling personalities still swear that the three men conspired to pull off the greatest work ever, for…reasons. 

However tenuous those reasons are, some remain convinced that what happened that night in Montreal was all for show and that Hart, Michaels and McMahon laughed all the way to the bank. 

2. Randy Savage & Stephanie McMahon

Randy savage be a man

In October of 1994, Randy Savage left WWE to join WCW. Unlike many who had made the same move – or done ‘worse’ to raise the ire of McMahon – the Macho Man never returned to the company in any capacity between then and his death 17 years later.

Savage’s absence from all things WWE, not to mention the company’s refusal to acknowledge and put over his many accomplishments, led to all sorts of speculation about just why Randy was persona non grata, with one rumour standing out above all others. 

Many are convinced that Savage was exiled because he had a physical relationship with a then-17-year-old Stephanie McMahon and that, when her father found out about it, he vowed never to work with him again.

Once again, there’s no actual evidence to substantiate this wild rumour, which has taken on a life of its own thanks to the internet. Randy never commented on it (though he did tell Triple H he would ‘take his girl’ while cutting a promo on him in the early 2000s) and Stephanie definitely hasn’t commented on it, either.

Though there is evidence to the contrary – such as the fact that WWE and Savage were negotiating his potential return in 1996 – some people still believe Savage was banished forever for sleeping with the boss’s daughter.

1. WWE Sends Vince Russo To Destroy WCW

Vince Russo WCW Backstage.jpg

In October of 1999, WWE head writer Vince Russo let the company know that he was leaving for rival WCW. 

Burnt out and displeased with having another new show (SmackDown) added to his workload, Russo (and his partner-in-crime Ed Ferrara) decided to take an offer from WCW, who were struggling bad and believed that Russo and Ferrara, two of the architects of WWE’s wildly popular Attitude Era, would be the solution to their problems. 

WCW were dead wrong, of course, because Russo and Ferrara (without Vince McMahon and others to rein them in) actually did the opposite and helped further damage WCW’s credibility with its rapidly diminishing audience.

Things were so bad under Russo that some people would have you believe that Vinny Ru and, to a lesser extent, future WCW Cruiserweight Champion Oklahoma, were sent there, by Vince McMahon and WWE, to destroy the competition from the inside.

We’re not saying that sending a mole to book endless pole matches and braindead storylines isn’t a sound strategy, but it took a lot more than that to put WCW out of business and Russo himself has dismissed the theory as fantasy.

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