Due to how many differing character stories professional wrestlers go through in their careers while all being connected to the same person, pro wrestling
heels have frequently done a lot of villainous deeds and still managed to come around and become
faces a couple years and a few stories later. However, there are
certain deeds that are so heinous that you'll wish the culprit receive a
massive ass-kicking in the ring before you're ever
satisfied with them moving onto the next angle, let alone the next turn or change of character.
- While deaths in the ring are not unheard of, they are extremely rare. So when Ox Baker killed Alberto Torres with his heart punch, that wasn't when he crossed the horizon. It was when he bragged about the death and tried to cause more with intentional heart punches that he crossed the line. And he was hated everywhere. Granted the actual real life death obviously was not a murder but it being worked in to Baker's character caused legitimate hatred being thrown at him.
- Big Boss Man crossed it by killing Al Snow's dog and feeding it to him, mocking the Big Show's father's death, and stealing his father's corpse at the funeral.
- Colt Cabana crossed the event horizon in IWA Mid-South when he tried to rape Chris Hero's student, Nadia Nyce. In fact, some of his fans declare his IWA M-S run an Audience-Alienating Era solely because of this incident or just choose to ignore that he was ever there.
- Jimmy Jacobs crossed the event horizon in IWA Mid-South when he appeared in rival promotion All American Wrestling and threw the IWA M-S Heavyweight Title belt in the trash. He's since shown up in IWA M-S again in defiance of his permanent ban, but is always the bad guy. He was considered a hero in AAW, though, at least initially. He also crossed it in Ring of Honor when he tried to impale his ex-girlfriend the Lovely Lacey with a railroad spike, as even stablemates Tyler Blacknote though we've got more on him below and Joey Matthews felt he was going over the line.
- Brock Lesnar crossed it in his first WWE run when he pushed Zack Gowen down the stairs during his 2003 Heel run. Even Vince McMahon, who has often been called Satan himself by commentators, looked shocked/horrified by Lesnar's actions and tried to talk him out of it, to no avail.
- Portia Perez crossed the event horizon in SHIMMER when she tried to kill Allison Danger's unborn child. While she had masked babyface runs prior, she was never really forgiven, and retired in SHIMMER with no real friends, besides maybe her tag team partner Nicole Matthews.
- Seth Rollins crossed it in 2014 when he took a retired Edge hostage and attempted to Neck Snap him even after John Cena gave in to his demands to reinstate The Authority.
- Jonathan Coachman crossed it during his Disproportionate Retribution phase against John Cena and his father (an elderly non-wrestler) for their admittedly Necessarily Evil extremes against Randy Orton for repeatedly terrorizing them at the time.
- Randy Orton first crossed it in 2005 during his feud with The Undertaker, which was his first feud after utterly failing to avenge the betrayal he suffered at the hands of Triple H and Evolution over the World Heavyweight Championship. First, he cemented a Face–Heel Turn by hitting Stacy Keibler, who he'd been teasing a mutual interest with in the occasional odd segment for years and had really started connecting with in the past several months, with an RKO immediately after their first public kiss as a message to Undertaker of what he'd be willing to do to beat him at WrestleMania 21. How far was he willing to go? Despite Undertaker winning, the feud continued after WrestleMania when Orton went to the SmackDown brand and continued to the end of the year; and in late November, he laid Undertaker out on the trunk of the recently deceased Eddie Guerrero's low rider, then deliberately backed said low rider into the SmackDown stage, setting both ablaze in an attempt to kill The Undertaker. Got his ass kicked inside Hell in a Cell at Armageddon, but immediately began his next story in 2006 mocking Eddie's best friend Rey Mysterio Jr. by claiming that Eddie was in Hell, earning the ire of both Rey and Chavo Guerrero Jr. enough that for Eddie's sake the two actually worked together for a few months to keep the same World Heavyweight Title off Orton and put it on Rey before he went back to Raw. In 2007 after his partnership with the treacherous Edge fell through he made sure he stayed over the line by going on a sadistic spree of taking people out with what became known as the Patented Punt, including putting Rob Van Dam on a bus in WWE and taking out John Cena Sr.
- He attempted this again hardcore in 2008-09 after returning from an injury, first breaking down both Ted DiBiase Jr. and Cody Rhodes to turn them into his henchmen, then targeting Vince and Shane McMahon with punts and even hitting Stephanie with an RKO while she was distressed over Shane's punting. The problem here is that his targets were Triple H and the McMahon family, all very naturally unsympathetic targets to begin with, and he was finally taking the driver's seat in avenging the event that had clearly destroyed whatever was left of his innocence. This caused a massive backfire in any expected future plans for Orton; fans cheered him like he was "Stone Cold" Steve Austin despite the heinous nature of his deeds, and even took his side over DiBiase and Rhodes when they got sick of his abuse, resulting in turning him face instead of his victims. He wouldn't go heel again until The Authority, meaning Triple H and the McMahons, hand-picked him to lead the company as champion in 2013.
- Michael Cole mocking the death of Jerry Lawler's mother.
- Roman Reigns driving an ambulance with Braun Strowman inside into a production truck with a seeming attempt to murder him. And that's after he lost a match to Strowman. And he's supposed to be the face here. note Granted, this might be mitigated as Pay Evil unto Evil, given Strowman's own viciousness against Reigns and many others.
- His match vs. Jey Uso at Clash of Champions 2020 crossed it after Roman, not satisfied with Jey just "taking the payday and laying down" and pinning him, decided to lay a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on his cousin until Jey verbally declared Roman as his "Tribal Chief". Jey refused to give up, forcing his injured brother Jimmy to limp down to the ring and literally beg Roman to stop before throwing in the towel for Jey and declare Roman as the "Tribal Chief". Even Paul Heyman, Roman's own "special counsel" who managed The Uso's dad in the 1990s, was disgusted over the beating. This also signified that the Roman Reigns of old, vest and all, was gone.
- In his rematch with Jey Uso at Hell In A Cell 2020, which was under “I Quit” stipulations, Roman subjected Jey to yet another No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the point that by the end of the match, Jey couldn’t even stand, yet once again he refused to submit. Having seen enough, Jimmy Uso called out Roman on what he was doing to his family and begged him to stop the match. For a moment, it appeared Roman was showing genuine remorse for his actions, to the point he broke down in tears... which turned out to be a ploy to sucker Jimmy into lowering his guard so Roman could force him into a guillotine chokehold, forcing Jey to say "I Quit" in order to save his brother. If the former didn't convince the rest of the doubters, this certainly did.
- John "Bradshaw" Layfield crossed it when he attacked Eddie Guerrero's mother at a house show leading up to Judgment Day.
- Chris Jericho crossed it when he outed the alcohol and drug problems in CM Punk's family, and then promised to make Punk an alcoholic during their feud leading up to WrestleMania XXVIII. He then crossed it again after he lost the match at 'Mania, only to pour a bottle of liquor all over Punk's body and break the bottle on the back of Punk's head in revenge on the following RAW.
- CM Punk mocking Jerry Lawler's legitimate heart attack right in front of him. If that doesn't count, then his mockery of a then-recently dead Paul Bearer (not even a week after the fact) most likely will. And yet, despite those actions, fans continued to cheer him.
- In 1993, Brutus Beefcake was returning to ring action after being off for three years due to his parasailing accident when he was attacked by Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase and IRS. All that culminated with IRS hitting Beefcake in the face with his briefcase. Jimmy Hart, one of the most devious managers ever, even tried to talk them out of it to no avail. After the attack, Jimmy sat by Beefcake's side, resulting in a Heel–Face Turn for the former and becoming the manager for him and Hulk Hogan in their tag team the Mega-Maniacs.
- When Mr. McMahon started his feud with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, he was more or less a stodgy businessman uncomfortable with Austin's behavior. By the time he organized his own daughter's kidnapping just to get the belt off of Austin, he crossed into a psycho who'd do anything just to spite his enemy.
- He's crossed it numerous times. Another famous example is when he abused his aforementioned daughter in a match on PPV, which ultimately ended with him choking her out with a pipe. He also physically threatened his wife the whole time and shoved her to the ground. Lampshaded by the commentators, as Tazz, who had been defending Vince's actions initially, eventually gave up in disgust and agreed that Vince had crossed it. And when Tazz claimed that this was the first time Vince had struck his wife, Cole retorted "that we know of", lampshading the Fridge Horror of how Vince treats his family outside of WWE (kayfabe-wise, of course).
- Out of Kayfabe, if you believe what Konnan said in his second major shoot interview with RFvideo, the shameless and crass exploitation of the late Eddie Guerrero could be considered this for Vince; according to Konnan nobody wanted to do it, even Steph and Trips were opposed to it, but Vince alone insisted on it so it went ahead.note Supposedly there was going to be even more to it, including a feud between Chris Benoit and Chavo Guerrero Jr. over "Eddie's Estate", but it was canned when Chris put his foot down and flat-out refused to do it. If true, it basically shows Vince to be a near-complete sociopath.
- While Vince stripping Becky Lynch of her WrestleMania opportunity may be justified, him doing the same to Kofi Kingston two weeks later can be seen as this since Kofi didn't do anything wrong to him and he gave Kofi's championship match to Kevin Owens instead, you know, the man who busted him open two years ago. In addition, Vince's speech of why Kofi doesn't deserve the championship match can come out a bit racist.
- Dean Ambrose crossed it when he turned on Seth Rollins, immediately after they won the Raw Tag Team Championship, on the same night their best friend Roman Reigns relinquished the Universal Championship to battle his returning leukemia. It is so far, the only thing that has gained Dean legitimate heat from the fans.
- Triple H raping Stephanie McMahon.
- Raven crossed the line so many times during Raven's Nest's run in ECW from 1995-1997, but turning The Sandman's then-wife and then-7-year-old son against him and later crucifying him at ECW High Incident were the sickest.
- Alberto Del Rio arguably crossed it when he faced Dolph Ziggler for the World Heavyweight Championship at Payback in June 2013, and spent the entire match attacking the head of Ziggler, who had just come back from a concussion. Made even more egregious given that he was a face beforehand...leading to him turning heel and Ziggler turning face...despite the latter being a heel beforehand.
- Bayley crossed the line by turning on Sasha Banks as of SmackDown on September 4th, 2020 with a sickening chair stomp onto Sasha's throat.
- Moose arguably crossed it on October 23, 2021 at Impact Wrestling's Bound for Glory; having won the Call Your Shot Gauntlet match earlier in the evening (think the Royal Rumble with the prize being Money in the Bank), Moose called his shot immediately after the main event which saw Josh Alexander submit Christian Cage to win the Impact World Championship. After the two Canadians hugged it out with Cage passing the torch, and Alexander's wife and son coming into the ring to celebrate his victory, Moose immediately attacked Alexander from behind, then officially called his shot. With a spear and a 1-2-3, Moose won the title, ensuring that Alexander would not bring the title home to his family, making him the shortest-reigning Impact World Champion in history, and standing right in front of said family to taunt them.
- If Moose hadn't crossed the line at Bound for Glory, he certainly did so at the Destiny Wrestling show in Toronto on March 26 by hitting the Lights Out spear on Alexander's wife Jade Chung while she was performing her closing hosting duties with her husband and son by her side.
- As leader of the Ministry of Darkness, if the Undertaker didn't cross it when he admitted that he killed his own parents and burned his brother, or even when he tried to embalm Austin alive
, he certainly did when he abducted people such as Ryan Shamrock and Stephanie. Vince McMahon being the mastermind of the whole thing was HIS crossing of the Moral Event Horizon.Jim Ross:
(after the Undertaker reveals to Ken Shamrock that the Ministry found his sister at a run-down hotel) The Undertaker's gone too far! Stephanie
McMahon, Ryan Shamrock; this is too much!
