5 botches that caused the wrong WWE Superstar to win a match
With at least five hours of live in-ring action on a weekly basis, it is only natural that WWE and its Superstars will make some mistakes along the way.
At WrestleMania 35, for example, Becky Lynch pinned Ronda Rousey to win the Triple Threat main event, despite the fact that Rousey’s shoulder was not down for the entirety of the 3-count. The mistake happened, the right Superstar still won, and everybody moved on.
Since then, it has emerged that another botch occurred at WrestleMania 35, with Braun Strowman missing his cue during the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal, causing the eliminations of Luke Harper and Ali to be delayed. Again, the mistake happened, the right Superstar still won, and everybody moved on.
In those two cases, the outcome of the match was not altered, but did you know that there have been several occasions in WWE history where a different Superstar has gone on to win due to somebody making a mistake?
In this article, let’s take a look at five botches that caused the wrong person to win a match.
#5 Summer Rae’s ringside mistake
Having defeated Chris Jericho in his debut match at WrestleMania 29, Fandango recruited Summer Rae as his full-time manager and he often relied upon her presence at ringside to help him win matches.
During a time when ‘Dango was struggling for victories, WWE’s decision-makers booked him to pick up a win over Kofi Kingston on an episode of Main Event in August 2013.
However, as Summer later recalled during an interview on NotSam Wrestling, she accidentally caused the match to come to an abrupt end when the referee noticed that she grabbed Kingston’s foot underneath the bottom rope.
Per WWE’s rules, the official did not have prior knowledge to the finish of the match, so he immediately called for a disqualification, meaning Kingston won instead of Fandango.
Summer explained:
“We go in the back and I didn’t even know what to say. I’m so, like, I just want to cry and I never let anyone see me cry here. Vince [McMahon] looks up and goes, ‘I loved it! It was great!’ and I don’t know if he knew it was a mistake, but he shook their hands and the producer, Dean Malenko, and we just went to the back and I said, ‘I’m so sorry.’”