For decades upon decades the spectacle of pro wrestling has gone hand in hand with pyrotechnics from the drop-dead gorgeous tableaus like Charlotte’s fireworks display at ‘Mania 32, to amazing character-specific lightshows like Sid’s, you know he didn’t design it himself because it’s spelled right, to the laughable excess of WCW’s insane over-use of fireworks, just look at that money burn.
Genuinely, it’s one of the best aspects of marquee wrestling, is the backbone of creating some of the most iconic entrances of all time, and of course, sometimes it goes wrong, sometimes it goes super dangerous, and sometimes it goes very very funny.
Prime the trigger, cover your ears and hope for the best, these are the 10 Biggest Pyro Blunders In Wrestling History.
10. AEW Revolution 2021
Because yes it’s funny, but it’s also such a damn shame. At the end of AEW Revolution – a good show, lest we forget – we saw the exploding barbed wire deathmatch, a feud-ending, cartoon stipulation with the explicit promise of hyperviolence.
After 30 minutes, we were warned, the ring would explode and people could be killed. It’s a direct homage to Atsushi Onita’s very silly legacy for explosions in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, to the point where Onita actually filmed himself hyping the match for AEW.
For the sake of comparison, this is how the exploding cage match between Onita and Wing Kanemura ended. This is how Revolution ended.
Literally, Eddie Kingston performs something of a heroic faceturn, throws himself on Moxley, the sirens blaring, goosebumps appearing on the arms of everyone, and then a few dribbles of sparkles and boom booms.
Apparently, the pyro sequence was all off, the explosions were meant to be bigger, but man, that would be considered underwhelming at a Chuck E f**king Cheese, and what’s worse… they sold it.
If they’d pretended that Kenny was trolling everyone, that’s one thing, but commentary sold it, the paramedics sold it and Eddie sold it like he was actually dead.
Oh no. I actually feel bad making fun of it, because if that explosion had looked like this, the pay-per-view feed cuts, then we might just be talking about the angle of the decade instead of… yeah…
9. What’s Worse Than Bad Pyro? No Pyro
Quick incident to debunk first. People share it as a semi-famous botch that Kane’s pyro apparently malfunctioned back on Raw in 2005, but that’s not the case.
If you look at the match, there are no fire canisters on the posts. Instead, Kane made his entrance during a commercial break and was goofing around when he raised and lowered his arms, because he knew the flames wouldn’t happen.
This is not to say there haven’t been PLENTY of moments where superstars expected a boom and no boom came. Kofi’s full pyro didn’t go off at ‘Mania 26, even more noticeably Shawn Michaels pyro didn’t go off at ‘Mania 28, Shawn’s super good at hiding his pyro related annoyance as you can see and Kane’s pyro has actually properly officially malfunctioned once live on Raw in 2002.
On April 1st appropriately, Kane throws his hands down, nothing happens, then ten seconds later they go off and Kane absolutely buckles, it’s awesome.
8. Randy Waits (Royal Rumble 2009)
Some say that Randy Orton is still pointing at the WrestleMania XXV sign. You all want to see Randall looking cross, ME TOO. Here he is having a massive grump on.
He’s just won the 2009 Royal Rumble, he points at the sign, to cue a massive burst of pyro, nothing happens, so he waits, keeps pointing, thinking starting this moment…from now…from this moment on…this’ll be the moment…starting now..of the genesis of my pyro.
Still doesn’t go off. He goes to the middle of the ring, points again, f**king nothing lads, and before he loses it, Charles Robinson politely reminds Randy that the agreed upon shot was him standing on turnbuckle and pointing, which he does and finally, mercifully the pyro goes off.
And look at his cross, cross face. You hate to see it.
7. We Don’t Need No Water, Let The Motherf**ker Burn
The main event of Wrestlemania 33 didn’t really go how people wanted it to.
It was planned to be the grand emotional farewell to Smokey Robinson, with him taking one last L at the show of shows before undressing down to his cock and bollocks, leaving his clothes out for the maid and retiring through the floor.
That did not happen, many parties were unsatisfied with the quality of Taker’s supposed last ride, and even the fates themselves showed their displeasure by setting the actual stage on fire.
Taker’s entrance and exit always require a lot of flames, because how else would you know he’s dead, and as the pomp and circumstance raged, one of the burners caused the set to catch fire, belching a huge plume of black smoke into the air, which of course the fans in attendance were happy to immortalize on Twitter.
6. Don’t Scare Cody’s Dog (All Out 2019)
No, I’m serious, don’t scare Cody’s dog, that’s not cool.
Cody Rhodes has a bloody EXCELLENT dog called Pharoah, the goodest of all possible boys, a snow wolf inhabited with the souls of a thousand noble samurai, and AEW startled him with loud pyro and that is inexcusable.
It was All Out 2019 and Cody was wrestling Shawn Spears.
As Cody made his entrance, he was accompanied by the best dog in the history of dogs, when mortars (aka the very loud big bang pyro) accidentally fired, spooking poor Pharoah who was visibly freaking out but still had to go through with the rest of the entrance.
And man, EVERYONE was pissed about this botch. Cody was angry, Brandi was apparently furious, Tony Khan was upset, because of course they were, someone scared Pharaoh and men have died for less.
For real though, pyro is serious business and even if no one gets hurt, the wrong effects going off puts lives at risk, case in point.
5. They Nearly Burn Undertaker’s Entire F**king Head
Hello again Undertaker, pyrotechnicians are NOT FINISHED WITH YOU.
So it’s July 1998, and the opening match of Monday Night Raw pits Vader against Shoulderpad Smoulderdad, who stands at the corner turnbuckle as he has done many many times before.
Normally taker raises his arms and the lights go from crime scene blue to normal houselights, because magic. What happens this time, is Kane’s pyro goes off RIGHT IN TAKERS GODDAMN FACE.
That’s not cool, that’s the opposite of cool. Genuinely, how do you almost burn off the face that haunts the place, jeez Taker looks rightfully pissed, but thankfully he emerged from the incident unscathed, and Undertaker never had problems with pyro again, the end.
4. Oh, TNA… Catches Fire (Hard Justice 06)
There is something very TNA about setting fire to your own arena at the very beginning of a pay-per-view forcing wrestlers to go shoot promos in the parking lot.
Somewhere the ghost of WCW was watching on, going ‘that’s my boy’. So, during the Hard Justice 2006 pay-per-view, a sack in the rafters was set on fire by the show’s opening pyro, TNA sabotaging itself literally at the very first possible moment of the night.
In order to extinguish the fire, dry powder was dumped into the arena, during the opening match between Eric Young and Johnny Devine.
Like absolute pros, or, like people who don’t really have their priorities right when you think about it, Eric and Johnny finished up their match and the entire audience politely filed outside while Marshalls made sure the show was safe to continue.
3. Triple H is the World’s Angriest Cake (WrestleMania 29)
Nothing funny about this, unless you think that Triple H getting coated in the world’s most painful frosting while he’s trying to be the toughest skull daddy in all the dungeon is funny.
And that would not be very cash money of you. In all seriousness, it’s never fun when someone gets hurt, unless it’s this, no let’s be serious, not funny.
At WrestleMania 29, Trips was doing the normal hypermacho thing he likes to do at WrestleMania, terminator skulls, mad max, freezer burn bukkake, the guy’s a rough tuff son of a bee sting.
He was emerging from a big skull when some dry ice pyro misfired right across his stomach, giving the impression that he’d been startled and dropped a trifle.
For real the dry ice gave him 2nd-degree burns, and if that happened to me I would have burst into tears, run home, or died, whichever was quickest, and mad props to him for then going on to wrestle Brock Lesnar of all people but also… like, y’know, [laugh]
2. For Those Of You in the Back (WrestleMania XXIV)
Bloody hell I know Vince is a Republican CEO and Republican CEOs feel a certain sort of way about those in the cheap seats, but I’m going on record as saying that setting those people on fire is bang out of order.
Not often do we take a stance on partsFUNknown, but we draw the line about shooting explosives at your paying customers.
At WrestleMania XXIV after the main event between Edge and [check notes] f**king hell Undertaker again, mate what did you do to piss off the pyrotechnics union, fireworks were rigged to shoot down cables from the upper bowl of the stadium, down to the rig above the ring.
Most of the fireworks made, however, one of the cables snapped, sending the hot cable down into where the fans were sat, with the firework also landing and exploding in and amongst the seats.
45 people were hospitalized, thankfully no one was killed, and Undertaker got to enjoy his world title victory. And surely, surely, that’s the end of taker’s unfortunate-
1. They Set The Undertaker Fully On F**king Fire Oh My God (Elimination Chamber 2010)
Makes sense he wouldn’t want to retire, eh?
It’s one of the most famous cases of pyro gone wrong, THE case of pyro gone wrong, but in case you’re new to this game, at Elimination Chamber 2010, Undertaker was making his entrance, you know, the one with fireballs in it, when the pyro guy let off a fireball right under Mark Crackling’s feet.
This resulted in the Phenom STORMING to the ring, faster than he’s ever moved in his life, getting into a pod and then just having to stand there for 20 minutes, dowsing himself with bottled water as the cameras aren’t looking, very slowly braising himself, all the while smelling his own cooking meat.
He legit suffered serious burns and had he not swapped the coat he was wearing at the very last minute for one that covered his arms, his injuries could have been much more devastating.
Needless to say, the pyro guy was immediately fired and removed from the building before the end of the match, because otherwise, yes, Undertaker probably would have straight killed that man
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