10 Most Insane Things Wrestling Companies Did For The Money

Look, everybody understands that wrestling is a business, and businesses want to make money

However, it is still astonishing to check out some of the insanity top promotions throughout

history have booked, just so a movie studio, band, fast food restaurant, or soft drink spews

some delicious dollars into company coffers with a handshake and a smile

Hi, I'm Gareth from WhatCulture Wrestling, and here are the 10 most insane things wrestling

companies did for the money. Number 10, Scooby-Doo backs up Sin Cara

First, the pro wrestling tag team you never asked for. Live on the 24th of March, 2014 episode of Raw

WWE had someone don a Scooby-Doo costume and ride to sing Kara's Rescue

Poor Damien Sandow had to treat the mascot character as if a cartoon dog had come to life

It was silly and it was over the top. But all Scoob did get a pop from the live crowd at least, so that's something

Still, it's wild to look back on approximately nine years later. WWE has produced several crossovers with Scooby and the gang over the years

but they've mostly been animated movies and things like that. Here, the mutt with the most was hanging around with somebody who'd likely fall over

and botched the search for bad guys posing as ghosts or monsters. Scooby and Kara even showed up in the mystery machine

which was actually a really nice touch. Of course, the only mystery was why the Sing Kara gimmick got such a long run in WWE

after his totally crap start. Number 9, Rick Steiner Feuds with Chucky

The 12th of October 1998 episode of WCW's Monday Nitro will forever go down in history as the night tough guy pro wrestler Rick Steiner

threatened to beat Chucky the Doll's Lil' Horror Movie heirs. Bonus points go to absolute pro Mean Gene Oakland for acting like Rick vs. Chuck

might be Halloween Havoc's next main event. His facial expressions were on point

Anyone who thinks Vince Russo produced the worst WCW content ever needs to fire up the WWE Network or Peacock and relive this awkward moment

Chucky's banter, he was there to promote upcoming movie Bride of Chucky

was pre-taped for the big screens. So Steiner and Gene had to time their responses

as Rick props weighed up a steel cage challenge for the next pay-per-view

It would not have been outlandish for WCW to attempt some sort of match between the pair, let's be honest

In fact, it's a bit of a surprise they didn't have someone in a Chucky outfit take some Steiner lines or suplexes on TV

I would have definitely paid to see that. Number 8, Kiss Demon equals WCW Main Eventer

Here something so WCW it hurts Originally Eric Bischoff reportedly toyed with the thought of a Millennium Bash that it include a wrestling show and a Kiss concert

It was ambitious, but plans changed and WCW cut a deal with Gene Simmons and the band

to introduce a brand new main eventer themed on his Demon persona in late 1999

Journeyman pro Dale Torborg was cast in the role, and he did his best with it

Hilariously though, WCW's promise to make the Demon a main event superstar fell flat

The company pulled the wool over Gene's eyes here by promoting matches as special main events

but booking Demon on the undercard anyway. The idea didn't catch on or last long

but the Kiss Demon was actually brought out of storage by Impact earlier this year

Because what's old is new, I guess. Number 7, WWE stars threaten the Muppets

You're still waiting for that mixed tag pitting Jack Swagger and Vicky Guerrero

versus Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, aren't you? WWE was obsessed with drafting in celebrity guest hosts

to appear on Raw between 2009 and 2010, and the concept continued beyond that

but not every single week like it did for around 12 months back then

By all accounts, the Muppets weren't actually the worst guests, but they did provide some strange moments on the 31st of October 2011 flagship

Sheamus and Beaker were called family members, Animal played stand-in timekeeper by furiously hammering the ring bell

and then there was that standoff between Kermit and Swagger that surprisingly topped anything from Jack's dreadful world title run

Cross-promoting with the Muppets and having burly wrestlers shout at small puppets

was certainly a choice. Number 6, non-fan Jeremy Piven is not prepared

This was absolutely unacceptable. It perhaps says everything that the Muppets were better prepared

for a spot on WWE programming than Jeremy Piven or fellow guest host Ken Jeong

They doubled up to promote their upcoming movie, the goods live hard sell hard on the 3rd of august 2009 edition of raw and it was a complete and utter

car wreck fans were already tired of the guest host idea just a month or so in by the time piven

and jong hit the scene ken's ott comedy style looked embarrassing in front of an audience who

didn't pay to see him then jeremy went and messed things up by calling upcoming pay-per-view

summer slam the summer fest john cena had to step in to correct him as fans booed and it became

crystal clear that WWE hadn't prepped Piven for his role at all

Of course, he should have done some homework himself, but it was cringe-worthy to realise

that the company hadn exactly been hands here So let just hope Paramount Pictures paid well eh Number 5 Shawn Michaels equals KFC Colonel This image here is probably how WWF fans in 1995 thought Shawn Michaels would look during his

retirement tour in 2023. It's actually HBK as the Colonel of KFC fame. He was dressed like that

so the fast food restaurant padded company bank accounts with a healthy wedge of moolah at

SummerSlam 2017. Keep in mind that this daft nonsense happened before Shawn returned to rings

for a disastrous bout in Saudi Arabia the following year. So the first real glimpse fans had of Michaels striking his familiar poses in years

happened as he cosplayed a chicken restaurant's mascot. This wasn't the first time KFC had paid WWE Megabucks to promote their food either

Dolph Ziggler also played the part in 2016. But Michaels is more memorable because, well

Shawn was retired and people were desperate to see him wrestle again at the time

Ric Flair was apparently earmarked for the gig at first, but health problems prevented that

So HPK did some posing and folks awkwardly applauded whilst hating on corporate shilling

Number 4. Mountain Dew Sponsors Bray Wyatt's First Match Back Money talks, baby, and it shouts down WWE's better instincts

They had to know that promoting Bray Wyatt's first match back at the 2023 Royal Rumble as a Mountain Dew special was a bad idea

The soft drink company were willing to pay up, though, and that's why Wyatt vs LA Knight, yeah, became a pitch black match

What did that mean? while the lights were dimmed and everything was soaked in neon flair to make it resemble a can of

the dew. Yes, yes, Bray's first major match since returning the prior October was turned into a

hollow advertisement for some soft drink. Worse, the spectacle flat out sucked and seemed to turn

Wyatt into a neon-drenched version of his old fiend offshoot. The whole thing lasted around

five minutes bell to bell, was a struggle to watch for those live at the Rumble, and didn't really do

much of anything for Bray or Knight. A bizarre decision for what would ultimately be the last

ever televised in-ring match fans would see from the late Great Wyatt

Number 3. WCW has Robocop save Sting Wrestling traditionalist and he who loves touting college sports Jim Ross must have

gone to industry hell when he shouted, here comes Robocop! At WCW's Capital Combat 1990

pay-per-view. The Unstoppable Crime Fighting Machine's second movie was set to come out

one month after the show, so he rocked up to the DC Armory and saved Sting's Bicken

The Stinger was locked in a mini steel cage by the four horsemen and he needed rescuing Out came Robocop to robo his robo as Robo fans celebrated in the robo and WCW surely patted themselves on the back

for thinking they'd just earned Orion Pictures a tidy sum. Instead, the angle was roundly criticised by viewers

and people feared the character might return for some actual in-ring stuff

that'd kill off Ric Flair's stable for good. That didn't happen, but Robocop's tie-in did become stuff of legend

and show up in worst-of lists about WCW and pro wrestling generally forevermore

JR probably didn't go and see the flick, presumably. Number 2. Vince McMahon's Special Egg

The team behind Dwayne Johnson's Netflix movie Red Notice repeatedly paid WWE a shedload of cash to cross-promote at Survivor Series 2021

That's why a beaming Vince McMahon arrived at the building clutching a priceless golden egg

one of the treasures from the film, and WWE stars were forced to act amazed

Rich Holland's awestruck reactions were particularly enjoyable. Later, McMahon claimed the egg wasn't a prop from some movie

It had been gifted to him by The Rock and was worth $100 million

And after that revelation, it went missing, and the hunt was on

Vince was furious, various stars scrambled to find the thing for a reward

and wrestling fans wondered why they were supposed to care about any of this. It didn't need to make sense

WWE had already pocketed a substantial sum for agreeing to show off the egg at all

so their hokey hunt was background noise to company tills a-ringin'. And it made for some horrendous TV, too

Wonderful stuff. Number 1. Zombies invade WWE and devour The Miz Here it is, people

The undoubted kingpin of take-the-money-and-run cross-promotions in wrestling history. And a reminder that WWE will do anything to make cash

Apologies in advance if you'd somehow managed to eject this from your brain since it happened

And oh I did, Damien Priest beat The Miz in a zombie lumberjack match

when various extras including former favourite Scotty Too Hottie, dressed up as the undead at WrestleMania Backlash 2021

This was a tie-in with Batista's Army of the Dead movie, and it was downright horrible to witness

At one point the zombies even devoured Miz as the announcers wondered if he'd make it out of the Thunderdome alive

Then Miz showed up on TV soon after like nothing had happened

The match was genuinely torturous to watch, and made you wish you were being eaten to death like the awesome one

So, now you can go and try to forget this horrific thing all over again

Now go and enjoy a can of Mountain Dew, some golden scrambled eggs, and a side of zombie

Bye-bye