History CowboyBebopAtHisComputer / ProfessionalWrestling

* In 1999, a college professor named Sabrena Parton got Wrestling/AlSnow's action figure banned from [[UsefulNotes/{{Walmart}} Wal-Mart]] after interpreting the Head accessory as a metaphor for spousal abuse, believing it to be representative of an actual woman's head. The real story is that back in ECW, [[Wrestling/MickFoley Cactus Jack]] told him to get some head in order to get [[IncrediblyLamePun ahead]]; Snow took this advice literally and started carrying around a mannequin head (more specifically, a styling dummy, the type of mannequin head beauty school students use to practice on before moving up to real people's hair).

* Once on CNN's ''Capitol Gang'' show, Margaret Carlson, a respected political journalist, called The Rock "a white skinhead hateful wrestling guy." The Rock is half-black, half-Polynesian (admittedly of a skin tone able to pass for "well tanned"), and at the time was not bald; it's likely she confused him with Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin. Apparently no one informed her of this, because a week later she was in the pages of ''Time Magazine'' writing that The Rock was "anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, with language so coarse and vulgar that I can't repeat it here." (As for Steve Austin, Carlson probably wouldn't have been correct even on that point, since the "Stone Cold" character has never been portrayed as racist and Austin himself has gone on record saying that he does not have a homophobic bone in his body and even supports same-sex marriage![[note]]Take a look at some of the haircuts Stunning Steve was rocking in WCW and you'll see why he started shaving his head.[[/note]])

* Speaking of CNN, you can be sure that if any wrestler does something stupid to get on the news every major (and minor) news network will refer to them as working for WWE. Doesn't matter if they've ''never'' worked for WWE in their lives, to people that don't pay attention to wrestling the WWF/E is the only wrestling company to have ever existed.

* In 1999, a college professor named Sabrena Parton got Wrestling/AlSnow's action figure banned from Wal-Mart after interpreting the Head accessory as a metaphor for spousal abuse, believing it to be representative of an actual woman's head. The real story is that back in ECW, [[Wrestling/MickFoley Cactus Jack]] told him to get some head in order to get [[IncrediblyLamePun ahead]]; Snow took this advice literally and started carrying around a mannequin head (more specifically, a styling dummy, the type of mannequin head beauty school students use to practice on before moving up to real people's hair).

* The 2000 book ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Professional Wrestling'' is filled with this type of error, leading many [[SmartMark smarks]] to claim it's "by complete idiots, for complete idiots". As just one example, the real name of wrestler The Rock (Wrestling/DwayneJohnson) is given as ''Rocky Melvin'', and Wrestling/OwenHart's finishing move is said to be a dropkick. Surprisingly, late wrestler and wrestling manager Wrestling/CaptainLouAlbano was one of the co-authors (the other was ''boxing'' expert Bert Sugar); however, as anybody who met Albano in person or seen him on TV will attest, he was a real life {{cloudcuckoolander}}, so it's not all that shocking that he could screw things up this badly. He even got things wrong about incidents and storylines in which ''he'' was involved. For instance, the book claimed, multiple times, that he had backed Wrestling/TheFabulousMoolah during the Women's Championship match at Wrestlemania I, when in fact that wrestler was Moolah's protege Wrestling/LeilaniKai. This error was particularly odd and glaring, since that fight marked the climax of the Rock 'n' Wrestling storyline for which Albano is best remembered. There was a second edition of the book that updated some information and corrected some of the errors but only replaced those with ''new ones''.
* Wrestling/MuhammadHassan was a controversial wrestler whose gimmick was that, despite being a born-and-raised American, being of Middle Eastern descent saw him face racism of all kinds on a nearly daily basis following 9/11. In 2005, as part of one of Hassan's last appearances on WWE programming, he called forth a group of men dressed in ski masks to attack Wrestling/TheUndertaker (a segment which had the misfortune of airing on the same day as an actual terrorist attack). In response to the backlash (besides the usual "It was only a 'terrorist attack' because I'm of Middle Eastern descent" defense), Hassan took things a step further and, in an in-ring promo, attacked a writer at the ''New York Post'' for an article in which the segment was mentioned saying that the Undertaker was "attacked by Arabs in ski masks". Hassan said of the article: "They were in ski masks! How does he know they were Arab?" The fact that Hassan effectively made that writer and the ''New York Post'' as a whole sound like a bunch of racist bastards actually made fans take his side it wasn't until he intimated immediately after that the article proved his point that all Americans hate Middle Easterners that Hassan got a massive amount of heel heat back. As a result of the aforementioned segment, UPN (the network that carried ''[=SmackDown!=]'' at the time) demanded that WWE take Hassan off TV. WWE did this, and following his final match (talked about below), he and his manager [[Wrestling/ShawnDaivari Daivari]] were sent down to developmental territories, where Hassan was eventually released. Many fans believed the ''New York Post'' article influenced UPN's decision and really were (or still are) the racist bastards Hassan called them out to be.

* Jonathan Snowden's 2012 book ''Shooters: The Toughest Men in Professional Wrestling'' is generally well researched, but it still voices the urban legend that Wrestling/AkiraMaeda and Wrestling/SatoruSayama clashed in the Wrestling/UniversalWrestlingFederation because Maeda wanted the promotion to focus on grappling while Sayama preferred to emphasize striking. This is not only false, but also utterly absurd in context, because while it is true that Sayama usually employed more kicks and strikes than Maeda in their matches, they both used sumissions in plenty, without mentioning that ''Sayama'' had the widest grappling background of the two. In reality, they clashed because Sayama wanted the promotion to be based on big, once-a-month events, while Maeda wanted to do as many events as possible (even including non-UWF forms of wrestling if necessary) in order to improve the promotion's income, adding to the fact that many wrestlers were wary that Sayama was cramming too much creative power and using UWF as his personal laboratory.

* The 1998 documentary (which means that they should've had all the time in the world to do the research, which makes it even funnier) ''Exposed! Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets'' reveals some secrets that every [[SmartMark knowledgeable wrestling fan]] already knew (the matches are predetermined, and we must [[SeriousBusiness wear masks to discuss this, since our lives could be at risk]]), and some they didn't [[BlatantLies because no pro wrestling federation has]] ''[[BlatantLies ever]]'' [[BlatantLies used them]]. (Two words: Stunt Granny.) This example is ironic for two reasons: Wrestling/HarleyRace was featured as the booker in the documentary and the production company behind the documentary (Nash Entertainment) was also responsible for the excellent ''Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed'' series.

** It's also worth noting that Mark Copani (the wrestler portraying Hassan) was so disgusted by all this that he retired from wrestling immediately following his release, trying his hand at screenwriting and acting and eventually becoming a schoolteacher. He wouldn't even appear at another wrestling-related event for nearly five years — and even then it was alongside (and probably because of) his good friend and former manager Daivari. To put it in perspective: when [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] kept WWE and wrestling as a whole at arm's length for seven years in order to establish himself as an actor, he was decried by certain wrestling fans and current WWE talents as a {{sell out}}. This guy said "to hell with this", only briefly resurfaced five years later at an indie event, and most people are completely sympathetic to him because the politics which killed his once-promising young career were just that obscene.
* Following the Wrestling/ChrisBenoit murders in 2007, ''The Today Show'' did a report on wrestlers who died young. One of the reports said that Owen Hart died from a heart attack. For the uninitiated, Owen actually fell to his death while preparing for an entrance that would see him rappelling from the rafters into the ring at a pay-per-view event. It's only by sheer coincidence that Owen's death wasn't seen on TV because the [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} WWF]] aired a backstage interview during the moment that it happened. It was a major news story and you'd ''think'' that it might stick out enough for them to get the cause of death right, but apparently not. On that same broadcast, they broadcasted Owen's face on [[Wrestling/DaveyBoySmith The British Bulldog]]'s profile.

** Grace also featured a list of wrestlers who died of drug induced and/or non-accidental causes during one of her shows. The list not only included the aforementioned Owen Hart, but also Wrestling/BruiserBrody, who was killed, his killer claimed self-defense and was acquitted on those grounds, Marianna Komlos (a.k.a. Mrs. Cleavage), who died of breast cancer and had ''never'' wrestled in a match, Wrestling/JunkyardDog and Joey Marella (who both died in car accidents), and Wrestling/AndreTheGiant, who died of heart ''failure'', caused by his Acromegaly (Gigantism).

** One of the heads of Creator/TheCW shortly after the Benoit murders claimed that her network wouldn't be troubled by it because "Benoit was never featured on [[Wrestling/WWESmackDown SmackDown]]". Apparently she never watched her own programming, as Benoit had been part of the [=SmackDown=] brand for ''two years'' before being drafted to the Wrestling/{{ECW}} brand, and for several years prior to a jump to ''Raw'' (when The CW was still Creator/{{UPN}}).

* For some reason, when Wrestling/{{Diamond Dallas Page}}'s yoga series started getting media attention, a lot of media types called him "Dallas Diamond Page."
* When WWE held a press conference to officially announce that [[Wrestling/WrestleMania WrestleMania 29]] would be in New Jersey, ''New York Post'' writer Phil Mushnick (who previously criticized wrestling in 1997 and got promptly chewed out on WWE television by Wrestling/JimCornette in a shoot after a wrong account of Wrestling/BrianPillman's death) wrote an article about it filled with inaccuracies, such as suggesting that [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson Dwayne Johnson]] "resurrect that bit when he smacks a male wrestler over the head with a chair, then smacks a female wrestler over the head with a chair, and they both pass out, face-down, in each other’s crotches, simulating simultaneous oral sex — while The Rock winks and smiles."... He ''almost'' got it right, if he was referring to The Rock and Wrestling/{{Lita}} vs. Wrestling/TripleH and Wrestling/TrishStratus match in [[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20dfw_lita-the-rock-vs-triple-h-trish-str_sport an episode of Raw in 2000]]. However, the female wrestlers didn't receive a chair shot during the match.

* This trope is parodied frequently through Wrestling/SantinoMarella, in his {{funny foreigner}} role, such as him calling [[Wrestling/RoddyPiper Rowdy Roddy Piper]] "Rodney the Piper" and Jimmy Kimmel "Jimmeny." His biggest faux pas may be when he messes up all of Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin's catchprases, like "open the can of the ass-whip," "stomping a mudpie" and "those are the bottom lines."

* During [[Wrestling/HulkHogan Hollywood Hogan]]'s original Wrestling/NewWorldOrder run, [[Wrestling/{{WCW}} Mike Tenay]] referred to his Music/JimiHendrix entrance music ("Voodoo Child") as "Voodoo Chili". To elaborate: Hendrix had a song called "Voodoo Chile" which was kind of a studio blues jam, then later took part of that and adapted it into the more conventional "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." The latter song was Hogan's entrance music. Tenay not only got the wrong song, but the wrong pronunciation (though "chili" is a common pronunciation of "Chile" as in the country, in this case it's supposed to sound like "child" without the d).

* Wrestling/{{TNA}}'s Wrestling/VelvetSky spoke in a interview about how happy she was to be in a company that didn't stick her in bra and panties matches, trying to take a shot at WWE. Except WWE has not had a bra and panties match since 2007 and what does Velvet do the ''Impact!'' after the interview? Get publicly stripped to her underwear during a segment.
* The 2013 PWI 500 scrambled the given names of Wrestling/TheYoungBucks with the ring names TNA gave them in order to keep calling them "The Young Bucks" while retaining distinction\trademark. Max and Jeremy ''Jackson'' in fact got it backwards, rather than if they had gone with Matt and Nick Buck.

** The most recent edition, as of 2020, not only kept these errors, but made some new ones. For example, their updated article on [[Wrestling/MontelVontaviousPorter MVP]] claimed he retired soon after returning at the 2020 ''Royal Rumble''. In fact, even after the Encylopedia was published and made for sale, although he had mainly transitioned into a manager for the Hurt Business, he still competed in the ring as part of said stable.
* At Wrestlemania 33, Wrestling/TheNewDay wore ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' inspired ring gear. Michael Cole claimed that he "even saw Moogle and Chocobo," as though these were character names. They're actually two species of creature in the series. This was followed by a few seconds of awkward silence, before Cole said, “hey come on [[Wrestling/CoreyGraves Corey]], you know I love ''Final Fantasy''!" It isn't entirely clear if it was a genuine gaffe or done intentionally for comedy.

** During the infamous Heroes of Wrestling pay-per-view in 1999, Randy Rosenbloom incorrectly called the dropkick the "flying leg kick" and the "leg drop". Captain Lou Albano, who joined commentary for one match, pointedly corrected him on his use of "leg drop" (probably because that's the name of another, different move). Rosenbloom went on to call any subsequent dropkick some version of "flying kick." He also misidentified a number of other moves, and badly misunderstood the finish of the [[Wrestling/TheMidnightExpress Stan Lane]] vs Tully Blanchard match.[[note]]To be fair, Rosenbloom is actually a sports commentator (mainly doing college basketball, he's also been part of NBC's Olympics coverage) and really had no experience with wrestling ''at all'', and was only there as a last minute replacement for Gordon Solie, who had to miss the show due to health issues. Rosenbloom was the only guy they could find on short notice that had any experience commentating anything, in retrospect they would have been better off letting Dutch Mantell call it solo.[[/note]]

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QPGODIckcE Headscissor takedown]]. Though if you want to get technical, a headscissor takedown is when the attacker jumps straight up, applies a headscissor to the defender and rolls him to the mat. The more commonly seen spinning version is a ''flying'' headscissor takedown. To make it worse, some commentators now call the move a "headscissors." A headscissors is a wear-down submission hold, not a flying move or takeover of any kind.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNqhEXoJcjQ Hurricanrana]]. The Hurricanrana is specifically ''only'' the move where the attacker flips straight backwards and takes the defender over into a pin. If the attacker swings to the side, it's a headscissor takedown variant. Diving and corner variations exist but the positioning remains the same. The move was named after luchador [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huracan_Ramirez Huracán Ramírez]]. Also, it was spelled ''huracanrana'' for years, until the "Hurricanrana" spelling became so prevalent it became accepted.

* The 1998 documentary (which means that they should've had all the time in the world to do the research, which makes it even funnier) ''Exposed! Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets'' reveals some secrets that every [[SmartMark knowledgeable wrestling fan]] already knew (the matches are predetermined, and we must [[SeriousBusiness wear masks to discuss this, since our lives could be at risk]]), and some they didn't [[BlatantLies because no pro wrestling federation has]] ''[[BlatantLies ever]]'' [[BlatantLies used them]]. Two words: Stunt Granny. This example is ironic for two reasons: Wrestling/HarleyRace was featured as the booker in the documentary and the production company behind the documentary (Nash Entertainment) was also responsible for the excellent ''Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed'' series.

** During the infamous Heroes of Wrestling pay-per-view in 1999, Randy Rosenbloom incorrectly called the dropkick the "flying leg kick" and the "leg drop". Captain Lou Albano, who joined commentary for one match, pointedly corrected him on his use of "leg drop" (probably because that's the name of another, different move). Rosenbloom went on to call any subsequent dropkick some version of "flying kick." He also misidentified a number of other moves, and badly misunderstood the finish of the [[Wrestling/TheMidnightExpress Stan Lane]] vs Tully Blanchard match.

* Once on CNN's ''Capitol Gang'' show, Margaret Carlson, a respected political journalist, called The Rock "a white skinhead hateful wrestling guy." The Rock is half-black, half-Polynesian (admittedly of a skin tone able to pass for "well tanned"), and at the time was not bald; it's likely she confused him with Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin. Apparently no one informed her of this, because a week later she was in the pages of ''Time Magazine'' writing that The Rock was "anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, with language so coarse and vulgar that I can't repeat it here." (As for Steve Austin, Carlson probably wouldn't have been correct even on that point, since the "Stone Cold" character has never been portrayed as racist and Austin himself has gone on record saying that he does not have a homophobic bone in his body and even supports same-sex marriage!)

* The 2000 book ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Professional Wrestling'' is filled with this type of error, leading many [[SmartMark smarks]] to claim it's "by complete idiots, for complete idiots". As just one example, the real name of wrestler The Rock (Wrestling/DwayneJohnson) is given as ''Rocky Melvin'', and Wrestling/OwenHart's finishing move is said to be a dropkick. Surprisingly, late wrestler and wrestling manager Wrestling/CaptainLouAlbano was one of the co-authors (the other was ''boxing'' expert Bert Sugar); however, as anybody who met Albano in person or seen him on TV will attest, he was a real life {{cloudcuckoolander}}, so it's not all that shocking that he could screw things up this badly. He even got things wrong about incidents and storylines in which ''he'' was involved. For instance, the book claimed, multiple times, that he had backed Wrestling/TheFabulousMoolah during the Women's Championship match at Wrestlemania I, when in fact that wrestler was Moolah's protege Wrestling/LeilaniKai. Moolah (backed by Albano) and Richter (backed by Lauper) had fought, but at the earlier ''Brawl to End It All'' event that set up the Wrestlemania I match. This error was particularly odd and glaring, since that fight marked the climax of the Rock 'n' Wrestling storyline for which Albano is best remembered. There was a second edition of the book that updated some information and corrected some of the errors but only replaced those with ''new ones''.

* The 2000 book ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Professional Wrestling'' is filled with this type of error, leading many [[SmartMark smarks]] to claim it's "by complete idiots, for complete idiots". As just one example, the real name of wrestler The Rock (Wrestling/DwayneJohnson) is given as ''Rocky Melvin'', and Wrestling/OwenHart's finishing move is said to be a dropkick. Surprisingly, late wrestler and wrestling manager Wrestling/CaptainLouAlbano was one of the co-authors (the other was ''boxing'' expert Bert Sugar); however, as anybody who met Albano in person or seen him on TV will attest, he was a real life {{cloudcuckoolander}}, so it's not all that shocking that he could screw things up this badly. He even got things wrong about incidents and storylines in which ''he'' was involved. For instance, the book claimed, multiple times, that he had backed Wrestling/TheFabulousMoolah during the Women's Championship match at Wrestlemania I, when in fact that wrestler was Moolah's protege Wrestling/LeilaniKai. This error was particularly odd and glaring, since that fight marked the climax of the Rock 'n' Wrestling storyline for which Albano is best remembered. There was a second edition of the book that updated some information and corrected some of the errors but only replaced those with ''new ones''.