Ascended Meme / Professional Wrestling

• During a WCW segment, Chris Jericho, to prove a point that no one in any authority actually cared about what he was doing, began reading from a list of "1004 Holds" one of which was the "Moss-Covered, Three-Handled Family Gradenza," a phrase he saw in the 1971 TV adaption of The Cat in the Hat. Paul Heyman liked the name so much he gave it to Perry Saturn's swinging fisherman's suplex finisher.
• During the (first Smackdown) feud between John Cena and Brock Lesnar, Cena once referred to Lesnar as a "vanilla gorilla," a common internet nickname for Lesnar.
• John Cena has openly referred to his finishing sequence as the Five Moves of Doom, a term Scott Keith coined for Bret Hart's own finishing sequence.
  • Funnier when you consider that Scott actually has a similar term for Cena's finishing sequence, but I imagine Cena didn't think "Five Moves of Mediocrity" was as catchy to swipe on TV.
• A running gag on the Wrestlecrap message boards was that the thing WWE truly needed was a wrestler with a primadonna gimmick in the vein of Terrell Owens. Then came the debut of Montel Vontavious Porter.
• After Glory By Honor VII: The Final Countdown (the subtitle itself was an ascended meme), the ROH fans began chanting "Twinkies" at Austin Aries during his matches. At Supercard Of Honor V, Aries offered his long time rival Delirious a peace offering in the form of...golden snack cakes.
• Gorilla Monsoon's complaints that tag team matches should have two referees eventually mutated into a meme. Then Dragon Gate introduced the "Gate To Heaven" match, one of the details being that it was a tag team match with two referees.
  • Another Monsoon example. He was the first to say that Bret Hart had "excellence of execution," which, once a "the" was added, became one of Bret's Red Barons.
• Besides Ring of Honor, Courtney Rush scatted The Final Countdown in response to coming into the same room as Sara Del Rey in SHIMMER.
• During a WWE sketch showing WWE personalities at a party, commentator Michael Cole went the Ham and Cheese route and referenced the fandom meme of his calling moves as "VINTAGE ______" by yelling that he is eating VINTAGE SHRIMP!
  • Cole and other announcers, notably the AWESOME Matt Striker, have openly referenced and mocked the memetic nature of "VINTAGE".
• Darren Young, at one point, referenced WWE internet fans' penchant for calling him "Black John Cena." Cena also paid it back during one of his promos as well.
• On WWE NXT, the term "Future Endeavored" has been used at least twice (by The Miz in the first season and Cody Rhodes in the second).
  • Matt Striker also referenced it at WrestleMania, telling Natalya "Good luck in your future endeavors" after she slapped Mr. McMahon in the face.
  • Also used in TNA, where Jeremy Borash frequently wishes the person losing their job in the "Feast Or Fired" match "the best of luck in their future endeavours".
  • John Laurinaitis has also used this phrase on WWE TV (and possibly Triple H as well, if memory serves).
  • It was also on a shirt, briefly, though it and the rest of the "Kayfabe" line of shirts didn't sell well and were quickly removed.
• The Cornette Face, made popular by Botchamania, became an Ascended Meme when Jim Cornette himself asked to talk to a fan who brought a sign of said face to a pro wrestling show. And after TNA Victory Road 2011 (a notoriously horrible Pay Per View that was "highlighted" by one of its main event competitors coming to the ring so under the influence, the match was canceled in the ring and the show was cut short,) Cornette tweeted, "Just watched TNA... I have to come up with a new face."
• The "Miz Girl", a little girl whose reaction to The Miz becoming WWE Champion became a meme within hours, then an Ascended Meme a week later when the Miz pointed it out in his celebration, giving her the official name of the Miz Girl. A few weeks later, she won a Slammy.
  • Same thing with the "Shocked Undertaker Fan." He was interviewed on WWE.com shortly after his appearance, and also appeared in a series of short cartoons produced by WWE later than year. One day, he got the Undertaker himself to make his famous face.
• In the "Lakers vs. Nuggets" episode of Raw, Batista made his entrance with a basketball in his hands. This is a reference to his "Basketballs...don't hold grudges!" quote on Smackdown.
• WWE has pretty much stolen the spotlight out of this lately, such as "The Genesis of the McGillicutty" speech and "He spilled my diet soda!"
• During NXT Season 4, fans have compared Rookie Byron Saxton to Carlton Banks. In most recent episodes, this has been lampshaded by the other rookies, Matt Striker, and even his (new) pro, Dolph Ziggler.
• On the 900 episode of Raw, Edge mocked Sheamus and called him Beaker. The fans took it and ran with it. Fast forward to the October 31st 2011 Super Show, where the Muppets are guest hosts, and Sheamus and Beaker meet. Sheamus defends Beaker from Christian, and then tells Beaker that he couldn't make the family reunion.
• WWE wrestler Zack Ryder was somehow able to turn himself into a meme thanks to his home-made YouTube show "Z! True Long Island Story". His show frequently bemoaned the fact that he was being ignored by WWE, often using double entendres aimed at Smart Marks. Eventually WWE took notice of his show's popularity, and Zack became a kind of Running Joke on TV about... how WWE wouldn't push Zack Ryder on television. (And ironically, in this role he received one hell of a good push.)
• When The Rock returned to WWE, he mocked John Cena on, among other things, his wardrobe, calling him "a big fat bowl of Fruity Pebbles". Not long after, Cena helped promote Fruity Pebbles by having his likeness posted on the cereal's boxes. But that's not all...
• CM Punk, during his feud with Vince McMahon in 2011, grabbed a headset during a brawl with Vince and screamed "WHAT A MANEUVER!" before driving Vince's face into the announce table in reference to Vince's infamous style of commentary from the 90s.
• In 2013, Fandango openly addressed the fact his fans were "Fandangoing". The week after it took off, Jerry Lawler hosted an entire segment dedicated to it.
• The naming of the tag team of Daniel Bryan and Kane was put up to a fan vote... in which all of the choices were pre-existing invokedfan nicknames for the two, including "Team Friendship" and the winning "Hell No".
  • Speaking of Daniel Bryan, his "YES! YES! YES!" chants were subject to this when fans caught on to it and started using it for just about every in-ring event. This would lead to WWE creating a shirt featuring the phrase, along with a whole slew of "YES! YES! YES!" merchandise.
• In 2012, Taeler Hendrix shed her jackets for more elaborate ring gear, started dying her hair a more vibrant shade of red and took on a much more manipulative, seductive demeanor leading fans to compare her to Tiara from Shamanic Princess or Poison Ivy from Batman. "Poison Princess" eventually became her official Red Baron in The House Of Truth and Ring of Honor.
• In 2013, a fan used a bubble gun during one of Emma's entrances. Following that, WWE made a bubble gun a regular part of her entrances and added bubbles to her video packages.
• For all the good things Triple H has done, he has a history and bad reputation for burying wrestlers and other competitors in an effort to reach the top of the ladder in WWE, which has become a meme in the IWC. On the March 14, 2014 episode of WWE SmackDown, Hunter, during the height of his feud with Daniel Bryan, left no more pretenses.
  Triple H: I will put an end to your dreams and I will BURY DANIEL BRYAN!
• The "AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!!!" meme became completely canon when Cena collabotated with telecom company Cricket Wireless for one of their promotional materials.
• During his time running NXT, Triple H would endorse every title change with a photograph of with the new champion, proudly pointing to their newly won championship. At WWE Fan Axxess in 2017, WWE had a cardboard cutout of Triple H ready for fans to take their own versions of the photo, which led to Triple H endorsing Triple H.
• At the second ECW One Night Stand PPV in 2006, ECW fans famously hung a sign saying "If Cena wins we riot" from the balcony of the Hammerstein Ballroom (Cena was only there because Money In the Bank winner Rob Van Dam, a veteran from the original ECW, chose then in advance as his cash-in match, which he won with help from Edge). In 2017, when Ruby Riot debuted on NXT, her theme music was titled "We Riot".
• At the start of the Colt Cabana-Grado match at AIW Bloodsport, September 9, 2016, Colt tried for a German Suplex and the commentator said, "You can't German Suplex Grado. It's like trying to powerbomb Billy Kidman."
• Josiah Williams, who gained popularity on Youtube for his "Wrestle and Flow" videos where he raps to wrestlers' entrance themes, performed in Adam Cole's entrance at NXT Takeover XXV.
• On one episode of NXT, Mr. Stone was giving his client, Von Wagner a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, noting how he hadn't accomplished anything and was only known for the "come Tuesday" meme.

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