Hoist by His Own Petard/Professional Wrestling

• During the "Monday Night Wars" between the WWF and WCW, Eric Bischoff would often spoil the outcome of WWF Raw matches on WCW Nitro (Raw was pre-recorded, while Nitro aired live in the same timeslot). In 1999, he gave away a spoiler that Mick Foley was going to win the WWF title, and mocked Foley as someone who was dumped from WCW because he couldn't "put butts in seats". A huge number of viewers proceeded to switch channels to WWF Raw to see Foley win the title. Obviously, this wasn't a death, but it was arguably one of the things that sent WCW on its downward spiral.
  • Made doubly devastating in that this happened on the same night as the infamous "Finger-Poke of Doom" match, where Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash put months of feuding and a WCW title match entirely to waste.
    • For the next year or so afterward, fans going to WWF events would hoist signs saying "Mick Foley put my butt in this seat".
      • The really painful part for WCW was that at the time Nitro lasted until 11:10 or so in order to fit in with the Turner networks' scheduling, while RAW ended at 11PM. Nitro's last, unopposed segment drew huge ratings...which means that most viewers who switched to RAW switched back to Nitro afterwards and were at least somewhat interested in seeing Nitro's main event; had they not known about Foley's title win, they would have been content to watch Nitro. Well, content until the Fingerpoke happened at least.
• Edge, on two separate occasions, used the Money in the Bank Briefcase (a prize earned in a match that allows the victor to challenge a champion to a title match at any time the briefcase holder desires) to blindside and defeat a champion after they'd just taken an asskicking from someone else. So lo and behold, on the 6/30/08 edition of Raw, he showed up as World Heavyweight Champion to boast that Raw had no world champion and never would, due to his screwing Batista over the prior night. These boasts were interrupted by Batista, who came out and beat him senseless... and then CM Punk, who was at that point the present owner of the briefcase, proceeded to run out with a referee and use his title shot then and there in what has to be the Crowning Moment of Awesome of his WWE career.
• CM Punk was the victim of a double-barrelled one as the result of his feud with Raven in Ring of Honor. Punk cut promos talking about how his Straight Edge revolution would destroy the revolution that Raven was a part of (i.e. ECW), and ragging on the "debauched" ECW fans, as well as Raven's history of drug and alcohol problems. After beating Raven in a dog-collar match, Punk decided to sink the boot in by tying Raven to the ropes and forcing beer down his throat... only to be jumped by ECW icon Tommy Dreamer, who proceeded to do just that to Punk. As an epilogue, when Punk make his WWE debut, it was in the revived ECW.
• The Undertaker has a tendency to lose casket or buried alive matches, which are supposed to be his specialty, being a wrestling gravedigger and all. Typically, after a loss he disappears for a while and comes back with a new gimmick.
  • Actually this is true of pretty much any wrestler. If the announcers build up a match as a certain wrestler's "specialty," (IE: Jeff Hardy in a ladder match; Team 3D in a tables match) said wrestler will lose nine times out of ten.
  • Variant of The Worf Effect.
• Anytime thumbtacks show up in the WWE, more often than not, the person that brought them out is going to be the one that falls into them.
• A frequent spot in WWE matches will have a wrestler attempt to slam his opponent through the announcers' table only for to be reversed and have the opponent slam the wrestler through. This especially happens to Triple H a lot since his Finishing Move, the Pedigree, leaves him wide open to a back body drop (onto the other announcers' table) or a low blow that sets up the other guy's finisher. For some reason, Triple H keeps trying.
  • Ric Flair's another one that this often happens to. He generally goes to the top rope at least once per match, and you can count the number of times he's successfully pulled off a top-rope move without being countered over his decades-spanning career on your fingers. It's gotten to the point where even the commentators have become Genre Savvy about this, with the color man generally screaming at the top of his lungs, "DON'T DO IT, RIC! THIS NEVER WORKS!"
  • In the same vein, has Kurt Angle EVER successfully hit anyone with a moonsault? His form is perfect but the opponent always seems to just move out of the way.
• An old-school spot had the heel wrestler remove the cushion on one of the turnbuckles, exposing the metal ring that hooks the ropes together. Most of the time, he'll be the one to get a face full of metal. (A favorite of George "The Animal" Steele, who would bite off the cushion, which at that time had extra packing insulation, the better to give him the "rabid animal" look)
• Smackdown, 2/11/11: Vickie Guerrero tried helping her boyfriend, Dolph Ziggler, win the World Heavyweight Title by setting Edge up in a match where his Finishing Move was banned and she was the ref. It was working perfect...until she decided to try and Spear Edge. Being much smaller than him and never having used the Spear before, all she did was injure her own leg and take herself out of the match, allowing Edge to sneak in a Spear of his own on Ziggler and call in a second guest ref (none other than Clay Matthews of the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers) to win the match.
• The WWE RAW Supplemental Draft of 2011: John Cena has been sent to Smackdown and The Miz is happy since Cena won't be fighting him for the WWE Championship anymore if he beats him at Extreme Rules 2011, especially since John Cena was determined to get the title and hold it until Wrestlemania 28 next year in his match against The Rock. But at the final pick of the night (where it was Smackdown's Mark Henry, Christian, and Cena against RAW's Miz, CM Punk, and Alberto Del Rio), Henry turned heel and beat up Cena and Miz pinned him....leaving RAW to be the one who picked up the win. Who did they get? The same man Miz pinned!
• Vince McMahon tried to screw CM Punk at Money In The Bank when John Cena locked him in an STF by having the bell rung and declaring Cena the winner. This causes Cena to release the hold and punch out the man Vince sent to have the bell rung, telling Vince he doesn't want to win that way. Cena ends up losing because of this, giving Punk the victory. What's worse is Cena was winning at the time and might have got a legit victory if Vince hadn't done this, leaving Vince with no one to blame except himself.
• A more minor example: In the 2007 Royal Rumble, Sabu from ECW had set up a table outside the ring just before entering. A while after Kane entered... guess who went through that same table?
• RAW, 2/10/14: Billy Gunn suffered this after Betty White switch the cups that was offered to her by the New Age Outlaws. White knew Road Dog added from laxatives in the drink and used the excuse for lemons as a distraction to make the switch. During the match featuring Curtis Axel / Ryback and the Usos, The New Age Outlaws were at the commentary table when Gunn felt ill. After the match, Billy Gunn tried to run to the bathroom and The Usos finding themselves laughing at the situation.