10 WWE Production Fails That Exposed The Product

WWE’s production team are one of the best and most well-polished in either sports or entertainment. They’re not Curt Hennig, though, and there are sometimes mistakes, whether by a wrestler that the production team didn’t catch in time, or an error by the team themselves. 

These are 10 WWE Production Fails That Exposed The Product. 

10. Mysterious Hand - Drew McIntyre vs. Bobby Lashley at Hell In A Cell 2021

The Hell in a Cell stipulation is one that is – or at least should – be reserved for the most bitter of blood feuds. It’s a match type that really isn’t – or at least shouldn’t be – any laughing matter. 

Eagle-eyed viewers watching Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley scrap over the WWE Title in the main event of the Hell in a Cell 2021 pay-per-view couldn’t help but chuckle, though, when a poor piece of production work momentarily killed the seriousness of the situation. 

After Lashley put McIntyre through a table at ringside, the camera focused in on Drew selling the pain of the move. However, as he was doing so, a mysterious, rogue hand appeared from under the ring and pushed pieces of table debris towards McIntyre. 

It turned out the person under the ring was actually removing a crash pad that had been placed under the table to soften the blow and the person tasked with doing so unintentionally ruined the illusion.

9. Brutus Beefcake - The Main Event

Before they had their falling out, Ed Leslie would follow Terry Bollea to the end of the earth. The two men were real-life best friends and parlayed their friendship into an on-screen relationship between Hulk Hogan and Brutus The Barber Beefcake. 

Beefcake was routinely on hand to save Hogan, including at The Main Event when The Hulkster’s Mega Powers tag partner Randy Savage turned on him. Yet on this occasion, Brutus arrived too early, as fans could clearly see Brutus wander into the shot well before he was supposed to wrest the WWE Title belt away from The Macho Man.

Beefcake had to backtrack out of the way, take his shirt off and return to make the belated ‘save’ a solid 20 seconds later. One of the most iconic angles in WWE history was already messed up as Hogan, not realising they were already rolling, had earlier asked the camera guy for his cue before WWE hastily cut away to something else.

8. Road Warrior Hawk - In Your House: No Way Out Of Texas

A WWE pre-show match, especially during the Attitude Era, was often pointless and the Free-4-All shows were typically appetisers designed to get undecided customers to purchase the pay-per-view.

Those who were watching the Free-4-All prior to 1998’s No Way Out of Texas would have at least been tipped off to something major that was going to happen later in the night. As Sunny was interviewing Vader backstage, Road Warrior Hawk accidentally walked out of a door right into the shot. Hawk quickly realised what had happened and then made a hasty exit.

That wouldn’t ordinarily be such a big deal, but the Legion of Doom weren’t booked on the show. Yet there was Hawk, in full makeup, wandering around backstage. 

The Road Warriors did emerge following the NWA North American Championship match between Jeff Jarrett and Justin Bradshaw later that evening. They got a typically enormous pop when their music hit, but those who were tuned into the pre-show wouldn’t have been so surprised to see them.

7. The Dudley Boyz - Rebellion 2001

The sound man doesn’t have the most difficult job, in theory, but there have been a few music mishaps on WWE TV over the years.

One of the most common is for the wrong music to play at the end of a match, such as when the Hardy Boyz’s entrance tune played after Crash Holly had retained his Hardcore Title in a six-man scramble at Backlash 2000. 

The Hardy Boyz were involved again when, 18 months later, WWE’s music maestro prematurely hit the switch and spoiled the outcome of Matt and Jeff’s match. 

The brothers were competing against The APA and the Dudley Boyz in a triple threat elimination match for Bubba and D-Von’s WCW Tag Team Titles at Rebellion 2001 and managed to get half the job done when a Twist of Fate sent Farooq and Bradshaw packing. 

Whoever was in charge of the music must have only been half paying attention, as they clearly saw a three count and pressed ‘play’. Unfortunately, they didn’t play The Hardys’ stock number, but the music for the Dudleys, thus spoiling the ending of the match which saw Bubba Ray and D-Von retain.

6. Kane & Eve Torres - February 13, 2012 episode of WWE Raw

There was nothing to admire about WWE’s Rise above Hate storyline in 2012 which did real damage to the popularity of Zack Ryder. 

One moment that provided a bit of unintentional entertainment value, though, was the segment where Kane attempted to abduct Eve Torres in an ambulance.

John Cena was being interviewed backstage on the February 13, 2012 edition of Raw when he heard a woman’s scream and a loud crash happening off-screen.

John ran off to save the day. The camera then cut to Eve walking into an ambulance of her own volition, while Kane stood there waiting for his cue to close the vehicle’s back doors, which was promptly given to him by a producer whose rolled-up piece of paper made it into the shot.

5. The Undertaker & Triple H - WrestleMania X-Seven

After years of disappointing performances and being lumbered with barely mobile big men, The Undertaker finally had a WrestleMania match worthy of his famed winning streak at WrestleMania X-Seven against Triple H. 

The two competitors were permitted to brawl around the Houston Astrodome in 2001, which brought ‘Taker and The Game to a scaffold tower, at which point The Undertaker sent Triple H crashing below following a chokeslam. 

The initial camera angles made the move look hellish but the replay did away with any of the aura around what had just happened as they showed the move wasn’t delivered from a great height and Triple H landed on a crashpad. 

While nobody was expecting The Cerebral Assassin to take a 10-foot drop onto solid concrete, WWE really did the performers no favours with this production choice.

4. Kurt Angle - March 6, 2003 episode of SmackDown

The purpose of a Steel Cage Match is to keep the combatants together inside the ring, so they can finally settle their differences, while keeping outside forces away from interfering. Unfortunately for WWE, that has turned out to be more literal than they’d like it to be on a couple of occasions. 

Such as on the March 6, 2003, edition of SmackDown, where Brock Lesnar met Paul Heyman in a Steel Cage Match that was more of an angle than an actual competitive contest. The Next Big Thing had Heyman up for an F5, which was Kurt Angle’s cue to enter the cage via the door and clip Brock’s knee. 

Regrettably, the door lock legitimately jammed and, after trying to enter for about a minute, Kurt opted to climb over the top instead, by which point Lesnar had had Heyman on his shoulders for an eternity. 

Angle’s debacle paled in comparison to the nightmare Mark Henry had when he tried to break the cage door’s lock when interfering in the WWE Tag Team Title bout between MNM and Rey Mysterio & Batista almost three years later.

After struggling for several minutes, The World’s Strongest Man lived up to his name by physically breaking into the cage, but the wrestlers had been required to sell for an excessive amount of time while it all went down.

3. Hulk Hogan - May 6, 2002 episode of Raw

Hulk Hogan infamously wasn’t too keen putting over other wrestlers because, as a megastar, he believed that losing would only diminish his aura. 

During a feud with The Undertaker in 2002, Hogan commandeered the Dead Man’s bike and attempted to chase him off by riding the vehicle up the entrance ramp. Hogan stalled the bike three times, though, drawing laughs from the crowd. 

The Phenom had to flee from the scene, despite the fact that the bike was sputtering at around three miles per hour, which made the number-one contender to the Undisputed Championship look incredibly weak. 

Hogan eventually got the bike to work, after which he drove it backstage and ran it over with a semi-truck which, mercifully, didn’t stall on him. 

2. Goldberg - April 21, 2003 episode of Raw

Hulk Hogan wasn’t the only megastar to be thwarted by a faulty vehicle as, around a year later, his old WCW rival Goldberg was also left looking like an idiot when he couldn’t get his ride to work properly. 

The former WCW World Heavyweight Champion hadn’t been in the company but for a few weeks when he was made to look very silly during a backstage segment with The Rock.

After running backstage in pursuit of The Rock, who he thought had hightailed it out of the arena, Goldberg climbed into a Plymouth Barracuda and promptly had the engine stall on him on multiple occasions to the point he gave up and chased after The Rock on foot. 

According to Bruce Prichard, a stunt coordinator had been messing with the car during rehearsals and had accidentally flooded the engine. 

1. Randy Orton - November 16, 2009 episode of Raw

At the height of his villainous run, Orton looked to dismantle “Rowdy” Roddy Piper on the November 16, 2009 episode of Raw from Madison Square Garden.

As Orton went for a punt, he hesitated, looked around and gave a half-hearted stomp instead, right as Kofi Kingston’s music played. 

Kingston’s theme was obviously supposed to interrupt Orton in full flow, but by being a second too late, it made the supposedly ruthless villain stop in his tracks, exposing his act. 

Making the scene that much funnier was Randy, never one to be shy about expressing himself, turning around to the hard cam and throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.