Here in Blighty, especially back in the ITV Golden Era this would have resulted in an army of enraged shooters (esp the Wigan crowd) looking to hospitalise Mero, but in America it was what the guy needed to be a star.

This of course is why Jim Harris--a guy who got a job in wrestling due solely to his size--came to England and left with various limbs and ligaments practically dismembered from his body, having dared to incur the wrath of this army of shooters.

Oh, wait, that didn't happen...according to Harris, he came to England while breaking into the business, "made good money for two years," and came back home health intact and with a brighter future ahead of him.

Fine--maybe Harris came along too late for the "Golden Era" of TV. But you'd think something like that would have happened to the similarly talented Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks....right? Right? OK...

Strong Kobayashi? Professional bodybuilder before wrestling, no amateur or judo or martial arts credentials to speak of. Sent to Europe by the IWE on a learning excursion, and paid for it by...being booked to go undefeated and come across as an invincible foreign menace. Hm.

Well, if we stick to the domestic side of things, there's Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo, who rode their charisma and showmanship to what looked like an increased push in Joint Promotions, only to have their careers derailed by an army of shooters none too pleased to see pure showmen being booked to victories over them.

Oh, that didn't happen, either?

Well, one of the most legit men of them all we can all agree on was Billy Robinson, who in the late '60s went overseas due to the decline of heavyweight wrestling at the time. Nothing would have brought greater glory to his wrestling credentials than to leave a bunch of crippled Americans, Japanese, and Mexicans in his wake, those (for the most part) showmen having crossed paths at last with a REAL wrestler.

17-year career in the U.S. and Japan with matches against almost every top star imaginable and the only guy to suffer a permanent injury in a Robinson fight was...Billy Robinson. Maybe he was waiting to pick the right spot and was really, REALLY deliberate in going about it.

Darn it all...when *was* this "Golden Era" of ITV when Shooters & Rippers Reigned Supreme and everyone involved was BAH GAWD LEGIT?

So what are the true stories of wrestlers shooting on their opponents?
One that springs to mind is Regal vs Goldberg. I don't know the full story of this.

So what are the true stories of wrestlers shooting on their opponents?
One that springs to mind is Regal vs Goldberg. I don't know the full story of this.

No shoot involved. Just miscommunication between the wrestlers and the bookers/FO.

The front office wanted to versatilize Goldberg a bit and get more variety in his matches--around this time he had a match on Thunder with Sick Boy where Sick Boy got in lots of offense and actually had him on the ropes--so they wanted Regal to have a mat-_base_d match with him. WCW being WCW, signals got crossed and after a few minutes, things got awkward in the ring before they went to the spear-Jackhammer finish.

Completely different from "Regal shot on Goldberg and made him look bad and then WCW fired him," which is a total 100% myth. On the contrary, Regal made Goldberg look *better* than anyone else had to that point.

What I can think of off the top of my head...

- The Road Warriors vs. Larry Hennig & Crusher Blackwell in the AWA. In an effort to get the young Roadies to start selling more for their opponents, the AWA front office orders Hennig & Blackwell to stop selling their offense and stiff them in return.

- Andre the Giant vs. Akira Maeda, NJPW 1986. Andre, visibly drunk off his rear end and acting under orders from Antonio Inoki, tries to put the cocky shooter-wannabe Maeda in his place. Bad move: Maeda, who was trying to go along with the booked match, finds Andre going for his eyes and has to kick Andre's legs out from under him. Unable to defend himself, Andre lays down and dares Maeda to pin him. By this point, Inoki is at ringside and Maeda is looking at him, asking him to take the pinfall victory. Inoki finally steps in and stops the match in rather awkward fashion.

- Six-man tag match, NJPW 1987. As Riki Choshu is applying his sasorugatame (scorpion deathlock) to Osamu Kido, Kido's partner Maeda comes in and shoot-kicks Choshu full-force in the head, shattering his orbital bone. The match breaks down until Maeda's partners can get him out of the ring and the match comes to the planned finish. Maeda is immediately suspended but given a chance to stay with the company if he makes an apology and does a job to Choshu. Maeda refuses and is summarily fired, leading to the creation of the second UWF and changing the course of Japanese wrestling forever.

- Lex Luger vs. Bruiser Brody, Steel Cage Match, Florida 1986. After several minutes Brody, for reasons not entirely known, stops selling Luger's offense. A confused Luger continuously throws working punches at Brody for minutes on end, with Brody just staring at him the whole time. Luger finally says "f this" and climbs out of the cage, and referee Bill Alfonso declares a disqualification.

- New Jack vs. Mass Transit in Revere, MA. I don't care to go over the details of this again. Anyone interested can Google it themselves.

- Rikidozan vs. Masahiko Kimura, 2/27/54. Kimura was one of the greatest judokas of all-time--the Kimura arm breaker is named for him and he once tapped Helio Gracie in Brazil--and he faced Rikidozan in the first major pro match in Japan between two natives. Towards the end of the bout, Rikidozan suddenly shootkicks Kimura below the belt and then KOs him.

- Antonio Inoki vs. Akram Pahalwan, India 12/12/76. Pahalwan attempts a double-cross on Inoki, who responds by applying a wakigatame and breaking his arm. A despondent Pahalwan commits suicide some months later.

- Scott Hall & Kevin Nash vs. The Nasty Boys, WCW house show, 1996. Things for whatever reason get out of hand and a legitimate brawl breaks out in the middle of the match, complete with shoot chair shots. Jerry Sags suffers a major neck injury and never wrestles again.

- Akira Maeda vs. Super Tiger (Satoru Sayama/Sammy Lee/Tiger Mask), UWF, 9/2/85. Wouldja believe a shoot in which the shooter double-crosses his opponent by *losing*? Maeda hits Sayama with a kick to the midsection, which Sayama sells as a kick to the groin and crumples to the mat. The ref stops the match and awards it to Maeda, who leaves the ring in confusion. Since UWF NEVER ran anything but totally clean finishes, something weird happened here--possibly Sayama wanted to avoid doing a clean job and came up with this.

Here in Blighty, especially back in the ITV Golden Era this would have resulted in an army of enraged shooters (esp the Wigan crowd) looking to hospitalise Mero, but in America it was what the guy needed to be a star.

This of course is why Jim Harris--a guy who got a job in wrestling due solely to his size--came to England and left with various limbs and ligaments practically dismembered from his body, having dared to incur the wrath of this army of shooters.

Oh, wait, that didn't happen...according to Harris, he came to England while breaking into the business, "made good money for two years," and came back home health intact and with a brighter future ahead of him.

Fine--maybe Harris came along too late for the "Golden Era" of TV. But you'd think something like that would have happened to the similarly talented Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks....right? Right? OK...

The future Big Daddy, Shirley Crabtree, was chased out of the biz in 1966 by a furious Bert Assirati, angry at this tanker being handed his old BWF British Heavyweight _title_. Later as BD, two particular shooters Kendo Nagasaki and Adrian Street never had to job to him. Street simply had no dealings with Daddy, while Kendo at most settled for a phyrric victory where he came out with a 2-1 win but got unmasked in the process.

And since you mention Billy Robinson, he made it to double-crown British & European Heavyweight champion and backstage locker-room leader before 30 and retired the two _title_s undefeated (to go off to America in a naive quest to double-cross himself into a World Heavyweight _title_.)

Pallo had one measly brief reign as British HeavyMiddleweight Champion in 1969 in an era when Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore, Ernie Riley, Billy Joyce, Billy Robinson, Mike Marino, George Kidd etc were dominating _title_s for long stretches.

The future Big Daddy, Shirley Crabtree, was chased out of the biz in 1966 by a furious Bert Assirati, angry at this tanker being handed his old BWF British Heavyweight _title_. Later as BD, two particular shooters Kendo Nagasaki and Adrian Street never had to job to him. Street simply had no dealings with Daddy, while Kendo at most settled for a phyrric victory where he came out with a 2-1 win but got unmasked in the process.

And all the shooters who did job to him...?

Daddy's exile was pretty temporary as we all know; while Street conquered America with occasional jobs to legendary shooters such as Dusty Rhodes, Rip Rogers, and Jimmy Valiant.

(Why would Street be wrestling Daddy to begin with? Did Daddy ever face Bobby Barnes or McManus?)

And since you mention Billy Robinson, he made it to double-crown British & European Heavyweight champion and backstage locker-room leader before 30 and retired the two _title_s undefeated (to go off to America in a naive quest to double-cross himself into a World Heavyweight _title_.)

Like I said, he really picked his spots for a double-cross, considering the roughly 3740 World _title_ shots he got over 17 years in the U.S. and in Japan, at all 3 World _title_s and a ton of promotional and regional belts.

Robinson wasn't always cooperative of course and if he wanted to f you up he of course could. No one's denying that. But Verne Gagne, Nick Bockwinkel, both Funks, Ric Flair, Giant Baba, Harley Race, Rick Martel, Bob Backlund, and Jumbo Tsuruta all had a habit of emerging with their health and reputations intact. And that's just the World Champions he challenged.

Watching a match isn't the same as being in there, but in putting together a Robinson compilation over the past few months I've watched almost everything of his that's on tape...and the only *really* noticeable "non-cooperation" is in his NWF _title_ match with Inoki.

No shoot, but Robinson after winning the first fall is clearly stalling for time, cutting off Inoki comebacks (not by "shooting" necessarily but by going to the ropes and dodging moves and forcing resets) and Inoki and his seconds are visibly concerned that he's pulling a double-cross.

But it doesn't happen. If anything, it just adds to the greatness of the match when Inoki gets the tying submission with 30 seconds left to go.

The rest? Well, his temper is short, but I failed to find any opponent grabbing his arm or leg in pain as it's suddenly dislocated from its socket.

Pallo had one measly brief reign as British HeavyMiddleweight Champion in 1969 in an era when Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore, Ernie Riley, Billy Joyce, Billy Robinson, Mike Marino, George Kidd etc were dominating _title_s for long stretches.

But the fame and exposure and stardom and, most of all, the money was going to Pallo and McManus, which is precisely why Robinson (and Tony Charles, and Al Hayes, and Geoff Portz, and Johnny Eagles) left the country to begin with. Robinson did have a family to feed and the British Heavyweight championship wasn't going to do it.

Well it seems like there have been incidents of wrestlers shooting where they don't want to do the job. But it seems often it was a case of miscommunication and generally the wrestlers want to do what is best for business rather than what they feel is best for them in the short term.

It is interesting to know about this, thanks for sharing the info guys.