Corpsing / Professional Wrestling

• An infamous example of corpsing in pro wrestling occurred on an episode of WCW programming where "Macho Man" Randy Savage was having a fit backstage, flipping tables, and whatnot. During this segment, he came across a giggling Torrie Wilson, and to stop her from corpsing, he smacked her across the face. Botchamania turned this clip into a bona fide meme:
  • X CORPSING?
    *cue a 16-bit version of Beat It from Michael Jackson's Moonwalker*^note Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man
    SEND FOR THE MAN!
  • Later becomes a running gag when its involves something in AEW ^note SEND FOR THE KHAN! or a later WWE usage being SEND IN THE MAN!
• During Sid's infamous "I have half the brain that you do!" promo in WCW, Scott Hall literally doubles over in laughter while Kevin Nash laughs so hard the mic he's holding at his waist picks it up.
• The Shockmaster incident. Sid Vicious deserves an Oscar for managing to remain in character during this whole mess.
• Booker T cuts a promo with "Mean" Gene. At the end of his rant, Booker accidentally "goes ghetto" for a second and refers to Hulk Hogan by the N-word. Not only does Booker barely maintain composure, keep a close eye on Sherri behind him.
  • Happened quite a few times during his "King Booker" run in 2006, as his Ridiculously over-the-top delivery of a Fake Brit accent has caught a number of wrestlers off-guard and lose composure. Two notable instances were during a contract signing for their World Heavyweight championship match at SummerSlam in which Batista struggles to put Booker through a table and had to repeat the spot properly because he was struggling to remain serious the first try, then during Booker and his stablemates William Regal and Finlay giving a beatdown to John Cena in which Cena is glimpsed trying not to chuckle while Booker is delivering his promo.
• The Rock's rock concert on the March 12th, 2012 edition of WWE Raw, dissing John Cena, Cena's fans who are grown men (calling them all nerds who dress like Kirk and Spock), and even Cena's mom. The Rock clearly almost trips on his own laughter a few times, and even Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole start losing it towards the end.
  • During his "serenade" to Vickie Guerrero. You could see her trying her hardest not to smile.
  • There was also the now-legendary Rock concert in Sacramento in 2003, where The Rock was sitting in the ring and dissing Sacramento (with his classic "when the Lakers beat the Kings in May") line. At the time, he was in a fierce rivalry with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, who was seated outside in his truck. Stone Cold was supposed to be reacting with bitter anger to the Rock's songs, but each time they cut to him in the truck he was struggling harder and harder not to laugh. By the time The Rock started dissing Austin himself, he had to roll up the truck's window so the camera wouldn't catch him cracking up.
• Paul Bearer just barely made it out of the camera's sight before cracking up in this interview before the 1992 Royal Rumble, where he was acting so hammy he made himself laugh. The Undertaker remaining stoic as usual was an impressive feat. Paul Bearer has stated in interviews that he often tried to make Undertaker give in and laugh on camera, though it is unknown how many times he succeeded.
• Juventud Guerrera corpsed during an edition of WCW Thunder when Vampiro's blood from the ceiling missed Kevin Nash and landed on fans in the front row.
• In Ring of Honor, the camera slowly passed by Amazing Phenomenon (AJ Styles, Amazing Red and Alexis Laree) to get their reactions to the nonsensical ramblings of Paul London but quickly panned away when reaching Laree who had a huge grin on her face.
• Paul London was allegedly "Wished the best in his future endeavors" for corpsing during the scene where Vince McMahon's limo got blown up at the end of the "Vince McMahon Appreciation Night" Raw, June 11, 2007. Before he was let go Jerry Lawler suggested London was in on it.
  • London wasn't released for over a year after the limo explosion, so it was highly unlikely it had anything to do with him.
• During John Cena's in-ring promo with Randy Orton, Kofi Kingston, and Mike Tyson when Cena starts talking about Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, Orton can be seen crouching down and leaning on the ropes clearly trying not to laugh. Bear in mind he was playing a psychotic villain at the time.
• At Survivor Series 2007 Melina Perez went to perform her normal splits entrance but slipped and fell off the apron. She was playing a heel at the time but burst out laughing straight away and was trying her best to keep a straight face when she performed them again. Beth Phoenix is also giggling for a bit.
• During an in-ring promo between Eve Torres, Beth Phoenix and Natalya, Eve shoves Beth which leads to an unfortunate Wardrobe Malfunction. The camera tries to stay off Natalya who is desperately trying to keep a straight face. She tries to hide it with a look of outrage but some chuckles seep through.
• Kane:
  • On several occasions, he started laughing his ass off when his ring pyro malfunctioned, making his entrance look somewhat... less dramatic than intended. Making this worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), Kane is supposed to be a sadistic Demon coming straight from Hell.
  • Kane had to hide his laughing during Blackjack Lanza's induction speech for Bobby Heenan into the Hall of Fame when Lance Storm started playing with his tie the same way Lanza does to signal when a match needs to end.
• During a John Cena promo on the 5/14/12 edition of Raw, GM of both Raw and SmackDown John Laurinaitis could clearly be seen corpsing when Cena starts making faces at him and calling him a "loser".
• Mick Foley wrote about some examples in his autobiographies.
  • When he, as Dude Love, and Owen Hart faced off against each other in singles matches through 1997 (after Hart had broken "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's neck at SummerSlam), the sole purpose of these So Bad, It's Good bouts (including antics such as making snow-angels using popcorn) were to get Austin to break character by corpsing. If the book was any indication, it worked.
  • At one point Foley worked out a Ho Yay-themed gag with the Rock (in which the Rock would deny being gay in such absurd ways that it started to seem pretty gay) that involved a series of hilarious pantomimes. Unfortunately, it was so funny that in the ring Foley couldn't even get through the first sentence without cracking up. The Rock tried to come to his rescue, but soon he was cracking up too. At this point, they threw the whole bit out and just tried started ad-libbing, including a series of send-ups of the Godfather's "Pimpin' ain't easy" punchline that was so funny even Stone Cold got in on it.
  All of this got me thinking, maybe it's true. Maybe The Rock really does suck after all.
• John Cena didn't (or couldn't) even attempt to hide his laughter in the middle of his "WWE Star Wars" promo.
• John Cena also slowly turned to the hard-cam before corpsing after hearing R-Truth tell him that "usedta is a roostah from Brewstah."
• Judging by this video, it seems Jeff Hardy wasn't fully prepared for his brother's sudden reference to WWE. Broken Matt's delivery of just about everything is amusing enough, but suddenly touching on that megalomaniac in New York: MEEK MAHAN! had Jeff quickly hide his steadily unstraightening face.
• On SHIMMER Volume 24 during the main event, Cheerleader Melissa boots Sara Del Rey right in the face prompting a massive corpsing fit from both Portia Perez and Dave Prazak on commentary. They even replay the spot twice to have a good laugh at it and Portia keeps asking to see it more times.
• This from the 1000th episode of Raw, in which Michael Cole does an audible Spit Take trying to stifle his laughter. Also doubles as a Callback to one of the most infamous angles in pro wrestling history.
• Happened during a match on RAW between Team Hell No and Rey Mysterio Jr. and Sin Cara between Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, and the Prime Time Players once Cole used the term "washrag." It goes on for the rest of the match. It would later become a mild running gag between Cole and the PTP.
• "Mean" Gene Okerlund:
  • He famously had to turn his back to the camera during an interview with Ken Patera, because Patera's promo skills... weren't exactly great.
  • He completely lost it during a promo with Doctor D David Schultz here.
  • A promo with The Iron Sheik.
• The JBL and Cole Show:
  • One episode features William Regal and Daniel Bryan dressed up as ninjas. In it, Bryan demands that Regal kick him in the groin to show off his "Iron Testicles", Regal obliged and can be clearly seen covering his mouth in a poor attempt to hide his laughing. Bryan's reaction certainly doesn't help either. It can be seen here
  • In another episode, Cole visibly cracked up when Damien Sandow was singing and insulting Rosa Mendes.
• While on the subject of Bryan Danielson, there's this promo cut by him and Paul London for a Pro Wrestling Guerilla event. London has clearly jettisoned his connection with reality when he starts talking about walking on the beach before the event; at the :55 mark is when Danielson can't keep it under control. To his credit, they work through their giggles. Especially when...
  Paul: I need a pod. A two-person pod. Say hello to my pod partner...
  [the camera pulls back to allow Bryan back into frame, whereupon he stares at the camera for a long moment]
  Bryan: Hello.
  Paul: Hello. [Bryan starts cracking up again] That was good.
• Survivor Series 2013 Zeb Coulter demonstrates what twerking is. Cesaro, normally The Stoic, finds it impossible not to grin and chuckle. Jack Swagger kept a straight face.
• InVasion promos:
  • Kurt Angle cut a promo from the stage on the Alliance in the ring and said that he was going to kick "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's "tex-ass", which made Austin bury his face in the turnbuckle for a few seconds.
  • Another promo featured Vince McMahon giving a pep talk to Team WWF (consisting of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, Kane, and Chris Jericho). Throughout the speech, Austin continually interrupts Vince by parroting his lines causing Undertaker to visibly try and maintain composure before seemingly breaking down and covering his face with his hand at the end of the promo.
• During Stephanie McMahon's introduction of Triple H as "the greatest wrestler of all time" on December 12, 2013, CM Punk completely gave up trying to take it seriously◊.
• In 2003, Goldust had come to warn Triple H (with Ric Flair) about getting too confident about his upcoming match at WrestleMania 19 against Booker T; however, he contracted a stutter after his most recent match and struggled to talk continuously. Meanwhile, Triple H and Flair were genuinely muttering with laughter, unable to contain their reaction to Goldust's sincerely hilarious performance.
• In 2005, Chris Jericho mocked Shelton Benjamin by singing "Shelton is a Little Bitch". Shelton can be seen struggling not to laugh before he composes himself and acts insulted like he was supposed to.
• Because part of the character of The New Day is to have the three of them be as ridiculous and fun-loving as they can be, they seem to enjoy goading more serious characters into breaking character as part of their promos. This extends to interviews too, such as this one where they attempt to disrupt the WhatCulture Wrestling interviewer Adam Pacitti as much as possible. It does backfire, as only Kofi Kingston is able to survive the entire video without completely breaking down laughing.
• At Cyber Sunday 2006, Shawn Michaels was trying to vote on who the special guest referee should be for his tag match with Triple H that night. Triple H argued against voting for Mr. McMahon or Jonathan Coachman, leaving Eric Bischoff as the last choice. Shawn wasn't too displeased with that until Triple H informed him that Bischoff had claimed DX didn't understand controversial. This wound up Shawn so much that he picked the first guy he saw (some staffer named "Stan") and proceeded to superkick him. He then continued his tirade and superkicked two other people in the same hallway, loudly ranting all the while. The camera then returned to Triple H who was very clearly on the verge of losing it, only barely able to get his lines out between the giggles.
• On the Old School Raw episode in 2014, Jake "The Snake" Roberts made a return and by the end of the program, laid his snake, Damien, on top of a beaten Dean Ambrose. Dean must have been a fan of his because he was doing his best not to laugh, he was actually smiling the entire time.
• On the January 10th, 2017 episode of 205 Live, Cedric Alexander breaks up with Alicia Fox and when he leaves she screams so loudly it causes microphone feedback. She's grinning by the end of it.
• During the first WWE Mixed Match Challenge, Sami Zayn and Becky Lynch give a post-match interview trying to explain their loss. Sami, playing a heel, blames it on the Philly crowd, while Becky pins it more on the two of them eating too much of her birthday cake. When Sami interjects ("A local place, Philly bakery"), poor Becky is reduced to an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
• During NXT Season 3's Halloween Episode Naomi came dressed as the Hamburger Helper Hand. When she went into a little dance, her pro Kelly Kelly could be seen burying her face in her hands with laughter.
• During the in-ring promo-off between John Cena and Roman Reigns on the RAW leading up to their match at No Mercy 2017 Roman told Cena that the fans boo him because he sucks, only for Cena to interrupt, sling an arm around the shoulders of then RAW GM Kurt Angle and counter with "Hey, according to them so does he, but that's OK, he won a gold medal". This not only put an embarrassed grin on Angle's face, but it completely threw Roman off his game so badly he forgot where he was up to in his promo, and when Cena subsequently roasted him for it, in turn, you could see Roman almost smiling as well.
• Well, how else was Leonard F. Chikarason supposed to respond to Chuck Taylor dropping a "grenade" down Kodama's tights and giving him an Atomic Drop (knee to the tailbone) at CHIKARA Top Banana, December 5, 2015?
• When Kensuke Sasaki decided to join Dragon Gate and participate in comedy matches with The Florida Brothers^note former jobbers Taku "Michael" Iwasa and Raimu "Daniel" Mishima spoofing southern style wrestling, his wife Akira Hokuto was extremely opposed to the whole thing, feeling he was just discrediting his legacy. However, she did accompany him several times - and could usually be seen laughing at the Florida Bros' antics, then looking irritated^note to be fair, 'irritated' is Hokuto's default facial expression at herself for laughing.
• A more heart-felt example is when Becky Lynch relinquishes her WWE Raw Women's Championship to Asuka the night after Money in the Bank 2020. Asuka, the winner of the female version of the titular match and at the time an over-the-top heel, came to the ring in character for a segment with Lynch. Lynch then awards the championship to Asuka, who proceeds to celebrate in her usual scenery-chewing Evil Gloating, proceeded to congratulates her and then reveals that the reason she's relinquishing the championship is because of her pregnancy. Upon hearing this, Asuka breaks character and becomes emotional, proceeds to hug Lynch and then cheers for her as the former champion exits the ring.
  • A few years later this was actually Jossed when Becky admitted that she'd told Asuka about her pregnancy before the segment. Asuka is just that good at making it look authentic.
• R-Truth made Brock Lesnar of all people howl with laughter when he pulled a Bait-and-Switch during one of his promos and vowed to beat Paul Heyman in the Royal Rumble. Brock lost it again once Paul clarified he wouldn't be competing in the Rumble, and R-Truth realized who his actual competition was and withdrew his challenge. It was later revealed that R-Truth was taking part in a bet to see if he could make Lesnar corpse, and Brock had no idea R-Truth was going to interrupt or what he was going to say.
• In what quickly became an infamous meme, Nia Jax missed a leg drop in a match against Lana and proceeded to shriek in pain - so loudly and hysterically, eventually screaming "my hole!" - Lana could be seen grinning and mouthing "oh my God" (which to be fair, was perfectly in character).
• On the March 19th, 2021 episode of Smackdown right before Fastlane, BigE and Apollo Crews would have an interview before brawling. Apollo Crew's nigerian accent causes Big E to be visibly on the verge of cracking up with laughter and even smiling a little at points but he still manages to keep it together and look insanely pissed off for the whole interview
• In a ring promo involving Mickie James, Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch and Naomi - Naomi calls Alexa Bliss "Lexi Boo Boo", and Becky immediately starts grinning.
• During a Bloodline segment on the October 28, 2022 edition of Smackdown, Sami Zayn caused Roman Reigns, Jimmy and Jey Uso to corpse uncontrollably during a dramatic segment. Sami tries to calm Roman down after Jey shows disrespect towards Roman by saying Jey just isn’t himself lately and isn’t "feeling... very Ucey." Jimmy immediately starts to laugh his head off, Roman and Jey valiantly try to stay serious but can't help smiling and chuckling at the remark.
  • Sami cracks Jey up again with his handshake with Jimmy in this sgement. Jey has to hide his face from view.
• Rhea Ripley nearly breaks during this Valentine's Day skit with Dominik after he tells her he's the most wanted man on TikTok. Rey's wife and Dominik's mother Angie also nearly loses it after Rhea and Dom walk up to her at the table and Dominik calls Rhea "Mami".

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