September 10, 2002 gets a distinction on This Day in Wrestling History for a botch that’s been remembered for the possibility of being a lesson to a bully.
While accidents happen, there are times when they aren’t accidents and they’re done either for the person’s desire to inflict pain, to bully others, or teach a lesson.
Through the years, Bob Holly has developed a reputation for purposely hurting his opponents if they upset him as well as bullying newcomers to put them in their place.
In a sport where it’s hard to tell if something’s purposeful or not, many of these instances are left to fans’ opinions and what the wrestlers or other decide to share with us.
Mistaken perspective
As has been the case since the beginning of time, the accused often steps forward to speak in their defense, and Holly did just that.
Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the excerpt.
“I went into the locker room and lay down on the trainers’ table. Johnny Laurinaitis came in and asked if
“I was all right before he went in search of Brock. The trainer brought me some ice and was looking at my neck when Brock walked in. He apologized again; I could tell he felt horrible. I told him that it was an accident. Wrestling ain’t ballet! Brock said that Johnny had just chewed his ass out, telling him that he’d only been there for six months and he couldn’t be hurting guys like that.
“I told him I’d speak to Johnny and make sure he knew Brock wasn’t to blame for the accident.
“I’ve heard a lot of people claim Brock dropped me on my head on purpose because I wasn’t cooperating with him on the powerbomb — that I wanted to make him look bad, so I didn’t bother jumping properly and that I got what I deserved when he dropped me. Where these people got this idea, I don’t know. I think these people were happy to have seen me get hurt.
“It boggles my mind that there are people like that, and I guarantee that these people who started rumors from their computers wouldn’t say a damn word to my face. Nobody ever asked me about what happened or tried to get to know me before passing judgment, they just went ahead and made assumptions. Anybody who has ever learned to wrestle can look back at that footage and see that our timing was off and the whole thing was just an accident. Nothing more, nothing less.” – Bob Holly, The Hardcore Truth book.
In the end, Holly’s injury was the result of a botched powerbomb, whether it was in response to him trying to bully Lesnar or a legitimate accident will continue to be debated, and Holly’s history doesn’t help him in this.
This is one of the more interesting This Day in Wrestling History moments simply because this will be a debate/controversy until Lesnar or someone else says their piece, but even that probably won’t put things to rest.
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