Pro wrestling storytelling is all about broad strokes that appeal to the widest possible audience, and what’s a more universal theme than family? And, since wrestling is also male dominated and has a history of deep-rooted sexism, this usually translates to “a wrestler’s wife.” Which isn’t to say that husbands or boyfriends haven’t been thrown in the mix, too, but honestly it’s mostly wives.
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With that in mind, let’s look at 10 times that actual spouses took part in wrestling angles in WWE, TNA, NXT, and even AEW. Plus, we’re going to mostly talk about spouses that aren’t also wrestlers, because there’s way too many of the opposite.
10 Drake Maverick & The 24/7 Title
Rockstar Spud can’t catch a break in WWE. First Drake Maverick pees his pants while managing the Authors of Pain, 90% of 205 Live title matches get dumped on PPV pre-shows, management hates his best friend, and his quest for the WWE 24/7 Title interfered with his happy marriage. Maverick’s feud with R-Truth for the Championship -- which is contested 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- involved his real-life fiance Renee Michelle as title changes happened not only at their nuptials, but also on their wedding night. Renee Michelle is also a wrestler but isn’t employed by WWE, so we’re counting it.
9 Jake Hager’s Wife At Ringside
AEWs first pay-per-view event of 2020, Revolution, began with Dustin Rhodes taking on Jake Hager in what was a not-very-good match and an inauspicious start to what was otherwise a great show. The story of the feud mostly involved Hager slamming Rhodes’ head into a car and no significant others, but for some reason Hager’s wife Catalina was at ringside and became part of the match. It made very little sense, especially when Dustin Rhodes walked over to Catalina and either gave her a forced kiss or rubbed his face paint on her face. Either way, a weird look.
8 Wendy Jones On AJ Styles
In 2012 and 2013, TNA had a big storyline where a masked biker gang called Aces & Eights were invading the company. As the group gradually unmasked it turned out that Aces & Eights was mostly composed of low-level ex-WWE guys, led by The Dudley Boyz.
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At one point the group tried to recruit AJ Styles, sparking a “will he or won’t he” storyline as Styles began to flirt with the dark side. To increase the mystery, TNA shot an interview with Styles’ wife Wendy where she revealed that she wasn't even sure what her husband is up to.
7 Ronda Rousey’s Husband
Remember when Ronda Rousey was in WWE and they thought it made sense to push her as a loveable hero when MMA fighters are known to be very ruthless people? Once WWE realized the error of their ways, we got moments like this segment where Rousey armbars Dana Brooke so bad that WWE Security spills out into the arena to subdue her and thus involving her husband, MMA fighter Travis Browne, who ends up knocking out a guard. This was reportedly supposed to set up some kind of mixed tag affair (maybe versus Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins?) but it never materialized.
6 Angel Garza’s Pants
Angel Garza is dope -- he’s a suave, ridiculously handsome lucha libre prince who gets cheek kisses from that one old bitty who’s always in the front row of NXT shows, and he’s great at wrestling. He also does this thing where he’ll begin his matches wrestling in pants and then tear them off to reveal that they’re not just pants -- they’re breakaway pants. This always gets a big reaction from the crowd, and when he was feuding with Lio Rush for the NXT Cruiserweight Championship, Garza decided to use it for rudo purposes by venturing into the crowd and ripping off his pants at Rush’s wife. Rush, as you might expect, did not appreciate this.
5 Christian Cage Get Paparazzi'd
Edge’s friend Christian is such a WWE guy that it’s easy to forget that he spent a few years in TNA under his indie ring name of Christian Cage, where he was a two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion. His feud with Abyss involved his manager Father James Mitchell hiring Alex Shelly -- whose gimmick at the time was being a paparazzi creep and filming people at their homes -- to stalk Cage and his family, including shooting footage of Cage’s wife Denise. This would eventually lead to a Full Metal Mayhem match between Christian Cage and Abyss at 2006’s Sacrifice.
4 Samoa Joe Vs. AJ Styles
Main roster WWE Samoa Joe was pretty awesome at feuds -- he loved to take things to Randy Orton levels of getting personal, except that Joe’s matches are actually still watchable. After targeting Jeff Hardy’s well-known substance abuse issues, he turned to AJ Styles, making a whole big production out of beating Styles so bad that he would die.
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Joe claimed that he would then have to shoulder the responsibility of marrying Wendy and raising however many kids AJ has tattooed on his ribs. Between this, the Aces & Eights thing, and the whole Claire Lynch storyline, Wendy might be the most put-upon character in wrestling history.
3 Custody Of Dominick Ladder Match
One of the most ridiculous stipulation matches since the “Buff Bagwell’s Mom on a Pole Match” has got to be the Custody of Dominick Ladder match, where Rey Mysterio Jr. took on Eddie Guerrero for the custody of Mysterio’s real-life son, whom Guerrero claimed to have fathered out of wedlock and allowed the Mysterio family to adopt. The feud would come to involve both wrestler’s wives appearing on screen, especially once we got to the aforementioned ladder match at SummerSlam 2005, where Eddie Guerrero’s real-life wife Vickie helped Mysterio win. Vickie would later be hired as a character on WWE television after Eddie’s death.
2 DDP Stalks Undertaker’s Wife
In 2001, WWE ran a storyline where a mysterious figure was stalking The Undertaker’s wife at the time, Sara Calaway. Eventually the stalker revealed himself asDiamond Dallas Page, who was doing it as an elaborate power move. Eventually, this feud read to a Tag Team Title match: Undertaker and Kane versus Page and Kanyon. Fans do not regard this as a good storyline. Originally, The Big Show actively lobbied for himself to be revealed as the stalker in the angle, but years later said he’s thankful they didn’t go with him, for obvious reasons.
1 CM Punk Terrorizes Rey Mysterio Jr.’s Family
CM Punk had a pretty intense feud going with Rey Mysterio for a while. In 2010, Mysterio came out to the ring with his whole family -- wife Angie, daughter Alia, and Eddie Guerrero’s kid -- only to be interrupted by Punk and his stable The Straight Edge Society. In an all-time great hell promo, Punk told each member how he was going to hurt Rey in their upcoming match and then, because it was Alia’s ninth birthday, very creepily sang happy birthday to Rey’s terrified daughter. It all made Mysterio’s ultimate victory over Punk in their Mask vs. Hair match at Over the Limit 2010 even better.
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