WWE specializes in deception. They’re in the business of staging fights—of making something choreographed appear spontaneous. The wrestlers cut promos the way actors might read a script. They plan out the finish in the locker room. They sell punches and kicks as more painful than they really are.
By and large, the audience members are smart to all of this, and most times, they will play along and suspend their disbelief. But even so, fans don’t like being explicitly lied to. Even if a feud is scripted, there needs to be something believable to make the fans care about and pay to see it.
That’s why a lot of times, wrestlers will insert actual events and personal information into the feud; even if the fights aren’t real, the emotions behind them are. Fans, who feel like they’re seeing something they weren’t supposed to, speculate: “Did that wrestler just go off script?” “Do those two hate each other for real?”
These moments—regardless of how few and far between—make for tense (yet entertaining) television. And, on rare occasions, they hurt the actual feelings of the performers involved. Let’s all get together and cringe for the next few minutes, shall we? Here are some of the memorable moments when WWE got really awkward. Is it a work? Is it a shoot? Watch, and you be the judge.