5 WWE Superstars you did not expect would ever tap out

The incredulity that follows an unexpected submission manoeuvre in a wrestling match is unparalleled to most. WWE, flourishing in the grey area between basic sports and grandiose entertainment, has its own understanding of wrestling moves which are so arranged as to draw the most exasperated of sighs and exhilarating of cheers from the many people partaking of the experience. Submission holds are essential to the storytelling of a match in so far as they are legitimate finishers of the involved parties. If a certain finisher is a better selling move than a signature submission hold, the latter rarely results in a victory. Correspondingly, the probability of a performer tapping out inside a WWE ring ultimately boils down to the character they are embodying. It is not often that a top babyface taps out to a heel, choosing instead to pass out or counter it altogether if he must.

Within the carefully constructed confines of WWE kayfabe, it is imperative that any move inside the squared circle add to the superstar’s character. Such is the case with submissions. While pinfall victories depend on those three fateful seconds, their endurance inside a submission hold paints the hardened wrestler as having mastered the threshold of pain. Therefore, besides the usual binary of face and heel, it is also the fundamental bearings of their gimmick which bring to question their possibility of tapping out. The following list of five Superstars who have, to the amazement of many, tapped out on occasion is premised on such a principle. Most of the “characters” discussed in this list are WWE mainstays whose larger than life billing pits them as rarely having submitted. Despite the insistence of WWE canon, these very Superstars have submitted to a hold, stretch or lock at least once in their “sports entertainment” career. However, it should be said that in some of the cases the tapping might have come under a different gimmick, or even disregarded altogether. Here it goes:

5: Kane

Since his gimmick’s debut at Badd Blood : In Your House on October 5, 1997, Kane had been a fiery, unstoppable force till well into the mid-2000s. The infernal monster, standing over seven foot tall, was billed as Paul Bearer’s son and the Undertaker’s long-lost half-brother, whose demented, tormented self, lay behind his equally destructive ring activity. In perhaps one of the lengthiest active careers in the WWE, Kane had undergone a couple of gimmick changes yet none as dreaded as the sinister masked-pyromaniac of the later Attitude Era. This period saw the Big Red Machine’s dominant run both in singles matches as well as tag-team and Royal Rumble scenarios. It is obvious that any submission to be booked on such a towering character had to come at the hands of two of the greatest in-ring technicians in WWE history.

The first of these occurred on November 1, 2001, at a Smackdown event when Kane took on Kurt Angle for the WCW United States Championship. Around this time, Angle had begun seeing the nascent forms of a feud with Chris Benoit over the former’s claim to being the best wrestler on the roster. It would be erroneous to assume that Angle had no intention of making Kane submit to his recently innovated Ankle Lock in order to make a point. However, executing a submission on Kane required unprecedented levels of fortitude and a little bit of interference. Several steel chair strikes to Kane’s leg by an interfering Stone Cold Steve Austin, who was eventually chased out of the ring by the Undertaker, led Angle to set his sights on his weakened limb. Despite Angle’s renewed strikes to the injured leg, Kane was able to outmanoeuvre the Olympian using a handful of his own moves against him. However, he was unable to counter a second Ankle Lock which the champion concocted out of Kane’s attempt at a climactic tombstone piledriver. Making the monster writhe and groan in the middle of the ring, Kurt Angle kept twisting his ankle till he pounded the mat in a surge of pain and panic, losing the match in a surprising finish.

The only other time when Kane had been coerced into submission was at the Bad Blood pay per view in June 2004, in a World Heavyweight Championship match against Chris Benoit. One year ago, he had been led to unmasking himself for the first time since his debut, as part of a match stipulation. Revealing a charred, psychologically unstable maniac, Kane turned heel by chokeslamming his match partner Rob Van Dam and continued his incendiary rampage on several segments such as an interview with Jim Ross, an attack on Linda McMahon and an interference in a Buried Alive match where he buried the Undertaker under a mound of debris. The monstrous heel persona continued during his match with Chris Benoit, one of the company’s top babyface technical wrestlers back then. Benoit’s submission move, the Crippler Crossface had won him the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania XX against Triple H and Shawn Michaels. This was the first time that the main event of a Wrestlemania had ended in a submission and it was only proper that such a move, which was extremely popular with fans, go underscored. Kane’s tapping out to the Crossface came as an expected booking, particularly with the David against Goliath scenario and the way their gimmicks, ruthless aggression wrestler and depraved monstrous lunatic respectively, were slated to turn out.

4: Stone Cold Steve Austin

The inception of the Attitude Era was a watershed moment in the history of the WWE. One of the defining characteristics of this Era was the smudging of boundaries between traditional good and bad. In WWE parlance, such a gimmick was called a tweener, one who treads the area between face and heel while never settling on any one. Being a tweener also made it improbable for the character to lose a match by tapping out. Submission losses carried meaning for the ring storylines of both faces and heels but not a character as morally ambiguous as a tweener.

Stone Cold’s anti-establishment gimmick against the malicious “boss” Mr. Mcmahon had propelled him to television fanfare, contributing in a major way to WWE conquering WCW during the Monday Night Wars. As an extremely popular Superstar, besides being a tweener, his persona during this time was not suited for a tap out loss. Previously, he had turned face after passing out to Bret Hart’s sharpshooter at Wrestlemania 13. However, towards the middle of 2001, Austin underwent a substantial character upheaval. He turned heel by aligning himself alongside Mr.Mcmahon against The Rock at Wrestlemania X-7, despite starting as a face.

This would culminate in the formation of The Two-Man Power Trip, a villainous stable comprising The Rattlesnake and Triple H, who darted onto a collision course with other tag teams. Austin’s first defeat via tap out would come during this run, at the hands of Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. With Triple H out of the picture due to a tear in his left quadriceps, Austin teamed up with the Dudley Boyz to take on Jericho, Benoit and Spike Dudley on the June 18, 2001, episode of Raw Is War. The loss came as a result of a double submission when Benoit locked his arms in a Crossface around Austin’s bare neck while the latter lay incapacitated in a Walls of Jericho hold.

Austin’s second loss through submission came as a result of an intense rivalry with Kurt Angle. Having roused the Olympic hero’s ire through self-disqualification in a title match, Austin had furthered their feud by throwing away Angle’s Olympic medals into the chilly depths of the Detroit River. The one-upmanship reached stellar heights when Angle challenged Austin for the WWF Championship once again, to be settled in a match at Unforgiven 2001 in Kurt’s hometown of Pittsburgh. Walking into a heated Pittsburgh arena, the champion heel was accosted by Angle before he had even stepped into the ring. Using Austin’s own stunner against him, Angle thwarted Stone Cold’s attempts at another by converting it into an Ankle Lock, to which Austin tapped out. The crowd went berserk with jubilation and triumph, hoisting Angle into the air as the new WWF Champion. This booking fell into perfect place given the location of the match and the move employed by the local hero to seal the win. As for Austin, this was the last time in his career when he would have to pound on the canvas to end a match.

3: Brock Lesnar

There isn’t much intricacy in the yarns spun for a Superstar who not only brushes shoulders with the topmost performers within a few months of his television debut but also manages to win the WWE Undisputed Championship in such a short length of time. Rather, it is quite plain and simple. Brock Lesnar’s meteoric rise can be attributed to his fierce athleticism and proclivity to dominate while being legitimized by his immensely successful collegiate wrestling background. Needless to say,” The Next Big Thing” seamlessly fit into the scheme of things as they stood in the Ruthless Aggression Era where a shift in focus to wrestling technique and ring brutality was paramount.

Lesnar had gone for over eight months without getting pinned even once in singles competition. The first blemish came in the form of a betrayal from his erstwhile manager Paul Heyman at Survivor Series 2002, where he lost his WWE Championship to the Big Show. Previously, Lesnar had earned a blood crusted victory against the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match at No Mercy, 2002. His character had gradually snowballed into an indestructible brawler whose lethal finisher leveled any and all that stood in his way. However, in August 2003, the WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, having schemed with Mr.Mcmahon, turned full heel by beating Kurt Angle senseless with a steel chair after tricking the Olympian into a ruse.

This feud reached its head at Summerslam, 2003 in a standard wrestling match for the WWE Championship. Several minutes into the match, a frustrated Lesnar had tried to walk away from his more talented competitor, only to be dragged back into the ring by Angle. His heel act was accentuated by Mr.Mcmahon’s interference, breaking an Ankle Lock on Lesnar with a chair shot to Angle’s back. Desperate to wean a victory out of this situation, Lesnar went for an F5 after missing a pinfall. Angle however, slipped through Lesnar’s carry position and reversed it into an Ankle Lock. Dreading the worst, the champion squirmed around the ring, scrambling for the bottom ropes on three sides of the mat but to no avail. He finally tapped out to Angle’s submission as a helpless Vince looked on. Angle had wrenched retribution on a grand scale, leaving Vince and his vicious protégé to writhe in dust. In the coming days, Lesnar would go on to cement his heel persona by mercilessly attacking other Superstars. However, he would eventually win back his title from Angle in a sixty-minute Iron Man Match on September 18, 2003.

In what was described as “the most shocking result in WWE history”, Lesnar defeated the Undertaker at Wrestlemania XXX, veritably ending the Phenom’s Streak. In December 2014, Vince Mcmahon revealed in an out-of-character interview how Lesnar’s win was a step towards asserting his formidability and setting him up for the next Wrestlemania in a talent-starved roster. Taker returned at Battleground 2015, costing Lesnar his match and thus setting up a feud between the two. Lesnar, now billed as an unstoppable powerhouse faced the Deadman at Summerslam. This match was shrouded in controversy with the Undertaker’s tapping out gone unnoticed by the referee and Lesnar’s passing out from a Hell’s Gate, defiant in his resolve not to submit to the Undertaker.

2: John Cena

Several circumstances had led to WWE rehashing its content into a more palatable, family-oriented product towards the beginning of 2008. Turning the right corners, WWE was able to fashion a brand which appealed to a larger, more conscious demographic by not only toning down the violence and coarseness of the previous Eras but also centering this newfound PG ethos around one immensely cherished Superstar. On the back of John Cena, WWE soared into mainstream popularity. The character created was larger than life, fearless and morally inspiring. As a result, the face of the company that Cena came to be, went undefeated in clean matches irrespective of pinfalls or submissions. Brandishing the phrase “Never Give Up”, Cena was able to withstand, reverse and escape almost all submission moves attempted on him. A few years back, though, this was not the case.

Yet to becomeWWE’s franchise player, Cena’s defeats through tapping out came twice at the hands of Kurt Angle, once from Chris Benoit and once from Chris Jericho. Eric Bischoff’s screwjob finish to the Angle versus Cena match on October 25, 2005’s Monday Night Raw, obviously does not count.

The first of these seized the Doctor of Thuganomics by the leg in a Triple Threat Match at No Way Out, 2004. The match was for the number one contender’s spot for the WWE Championship to be fought at Wrestlemania XX. Pitted against the gargantuan Big Show who used his size advantage against both Cena and Angle, the men fought hard to resist the 500 pounder in a squash fest. However, Cena was able to slam the Big Show in an F.U, following which Angle dumped him outside the ring using an Angle Slam. Facing off against his first ever WWE opponent, Cena fell prey to Angle’s damaging Ankle Lock, finally resorting to a tap out to end his anguish.

One year prior to this, Cena and Angle had been engaged in a war of blows and words(rap battles) in equal measure. Their feud enabled Cena, an apparent upstart, to display his feathers in full glory, as the relatively green performer put up one entertaining segment after another with the veteran both inside and outside the ring. At No Mercy in October 2003, Cena and Angle squared it off in an 18-minute long standard wrestling match. Kicking out of an Angle Slam, Cena went for the F.U but the Olympic hero reversed it into an Ankle Lock. Despite resisting the hurt for a good length of time, Cena finally caved.

Chris Benoit and John Cena faced each other on the December 4, 2003, edition of Smackdown! in a match to determine the number one contender for Brock Lesnar’s WWE Championship. Both men had ended the previous week’s Battle Royal in an inconclusive finish. This match was a direct fallout of that stalemate and no performer wasted time once inside the ring. Cena teetered on the edge of victory when he pinned Benoit whose foot had, unfortunately, found the bottom rope before the referee could finish his count. However, the official did not notice this and awarded Cena the victory. Immediately, a second official interfered and reversed the decision, restarting the match. Making the most of this, Benoit charged at Cena with full momentum, eventually locking him in a sharpshooter which the latter successfully crawled out of. Fortune did not favour Cena the second time as Benoit locked him in a Crippler Crossface, making him tap out clean and in the most urgent fashion.

1: The Undertaker

Arguably the greatest in ring performer in WWE’s long and chequered history, the Undertaker has carved out a legendary status for himself within the company. His debut and in-ring actions as the menacing Western Mortician at Survivor Series 1990, had unsettled every man, woman, and child in the arena. Ever conscious of the changing conditions of the “sports entertainment” business, the Undertaker had reinvented himself time and again, to the delight of his fans. His stature as one of the most impactful performers inside a WWE ring put him in a perfect position to put green talent over. Needless to say, from the very first day till his most recent televised venture at Wrestlemania 32, the Undertaker has been feared, respected, and adored in equal measure by fellow wrestlers and fans alike. Therefore, for such a colossal character to tap out would be unlikely, unless it attests to putting the performer and his submission move over.

Officially, the Undertaker has never legitimately submitted to anyone inside the ring. However, there have been two moments when his tapping the mat was discredited in lieu of other results. The first of these came at a Smackdown! match in 2003 where he faced Kurt Angle. Caught in a triangle hold, the Big Evil Taker was on the verge of collapsing when he decided to pin Angle instead since his shoulders were touching the mat. However, Taker began slapping the mat just as the referee had concluded his three count, ending the match in a dispute. Regardless of whether the submission held any value to the outcome of the match, it can be said that Taker had actually tapped out despite not losing for it.

In 2015, the Undertaker and Brock Lesnar stood toe to toe inside the Summerslam ring as their renewed feud reached its crescendo. Both men being industry legends, their fight surpassed typical levels of hype, drama, and exhaustion. At one moment, Lesnar had the Undertaker in a Kimura Lock to which the Dead Man tapped out but the whole act went unnoticed by the referee. Chaos erupted when the bell rang without the referee’s knowledge. The match was still a go and Taker hit Lesnar with a low blow, positioning him in a Hell’s Gate to which Lesnar passed out eventually. Of course, the ending was to extend the feud till Hell in a Cell but it also reinvigorated the story that these juggernauts had so far sketched between one another. Lesnar’s mocking the Undertaker while still inside the hold, but choosing to pass out instead of doing what Taker had done, certainly shot the enmity between these two men through the roof.