10 Most Memorable Mothers In Pro Wrestling

9. Helen Hart

Stu Hart is the one who gets all the credit for the Hart Dungeon and raising an entire clan of professional wrestlers (no matter how many of them ended up unfit for a life outside of wrestling as a result), but according to many people, including Bret Hart himself, Helen was the real power behind the Hart family, running the financial side of Stampede Wrestling while also raising a massive family. When the Hart Family feud between Bret and Owen made it onto WWE TV, Helen and Stu made several appearances as well (as well as being a frequent target for jokes by Jerry Lawler on commentary). In perhaps the most memorable appearance by the Hart matriarch, Helen was directly responsible for Bret Hart losing the WWE Championship to Mr. Bob Backlund at Survivor Series 1994, when she listened to the manipulative pleas of Owen Hart and threw in the towel on Bret’s behalf to give Backlund the victory.

http://www.dory-funk.com/owen-h.html Source: dory-funk.com

8. Randy Orton’s Many Different “Wives”

Every once in a while, WWE has Randy Orton bring his wife on TV, presumably in an attempt to make him look more human and less like an emotionless tattooed cyborg. They’ve done it several times in his career, and every time, Orton’s wife has been played by a different actress, something that has been picked up on every time it happens. Officially, Orton married his first wife in 2005 (that’s her in the picture below, they divorced in 2013 and Orton has since re-married) and had his first child (Alanna) in 2008 (who have both actually appeared on WWE TV a few times as well, making things event stranger), which technically means that any actress playing his wife since then has also been pretending to be the mother to his daughter. There’s something to be said about the fact that WWE would put Orton’s infant child on TV, but decided to pay an actress to play his wife, we’re just not sure what. This also hearkens back to a story told by Mick Foley, who married an actual fashion model in real life, only to see WCW pay a women to play his wife in a series of vignettes because nobody would believe Cactus Jack’s wife was hot. Sure, we made a small logical leap to get Orton’s fake wives on this list, but we mostly just wanted to make a joke about how many different women have played Randy Orton’s wife on WWE TV over the years.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=161102963 Source: forum.bodybuilding.com

7. Mae Young

If you think you know where this is going, we have to warn you that you’re absolutely correct and any emotional distress you suffer by continuing to read is your own fault. That’s right, during the Attitude Era, Mae Young entered into a relationship with “Sexual Chocolate” Mark Henry, which was exactly as uncomfortable to watch as you might have guessed. And to up the comedy factor, somehow Young became pregnant and eventually gave birth on an episode of Raw, which was just…indescribable. The fact that it legitimately caused Gerald Brisco to vomit on live TV says more than we ever could. Oh yeah, and she actually gave birth to a rubber hand, because the Attitude Era made absolutely no sense. The joke doesn’t end there, though, because years later, on an anniversary episode of Raw, a man dressed up as a giant hand appeared, claiming to be Mae’s son, proving that WWE never met an angle they weren’t willing to make a call back to and pretend it was actually hilarious and not eye-searingly horrible.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1452455-addressing-mistakes-makes-the-wwes-product-stronger Source: BleacherReport.com

6. Lita

Whether or not Lita counts as a mother depends on your personal definition, we suppose, but the fact is, she was impregnated by Kane’s demon seed in 2004 and somehow ended up having maternal feelings towards the child that was the result of an unwanted sexual encounter. Listen, we’re not going to try and justify this whole storyline, which was terrible and uncomfortable to watch, and included more than a few unfortunate implications. The important thing is that it ended as wrestling pregnancies usually do, with the always tasteful accidental miscarriage as a result of an accident in the ring. And somehow, the loss of their unborn child managed to unite Kane and Lita as a couple, which probably sounded like a logical turn of events to someone backstage, and also resulted in Gene Snitsky drop-kicking a plastic baby into the crowd on an episode of Raw. Seriously, how did any wrestling fans survive the mid-2000’s era of WWE?

http://www.allwrestlingsuperstars.com/kane/kane-with-girlfriend-lita/ Source: AllWrestlingSuperstars.com

5. Dawn Marie

If you thought it couldn’t get worse than fake rubber hands and miscarried demon rape fetuses, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. Enter the strange case of Dawn Marie, who decided to seduce Torrie Wilson’s actual father, Al, presumably in order to mess with Torrie’s head. This dragged on for weeks, featuring terrible acting from the completely untrained Al Wilson, while the commentary team literally buried every segment on TV. Along the way, we saw Dawn persuade Torrie into an implied lesbian experience by promising to stop her pursuit of Torrie’s dad, numerous uncomfortable make-out scenes, and far more of Al Wilson’s naked flesh than should have ever appeared on TV. In the end, Dawn Marie married Al Wilson on an episode of Smackdown, becoming, you guessed it, Torrie Wilson’s step-mother, despite only being a few years older than her. And it didn’t end there, as Al died on his honeymoon, presumably due to too much sex, and the final result of this debacle was the first and only (so far) “Step-Mother vs Step-Daughter” match. Much like everything else we just described, the match was terrible.

http://www.wrestlingforum.com/women-wrestling/1608818-whos-hotter-eva-marie-dawn-marie.html Source: WrestlingForum.com

4. Sweet Saraya

If you’ve ever wondered what the heck JBL was talking about when he referred to Paige beating her own mother to win her first wrestling championship, well, that’s because it’s true. Sweet Saraya Knight began wrestling in the early 90’s for World Associations of Wrestling, her husband’s promotion in the United Kingdom, and would also appear in North American women’s promotions Shimmer and Shine. Eventually, she would bring her son and daughter into the business, both teaming with and fighting against Paige (then known as Britani Knight) over their independent careers. In fact, Saraya still wrestles to this day, while also helping run her husband’s promotion, as well as an all-female offshoot wrestling company, both located in England. Meanwhile, her daughter has gone on to fame and fortune in WWE (Saraya has actually appeared on Total Divas alongside Paige), while her son and step-son also wrestle on the independent UK circuit, making her family a legitimate wrestling dynasty.

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2015/1/22/7867817/hi-my-name-is-sweet-saraya Source: CagesideSeats.com

3. Momma Benjamin

Shelton Benjamin was an incredible collegiate athlete who became a very good professional wrestler, showcasing his natural abilities on a weekly basis on WWE programming. With that said, Benjamin often struggled with promos, and didn’t have much of a character beyond “athletic guy who wrestles well”. Since this was WWE we’re talking about, attempts were made to give him a “hook”, and this led to hiring decently well-known comedian Thea Vidale (who had appeared in a variety of network sitcoms, as well as starring in her own short-lived show) to play Shelton’s mother, who was referred to as “Momma Benjamin”. The role saw Vidale play a fairly stereotypical (and more than a little racially insensitive) part as a large, angry black woman, who would distract the referee and her son’s opponents in order to allow Shelton to pick up victories. However, the pairing really did nothing to help Benjamin further his career, instead reducing him to a whiny comedy character rather than the skilled athlete he actually was, and Momma Benjamin was written off TV less than three months after her debut.

http://www.thesportster.com/wrestling/top-15-worst-wrestling-managersvalets-of-all-time/?view=all Source: TheSportster.com

2. Judy Bagwell

One of the most infamous mothers in wrestling, Judy Bagwell made waves both on and off-screen in WCW and WWE. The real-life mother of Buff Bagwell, Judy made several appearances on WCW programming, each somehow more ridiculous than the last. At one point, she was one-half of the WCW Tag Team Champions after Rick Steiner made her his partner to replaced the injured Kenny Kaos, and in fact she was never defeated for that belt, as it was stripped from the team when Steiner went down with an injury. Later, Bagwell would be seen hanging around backstage at WCW events, supporting her son, which led to her being hit with a Kanyon Cutter, and becoming the object of the completely ridiculous “Judy Bagwell on a Pole” Match between Buff and Kanyon (and yes, they did really call it that, although it was actually a forklift, not a pole). After WCW folded, Bagwell was signed by WWE to become part of the Invasion, but he was fired shortly afterwards, amidst reports that he’d literally had his mother call Jim Ross to tell him that Buff was too injured to compete on upcoming house shows (to which JR allegedly replied “this is the last conversation you and I will ever have about your boy, because he’s a man. He should be calling me, not you”).

http://pl.wwe.com/photos/2015/05/22/50-forgotten-wcw-faces-photos Source: pl.WWE.com

1. Linda McMahon

While some may point to her acting abilities as a sign that she’s actually a robot that was created so Vince McMahon can pretend he has a real family, for a time during the Attitude Era, Linda McMahon was seen as the only sane McMahon, the voice of reason who stepped in whenever Vince became too worryingly tyrannical, while her children, Shane and Stephanie, endlessly bickered and switched sides. Nobody was ever particularly pleased to see Linda on WWE programming, due to her incredible lack of charisma, but at least her presence meant the babyfaces of WWE might finally get an even chance against the overwhelming power of Vince McMahon. Ever the dutiful wife and mother, Linda even somehow remained married to Vince despite a ridiculous plot which saw her suffer a nervous breakdown and end up placed in a medically induced trance while Vince made out with Trish Stratus in front of her. Eventually, Linda left WWE in an official capacity in order to attempt to run for as seat in the US Senate, losing horribly each time while also costing her family (and WWE, indirectly) millions of dollars in the process, showing that maybe she was just as crazy as the rest of her family.

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2014/5/7/5691524/linda-mcmahons-cageside-evaluation Source: CagesideSeats.com