10 Times Wrestlers Refused To Break Kayfabe

In the present day, pretty much every professional wrestler peels back the curtain, whether it be on podcasts, social media, or other online content. 

It wasn’t always this way, and there are plenty of documented instances of wrestlers back in the day taking incredible steps to make sure they stayed in character. And it didn’t matter if it cost them kudos or a booking, landed them in jail or otherwise made their life more difficult than it needed to be. The following individuals simply refused to break character or let slip the guise of their in-ring persona. 

These are 10 Times Wrestlers Refused To Break Kayfabe.

10. The Sandman Pretends To Be Blind

In the main event of the October 4, 1994, episode of ECW Hardcore TV, Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman collided in an I Quit Match. The finish saw Tommy accidentally push a lit cigarette into his opponent’s eye, with The Sandman being rushed out of the arena as members of the locker room chastised an apologetic Dreamer. 

ECW presented the angle as a shoot and announced that The Sandman had been blinded and would have to retire from the wrestling business. To maintain the illusion, James Fullington barely left his own house for an entire month, insisting on his wife Lori answering the door and telephone. When he did need to venture outside, he made sure he wore bandages over his eyes and had somebody with him to help him around. 

This was deemed essential by the beer-drinking cane swinger, as he lived in ECW’s home base of Philadelphia. He was finally able to drop the act when it was revealed that the whole thing was, in fact, a ruse at November to Remember. Because of his dedication to convincing people that he was actually blind, there was genuine shock at The Sandman’s reveal.

9. Bray Wyatt attends jury duty

After the main roster failure of Nexus member Husky Harris, Windham Rotunda decided he was going all-in on his next character – Bray Wyatt. As Windham told Jon Robinson for the book NXT: The Future is Now, he became obsessed with figuring out who Bray was and, thanks to a close working relationship with Dusty Rhodes, began to ‘lose his mind’ while getting into the character. 

This extended to when Rotunda was called in for jury duty in his hometown, with The American Dream convincing him to show up in full gimmick. He turned up wearing a Hawaiian shirt, white pants, and a straw hat. Rhodes felt like it would be a good exercise for Wyatt, who didn’t break character once during the process. 

Needless to say, he didn’t end up being selected for jury duty. Regardless, this dedication to keeping character outside of the ring would serve Bray Wyatt well over the course of his career, as he retained his unique aura thanks in large part to his reluctance to peel back the curtain. 

8. Nikita Koloff Acts As If He Is Legitimately From The USSR

With the Cold War heating up in the mid-1980s, it was only natural that American wrestling promotions would start to push dastardly Russians as top heels. None of these Soviet-era baddies were actually born and raised in the USSR, but that didn’t stop them from keeping up the act inside and outside of the ring. 

Few went as far as Nikita Koloff, the kayfabe nephew of Ivan Koloff, who was portrayed by Minnesota football prospect Nelson Scott Simpson. The so-called Russian Nightmare not only learned to speak the mother tongue, but he also legally changed his name to Ivan Koloff in 1988. 

He refused to converse in English in public and feigned a lack of understanding in social situations, going so far as to hire an interpreter who helped him with tasks like finding an apartment.

7. The Wild Samoans Get Arrested

Afa and Sika of the legendary Anoa’i family were so intent on perpetuating the myth of pro wrestling that they went to jail for it – and they took Hulk Hogan with them. 

The Wild Samoans were hitching a ride with The Hulkster during a trip to New Jersey when their car was pulled over by a State Trooper.

As Hogan went to retrieve his registration from the glove box, an unregistered handgun he had just purchased tumbled out. Possessing an unregistered handgun in New Jersey carried a mandatory one-year sentence at the time. Rather than tell the cop that Hulk wasn’t aware of the law, Afa and Sika simply stood in silence and allowed themselves to be handcuffed. 

Despite obviously speaking perfect English, they played grunting savages on television and decided it would be better to be carted to the local jailhouse than blow their cover.

6. Vader Goes Ballistic On Kuwait Morning TV

By April of 1997, the cat was very much out of the bag as far as whether or not people knew wrestling was, in fact, a work. Yet, in the tradition of the likes of David Schultz before him, Vader, for whatever reason, felt he had to uphold the integrity of the business while staying in character as a big, bullying heel. 

Vader and The Undertaker were appearing on the Good Morning Kuwait TV show to promote WWE’s ongoing tour of the country when the programme’s host, Bassam Al Othman, questioned the legitimacy of sports entertainment. Vader responded by flipping the table and grabbing a terrified Othman by his tie, asking the host if it ‘felt fake’ while threatening to kick his ass. 

The former WCW World Heavyweight Champion was subsequently detained and placed under house arrest in a very nice hotel for 10 days, with authorities upset at the foul language he’d used on air as much as the would-be assault. Vader maintained afterwards that the whole scene had been suggested to him by the show’s producers, who had failed to inform Othman of their plan.

5. The Sheik Stays Silent

The Original Sheik was a major draw in his prime, terrifying fans and repulsing viewers with his sadistic actions during countless blood-soaked brawls. With a forehead that looked as though it had lost a fight with a garden rake, the villainous Sheik’s scars were a reminder to fans that this stuff was real. 

The Sheik not only suffered physically for his art, but he also did whatever he could away from the ring to stay in character. Since his character spoke ‘Arabic’ - which was actually some incomprehensible nonsense that he spewed in the hope fans didn’t know the difference - Farhat made sure to never speak English in public and travelled with his wife so that she could do the talking for him. Unless you were actual family or a close family friend, you would never hear him talk, something Farhat kept up until the day he died. 

Even when people would call the house to book him, if The Sheik happened to answer the phone he would deny that anybody by the name of ‘Ed’ lived there.

4. Mr. Wrestling Saves Wrestling

An October 4, 1975, plane crash in Wilmington, North Carolina, is widely known as what caused a young Ric Flair to sustain a broken back, while Johnny Valentine was paralysed, never to wrestle again. Tim Woods, AKA Mr Wrestling, was also on that fateful flight and, despite suffering a concussion, bruised ribs and a compression fracture in his back, his main worry was people finding out that wrestling was fake. 

Woods was supposed to wrestle the villainous Valentine on that evening’s show and, if people found out they were travelling together (and that a babyface was travelling with a group of heels), the jig would well and truly be up. So, Woods lied to the authorities, telling them that he was, in fact, a promoter while giving them his civilian name of George Burrell Woodin.

To dispel rumours that he had been on the plane, Woods even wrestled on a show just two weeks later, despite being in absolute agony. Flair would later write in his autobiography that Woods was, ‘More than just Mr Wrestling that day, he was the man who saved wrestling’.

3. Mr. Wrestling II Turns Down The President

John Francis Walker, who had wrestled as Johnny Walker and The Grappler in the 1950s and 60s, came out of semi-retirement in the 1970s to portray Mr Wrestling II, often teaming with the original. 

Exceptionally popular in the Georgia Championship Wrestling promotion (where he was a 10-time world champion), Mr Wrestling II became a favourite of the state’s governor, Jimmy Carter. So much so that Carter invited Walker to his inauguration after he became president in 1976. Walker would have gone, too - on the condition that he could do so in his mask. 

Naturally, the Secret Service insisted that he take the hood off for security reasons, something Walker wasn’t prepared to do as it might jeopardise his career while he was in the middle of a big run. Walker thus had to turn down the president’s invitation. 

2. El Santo Keeps The Mask On For Life

In Mexican wrestling culture, the mask is almost sacred and luchadors will go to extreme lengths in order to hide their true identities from the public. Masks are also big business, with wrestlers receiving substantial payoffs when they lose them in matches. 

One wrestler who never lost his mask was the iconic El Santo, who managed to go decades without revealing his face. Santo – who was also a movie star – made it his mission to never be seen in public without his mask on, doing everything from eating lunch to travelling on planes while wearing his silver disguise. 

Of course, there were times when he would have to take the mask off, such as when he got off the plane and went through customs, but even then Santo would make sure that whoever he was travelling with looked the other way when showing his face to border patrol. El Santo only ever publicly showed his face once, lifting up his mask without warning during an appearance on a Mexican television show a year after he had officially retired. 

Santo – whose real name was Rodolfo Guzman Huerta – passed away just one week later at the age of 66. He was buried wearing his mask.

1. Brian Pillman As The Loose Cannon

Towards the end of 1995, the high-flying, once clean-cut Brian Pillman morphed into the wild and unpredictable Loose Cannon. Pillman not only changed up his look and wrestling style, but he also began acting erratically in front of the camera, as well as backstage and even away from the arena. 

Brian was so ‘out there’ that his colleagues and friends didn’t know where the line was and began to fear for his mental stability. This included his former Hollywood Blonds tag partner Steve Austin, who later revealed that Pillman would remain in character whenever the two spoke and never let on whether he was working or shooting, despite their closeness.

He was so committed to getting his character over that he helped engineer a situation where Eric Bischoff legitimately let him out of his WCW contract, so he could go to ECW and develop his persona further before returning (something that never happened as Pillman signed with WWE instead). The Loose Cannon was, for a time, the talk of the wrestling industry, leaving fans, promoters and wrestlers alike equally parts puzzled and awed at Pillman’s dedication to his persona and always being in character, right up until the end.