The botches in wrestling are bound to happen no matter how talented or professional the names involved are. Even the all-time greats like Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels have their fair share of botches that come from performing live. However, the audience’s awareness of the botch can make or break how it impacts the show.
There have been instances of botches working both ways with the audience. Some botches were not apparent to fans since it felt like it could have been a normal part of the show. Others were clearly obvious to show how different it can go despite being the same scenario of a mistake. The following botches either had fans unaware of them in the moment or were completely obvious.
10 Unsure: Royal Rumble 2005 Photo Finish
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WWE have booked finishes like the Royal Rumble 2005 match before to make it seem normal when Batista and John Cena eliminated each other at the same time as the final two wrestlers. Bret Hart and Lex Luger were even co-winners one year to show that precedent existed.
However, it was actually a real botch when Cena’s feet were supposed to fit the floor first. Both guys landed at the same time to cause Vince McMahon to restart the match. McMahon tearing his quad entering the ring added to the unplanned wildness before Batista won the extended match time as originally planned.
9 Obvious: Brock Lesnar's Shooting Star Press

WrestleMania 19 featured a truly scary moment with fans clearly aware of Brock Lesnar’s botch in the main event. Lesnar attempted to hit a Shooting Star Press on Kurt Angle as the first time he introduced that move on the main roster after doing it in his younger years.
WWE fans were stunned silent when Brock landed on his head nowhere near Angle’s body since it was too far away, and Lesnar mis-timed the jump after going so long without doing it. Everyone knew what happened as a loopy Lesnar barely got up to the F5 to salvage the match.
8 Unsure: Hardcore Holly Winning Hardcore Championship At WrestleMania 2000

WWE booked a unique match at WrestleMania 2000 with the hardcore invitational for the Hardcore Championship. Over a dozen wrestlers brawled all around the venue with the rules indicating that anyone pinning the champion or new champion within a 15 minute period won the belt.
The finish saw Hardcore Holly pinning Crash seconds before the 15 minutes expired to end the match. Fans assumed it was the normal ending, but that wasn’t the plan. Hardcore has admitted that the pin count started too early, and the clock was to expire one second before he won to sell how lucky Crash was to survive as champ.
7 Obvious: Titus O'Neil Falling Down & Sliding Under Ring During Entrance

WWE got great mileage out of the comedic botch of Titus O’Neil falling down in Saudi Arabia. The Greatest Royal Rumble match saw Titus slated to enter the match when he tripped right before the ring area and his momentum took him all the way out of the ring.
Michael Cole and Corey Graves cracking up for the next ten minutes showed just how unexpected it was that they couldn’t get over it. O’Neil made the most of the embarrassing moment by leaning into the joke on social media and on WWE TV over the next few weeks.
6 Unsure: AEW's Barbed Wire Explosion Disaster

One of the lowest moments in AEW’s short history featured the infamous Barbed Wire Explosion match between Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley. AEW witnessed them having a strong PPV main event with the action between the ring and all the barbed wire spots providing excitement. However, things fell apart to ruin everything they did during the post-match angle.
The barbed wire ring was meant to explode like the end of Japan barbed wire matches. Eddie Kingston covered Moxley’s body to protect him, but the explosion was extremely meek. Most fans had never seen a match like that before, so many left wondering if that was intended as a much worse reaction than knowing it was a production botch.
5 Obvious: Sid Hurting His Leg

Sid Vicious suffered one of the most blatant and ugliest botches that was clearly a botch at the end of WCW. The video is still hard to watch back today, even though Sid has recovered and even wrestled again on the independent circuit for many years on and off.
WCW fans were stunned when Sid did a rare move off the top rope and landed on his leg that buckled under the pressure. Sid’s leg twisting and folding was terrifying to see as he attempted to finish the match afterwards, but everyone knew he badly injured his leg.
4 Unsure: Alex Riley's Royal Rumble Elimination

WWE started the feud between John Cena and The Miz for WrestleMania 27 in the Royal Rumble match of 2011. Alex Riley was meant to play a role in distracting Cena right after elimination to set up Miz leaving the commentary table to throw Cena over the top rope.
The botch came a lot earlier than Riley was meant to be eliminated when he slipped off the apron for the badly timed mistake. Riley had to run back out later in the match to do the same spot and have a moment where Miz got the chance to eliminate Cena.
3 Obvious: Goldberg Dropping The Undertaker On His Neck

WWE wanted to have the wrestling world talking positively about seeing a first-time dream match between The Undertaker and Goldberg at Super Showdown 2019. The Saudi Arabia events started to get dominated by the part-time acts coming back for the massive paydays.
Both Undertaker and Goldberg almost turned this into a regretful decision when there were multiple scary botches. The one that fans all noticed was Goldberg dropping Undertaker on his neck awkwardly when attempting to hit a jackhammer. Undertaker avoided serious injury, but it was close with this scary and glaring Goldberg botch.
2 Unsure: Kevin Owens Beating AJ Styles For United States Championship

The most unpredictable botches come when the referee is forced to count a three count if the pinned wrestler doesn’t kick out in time. WWE witnessed this happening at Battleground 2017 in a match between AJ Styles and Kevin Owens for the United States Championship.
Owens scored an odd pin over Styles to win the gold, but that wasn’t too crazy since WWE loved to hot shot the title back and forth in evenly matched feuds. However, it ended up getting confirmed that this was a botch and was further validated when Styles won the belt back days later on the next Smackdown.
1 Obvious: The Shockmaster Falling Down During Debut

WCW witnessed a legendary botch that somehow became iconic comedy in wrestling history involving The Shockmaster. The hope was that introducing this new character would deliver another upper card babyface since he was aligned with top faces Sting and Davey Boy Smith.
Unfortunately, Shockmaster tripped and stumbled to fall down in hilarious fashion as the first things the WCW audience ever saw of him. Nothing Shockmaster did afterwards could change fan perception of wanting to laugh. The botch was obvious as no one would trip in such an embarrassing way without a reason behind it.
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