Botch (professional wrestling)

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A botch in professional wrestling is an attempted maneuver that is not executed as the performer intended. Most botches are harmless but embarrassing, such as a wrestler falling before his opponent's maneuver actually connects or when it has clearly missed.

1 Inexperience
2 Danger
3 Improvising endings to matches
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Inexperience

A common cause of botches is inexperience. Jackie Gayda, winner of the Tough Enough 2 competition, in one of her first TV matches (a tag team match with Christopher Nowinski against Trish Stratus and Bradshaw on the July 8, 2002 edition of RAW from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), botched nearly every move that she tried, the most famous of which was a second-rope-bulldog by Stratus, which Gayda sold two seconds too late.^[1]

On April 26, 1976, Bruno Sammartino suffered a neck fracture in a match against Stan Hansen at Madison Square Garden, when Hansen improperly executed a body slam. Bruno came back eight weeks later for a rematch.^[2]

[edit] Danger

Sometimes botches can be extremely dangerous and can end a wrestler's career (or life). For example, WWE wrestler D'Lo Brown once botched a running sitout powerbomb on his opponent Droz, resulting in Droz being paralyzed from the neck down (it should be noted, that this botch was mainly caused by a member of the audience tossing a beverage into the ring which D'Lo slipped on while holding Droz in the powerbomb position. Droz also did not cinch himself up at the waist as is the safety measure for powerbomb receivers).^{[citation needed]} In other cases, the wrestler performing the move could be injured. Japanese wrestler Hayabusa botched a springboard moonsault in a match against Mammoth Sasaki when his foot slipped on the second rope and he landed on his head, causing catastrophic damage to his spine and neck and paralyzing him for life.^[3]

An example of the worst case scenario is when a botch results in the death of a performer. This happened to wrestling trainee Brian Ong. In May 2001, Ong was training with Dalip Singh (better known as WWE's Great Khali) and took a flapjack from Singh. The move was botched, reportedly because Ong had grabbed Singh's shirt instead of pushing off Singh's back as he was instructed. Although he had made the mistake several times before without incident, this time Ong landed tailbone first and his head was whipped back violently against the mat. The resulting impact was devastating, causing irreparable damage to his spine and brain stem. Coupled with a previous concussion, the move resulted in Ong's death a few days later.^[4]

[edit] Improvising endings to matches

In most cases, minor botches are simply glossed over as though they never happened. Serious botches resulting in injuries often result in improvised endings to matches; one famous example being the match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Owen Hart, in which a botched piledriver left Austin with a broken neck and forced Hart to improvise an extended taunt/victory dance sequence until Austin was able to roll him up in a schoolboy pin, ending the match earlier than planned but with the desired winner (Hart, coincidentally, died 21 months later as the result of a botched ring entrance stunt, crushing his chest from a 78 foot fall). Sometimes, the remainder of a match will be canceled if a wrestler cannot continue or requires immediate medical attention.

If a wrestler is seriously injured (in a botch or otherwise) the referee normally signals the need for immediate help by doing an "X" formation with his arms (similar to the famous D-Generation X taunt). As professional wrestling fans have noticed this, the referee may sometimes perform the symbol in an attempt to indicate a (kayfabe) injury to another performer, which will lead to the match being called off. This is not always the case nowadays, and on occasion, the "X" sign may be used to fool fans who are turned on to its purpose.