Top 7 Stolen Items in Wrestling

I know that most wrestling fans are excited about the feud pitting CM Punk against Drew McIntyre. No surprise there, Punk is tremendously over wherever he goes and I don’t think that McIntyre has ever been hotter than he is right now. Their interactions make for great television and their upcoming Hell in a Cell match should provide quite the climax to their feud. There’s just one thing about the presentation that has bugged me. It’s a silly thing, I’m probably outting myself as an old man that yells at clouds by even mentioning it.

The friendship bracelet.

I mean…really? We got two grown ass men out here beefing over a friendship bracelet? What are we doing? I know the friendship bracelets are hot with the Swiftie crowd and they’re the last people I’d ever want mad at me, but I haven’t worn a friendship bracelet since…oh, who am I kidding, I’ve never had any friends. Maybe that’s why the whole thing is so unrelatable to me. It doesn’t help that the person that gave Punk the friendship bracelet with his wife & dog’s names on it now thinks they’re part of the show. I’m sure these things don’t bother most of you, but they kinda grind my gears.

With all that being said…we’ve got a pretty long tradition of wrestlers stealing items from other wrestlers. No, I don’t mean back in the locker room, though there’s probably also a history of that. Today, we look back at the seven most memorable items stolen from a wrestler by another wrestler.

7. Tatanka’s Feathers (by Rick Martel)

Tatanka got off to a hot start in the WWF, winning all of his matches for well over a year. Some early wins came against “The Model”, and Rick Martel decided he was going to get revenge by spraying his Arrogance cologne in Tatanka’s face. He then stole the feathers Tatanka wore to the ring and included him as part of his own wardrobe. Apparently feathers were “in” during the early 90s. One might argue if they ever went “out”….it sure doesn’t seem like it!

On one hand, Tatanka was lucky that his eye damage wasn’t as bad as Jake Roberts’ was a couple of years earlier. On the other hand, feathers led to nothing but trouble for the Native American during his career. There was also the instance a couple of years after this where I.R.S. destroyed Tatanka’s new head dress because he didn’t pay a gift tax. Tatanka’s response to this was to turn heel and join I.R.S. as part of the Million Dollar Corporation. An odd response if you ask me, but maybe Tatanka was just tired of fighting over feathers.

6. Bret Hart’s Jacket (by Jean-Pierre Lafitte)

9/2/95: In a sentence that can only be written in 1995…

Bret Hart defeats the Max Cady-inspired Waylon Mercy (played by Dan Spivey) by DQ when evil pirate Jean Pierre Lafitte (former Quebecer) interferes while wearing The Hitman's stolen leather jacket. pic.twitter.com/sLlBBFQDJg

— OVP – Retro Wrestling Podcast (@ovppodcast) September 3, 2020

As a young fan of the Hitman that appreciated seeing him in big matches doing big things, 1995 was a bit of a step back from previous years. Bret had gone from being featured in major stories and competing for championships to fiddling around in the mid-card with Jerry Lawler and his assorted goons. One thought that feuding with a deranged dentist would be the lowpoint of Bret’s year, but the feud right after that ended certainly challenged for that honor.

The dastardly pirate Jean-Pierre Lafitte decided he needed some of Bret’s possessions for reasons. After stealing Bret’s sunglasses from a fan, Lafitte took things to a more expensive level when he stole Bret’s leather jacket and started wearing it to the ring. Even as a young, dumb kid, I was aware that Bret had multiple jackets he would wear to the ring. Why was Bret so emotionally attached to this one? We later found out that this could have been based off of real-life events, as Bret actually did lose the jacket he wore at WrestleMania VIII and they spent an episode of Most Wanted Treasures locating it. I also kind of remember Bret doing an interview where he said his mother bought him that particular jacket, but that may have been a fever dream.

Bret did end up getting the jacket back, and at least he & Pierre had a good In Your House match.

5. Kurt Angle’s Gold Medal (by Chris Benoit)

Image Credit: WWE

You might have heard about this: Kurt Angle won a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Summer Olympics. He took to wearing it during his pro wrestling entrances in order to remind us that he was our Olympic Hero. (He usually wore multiple medals, I’m not really sure what the others were to supposed to signify. Perhaps college meets or something like that?)

In any event, Chris Benoit decided that the best way to deal with Angle’s nonsense was to steal his medals. Benoit hid the medals in his pants, which led to the time where Angle retrieved them and kissed them before washing them. Pretty gross. Benoit got the medals back anyway, and this led to a match at Judgement Day 2001 where the medals were on the line in a ladder match that was the third fall of a two out of three fall match. I remember the Benoit/Angle matches usually being good, though the storytelling around them was a bit shaky. 

4. Paul Bearer’s Urn (by The Million Dollar Corporation)

The urn carried for many years by the Undertaker’s manager was among the most powerful objects in wrestling history. After all, it provided the Phenom with special powers that made him different from other WWF superstars. It’s kind of surprising it took so long for his rivals to come up with the idea of stealing the urn.

Ted DiBiase’s group of evil-doers spent a good chunk of 1995 keeping the urn away from Undertaker & Bearer. Kama even had it melted down into a golden chain necklace, which looked pretty cool. The Dead Man would have the last laugh, and continued being powered by the urn for another year or so afterwards.

3. Randy Savage’s Cowboy Hat (by Repo Man)

Ok, so Macho Man probably had just as many cowboy hats as Bret Hart had leather jackets. Probably more, Savage had a ridiculous array of ring & entrance attire. So why did this work so much better here than a couple of years later when Bret got his ring jacket stolen?

Easy answer: Barry Darsow is among the most underrated wrestlers of my lifetime. Whatever he did, and he did a lot of different things, he made it work. Demolition Smash was obviously awesome. Krusher Kruschev was as good a Russian sympathizer as you got in the 1980s. Let’s not forget about the Blacktop Bully, and certainly not Mr. Hole in One, both tremendous WCW characters.

Looking back, I feel that Repo Man may have been Darsow’s best character work. The gimmick was ahead of its time. Nobody cared about the repossession business in the early 1990s, but eventually we entered an era of TV where Repo Wars and other shows of its ilk were tremendously popular. Had Repo Man come along during that time period, I feel he would have had a better chance of moving up the rankings. As it was, he’s still a memorable character of my childhood.

2. Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Championship Belt (by Jake Roberts)

After a number of failed attempts to either win or purchase the WWF Championship, the Million Dollar Man decided to solve his problems in a unique fashion. He went to the best jeweler in Connecticut and had them make an extravagant championship belt to call his own. The Million Dollar Championship wasn’t officially recognized by the WWF and DiBiase rarely bothered with defending it anyway, so it didn’t really become tremendously useful until Jake Roberts decided he wanted to steal it.

Roberts put the belt in the bag with his snake, which made DiBiase reticent to take it back himself. He paid off Slick, who told the Big Boss Man to get the belt back for DiBiase. Boss Man was tired of taking orders from Slick, so after informing Slick & DiBiase that he couldn’t be bought, he gave the belt and the bag back to Roberts. DiBiase would have to wait until WrestleMania VI, when Virgil was able to retrieve the championship after a match pitting DiBiase against Roberts.

While the Million Dollar Championship could have been better utilized during its various stints as a prop, one has to admit that it’s a pretty awesome looking belt.

Honorable Mention: “King” Harley Race’s Cape (by Junk Yard Dog)

I’m pretty sure this didn’t lead to anything other than JYD getting some cheers from 93,000 people, but it was still a pretty cool moment.

Honorable Mention: King Corbin’s Crown (by Shinsuke Nakamura)

I’m probably forgetting something obvious, but this is the only time I can remember where a wrestler got something stolen and even though the item wasn’t destroyed, they never got it back. Usually stuff ends up destroyed like Punk’s friendship bracelet did, but not in this case. Poor Corbin ended up losing a Battle For The Crown match and Shinsuke ended up being King Nakamura for a little while. To be fair, Nakamura looked a lot cooler with the crown and it added more to his presentation. Still kinda have to feel bad for the big guy.

1. Matilda (by The Islanders)

Those of you out there that own pets know how important they are to the whole family. Pets are always there for you no matter what, and there’s very few things on the planet that are more important to pet owners than the well-being of their favorite animals. So you can just imagine how outraged WWF fans were in late 1987 when Bobby “The Brain” Heenan & the Islanders decided it was a good idea to dognap the British Bulldogs’ mascot, Matilda.

It seemed like everybody in the WWF had a pet animal at that point. Jake Roberts had his snake, Damien. Koko B. Ware had his parrot, Frankie. Ricky Steamboat had George “The Animal” Steele in his corner. Matilda came along after all these creatures, but immediately gained popularity. More people have dogs as pets than snakes or birds, so the Bulldogs’ relationship with Matilda was immensely relatable.

Bobby Heenan and his wrestlers perpetuated a variety of evil deeds in their day, but kidnapping Matilda was as low as it got. WWF President Jack Tunney even temporarily suspended the Islanders over the situation. Eventually, Matilda was returned to the Bulldogs, but she wasn’t quite the same. Fans were encouraged to send in letters wishing for Matilda to Get Well. We don’t know what became of Matilda after the Bulldogs left the WWF in late 1988, but we can hope that she lived a long, prosperous life inside a good home. Perhaps one of the WWF employees was given the loveable mutt.

Thanks for reading! Hit me up at [email protected] or on the social media with thoughts, comments or suggestions. Feel free to hit the comment section and tell us about whatever I forgot to mention. Until next time, true believers!