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If a wrestling news story involving a celebrity sounds too good to be true, then that may be because it's not really true and it's just an attempt to get publicity for all parties involved. It turns out that was the case with Dolph Ziggler's claim that actor Hugh Jackman broke his jaw with an errant punch on Monday's Raw. Wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer revealed this in his news update today:
--Regarding the Hugh Jackman/Dolph Ziggler stuff, the broken jaw thing is a work. Ziggler was fine after the show. They just decided to work an angle off it for publicity. And it got publicity, including on the Early Today show on NBC where they covered it like Jackman had broken his Ziggler's jaw.
Indeed, this story has gone viral. My colleague Geno Mrosko's post about the incident was picked up by the news aggregator site Fark making that story our most successful one ever, already generating Cageside Seats close to 32,000 hits. It's just a pity that it wasn't true, though Geno struck the right tone warning readers that:
With WWE there's always the possibility that this is a work and Ziggler is completely fine, which is at times entertaining and at times utterly maddening, but from all accounts this appears to be a legitimate injury.
I take my hats off to WWE and Dolph Ziggler for getting people to buy this story. As one of the most talented and hard working young performers on the WWE roster, Ziggler deserves all the publicity he can squeeze out of this incident. Moreover, it's not as easy in our 24 hour news cycle and more cynical times to pull off such a stunt as it was in 1982 where Jerry "The King" Lawler hospitalised comedian Andy Kaufman after a backdrop suplex and two piledrivers in their first match together. They even managed to pull the wool over David Letterman's eyes by having a heated confrontation on Late Night With David Letterman where Lawler slapped the taste out of Kaufman's mouth only to have hot coffee thrown in his face for the trouble. Find videos of the best and most successful celebrity worked shoot angle ever after the jump.