5 Best Vehicular Assault Moments In Pro Wrestling History

It sure didn't take long for Sammy Guevara's brush with death to go viral, did it? Everything about that moment from the May 6 episode of AEW Dynamite clicked: Matt Hardy's gleeful expression from behind the wheel of the golf cart, gung-ho passenger Kenny Omega's "KILL HIM" death glare, Guevara's futile attempt at escape (Kenny says YOU CAN'T ES--eh, you get it), and the payoff of Sammy getting knocked goofy at the moment of impact. Soon, wrestling fans everywhere were using the still image to create their own metaphors (most common: Guevara is "my plans for 2020" whereas the Golf Cart de la Muerte is "the coronavirus").

Strangely enough, pro wrestling seems to have a celebrated history of wrestlers using vehicles to try and end the lives of their nemeses. It's quite possible that the WWE Performance Center has classes that teach student-wrestlers how to operate construction equipment, drive a stick-shift, etc, for that very idea. I know if Norman Smiley were showing me the finer points of bulldozer usage for homicidal purposes, I'd be taking notes.

In honour of Sammy Guevara's narrow avoidance of the Pearly Gates greeting, let's look at the most memorable attempts to kill someone with a vehicle - in wrestling, anyway.

It sure didn't take long for Sammy Guevara's brush with death to go viral, did it? Everything about that moment from the May 6 episode of AEW Dynamite clicked: Matt Hardy's gleeful expression from behind the wheel of the golf cart, gung-ho passenger Kenny Omega's "KILL HIM" death glare, Guevara's futile attempt at escape (Kenny says YOU CAN'T ES--eh, you get it), and the payoff of Sammy getting knocked goofy at the moment of impact. Soon, wrestling fans everywhere were using the still image to create their own metaphors (most common: Guevara is "my plans for 2020" whereas the Golf Cart de la Muerte is "the coronavirus").

Strangely enough, pro wrestling seems to have a celebrated history of wrestlers using vehicles to try and end the lives of their nemeses. It's quite possible that the WWE Performance Center has classes that teach student-wrestlers how to operate construction equipment, drive a stick-shift, etc, for that very idea. I know if Norman Smiley were showing me the finer points of bulldozer usage for homicidal purposes, I'd be taking notes.

In honour of Sammy Guevara's narrow avoidance of the Pearly Gates greeting, let's look at the most memorable attempts to kill someone with a vehicle - in wrestling, anyway.

5. Guevara And The Golf Cart

The need to curb recency bias prevents me from pushing this up the list any further, but it certainly deserves a spot here. If it stands the test of time, we can definitely slide it up further in the years ahead - which sounds like a weird thing to retroactively tend to.

But yeah, the Inner Circle's "Spanish Sex God" was the victim of one of the most memorable sights from AEW's first year of running shows, and the immediate response to the incident assures it some form of immortality, doesn't it? That was one hell of a spill he took, too.

4. The White Hummer Attack

In 1999, WCW set up their own "whodunnit" angle, six nights before that year's Great American Bash. In said angle, World champion Kevin Nash was seated in the back of a limousine when, suddenly, a white Humvee smashed into it, severely injuring "Big Sexy" at the very least.

Nash not only wrestled at that Sunday's event, but the angle was never truly concluded, outside of a tongue-in-cheek callback involving Eric Bischoff close to a year later. The attempted murder mystery never got a proper payoff when the angle was fresh.

3. Steve Austin Gets Hit By Car

Not to be outdone by their fading rival, the WWF enacted their own "whodunnit" at that year's Survivor Series, in order to write an injured Steve Austin off of TV long term. The intrigue for the payoff was real, but the eventual reveal sadly underwhelmed.

Austin chased enemy Triple H into the Joe Louis Arena parking lot, where a speeding car came barreling in, sending Stone Cold caroming off the hood. A year later, fun-loving Rikishi was revealed as the driver, "doing it for The Rock", who didn't ask for the help.

2. Braun Strowman Overturns An Ambulance

For some time, the insanely-powerful Braun Strowman was a monster heel that had yet to truly resonate with the audience. That all changed on one particular Raw on Long Island, when Strowman beat the polarizing Roman Reigns to a pulp in a multi-faceted attack.

The piece de resistance to the assault came when a battered Reigns was loaded into an ambulance, and Strowman (walking a fine line between "dickishness" and "cartoony super-dickishness") turned the vehicle over with Roman inside. Suddenly, Strowman was the biggest star in the company.

1. Eddie Gilbert Mows Down Jerry Lawler

If you ever wanna know how hardcore "The King" can get, watch this astonishing clip from 1990. Eddie Gilbert and brother Doug were "fired" from Memphis' USWA promotion, and when Lawler made sure the heels were leaving like they were supposed to, things got a little bit nutzo.

A vengeful Eddie drove his car right into Lawler in the venue's parking lot, sending Lawler over the hood *and* the cab of the vehicle, before the Gilberts fled the scene. Horrified fans in the Memphis area called the police thinking this was a real attempted murder.

1. Eddie Gilbert Mows Down Jerry Lawler

If you ever wanna know how hardcore "The King" can get, watch this astonishing clip from 1990. Eddie Gilbert and brother Doug were "fired" from Memphis' USWA promotion, and when Lawler made sure the heels were leaving like they were supposed to, things got a little bit nutzo.

A vengeful Eddie drove his car right into Lawler in the venue's parking lot, sending Lawler over the hood *and* the cab of the vehicle, before the Gilberts fled the scene. Horrified fans in the Memphis area called the police thinking this was a real attempted murder.