There are a lot of things that have been lost in professional wrestling over the years, even when it comes to the crowd. For many years, you would see flashbulbs from everyone's cameras whenever someone hit a finishing move or did a signature pose. Certain chants have fallen by the wayside in favor of "This Is Awesome,"or when the crowd really enjoys something, "This Is Wrestling," and old ladies in the front row are no longer trying to swing their handbags at heels who have wronged their beloved babyfaces, as they want to take matters into their own hands.
One thing that hasn't been lost, albeit a little toned down over the years, is the creative homemade signs fans bring to events. During the height of the Attitude or Ruthless Aggression eras, when the pyro at the start of the show had ceased and the bright lights lit up the crowd, you were met with thousands upon thousands of signs of all different shapes, sizes, and colors, each displaying a different message. Some would be made to support someone's favorite wrestler, others would be made so that someone watching at home could easily spot their friends and family, and then there are some that were simply made to make people laugh.
But what happens when a sign breaks out of its surroundings and catches the eyes of the viewing audience for a different reason? What happens when a sign gets so much coverage that it becomes part of a storyline? What happens when a sign is so wildly outrageous that it becomes an iconic piece of wrestling fan culture and even develops a cult-like following of its own? That's what we're here to talk about today.
So sit back, relax, and join us on a journey through the many arenas and venues that WWE has held events in to find some of the weirdest and wildest fan signs of all time.
Everyone has something that they are insecure about. Some people have big ears, some might be conscious of how they walk, and others might have a spot on their face that they just can't seem to get rid of. For Triple H, while he's never come out and said that he's self-conscious, the one part of his body that has been made fun of for years has been his nose. In fairness, it's not even that big of a nose. It's not like he can smell a Thanksgiving dinner on Black Friday, or that someone may have accidentally mixed up his nose with his elbow, but it's been the one cheap jab that everyone resorts to at one point or another when it comes to "The Game," including the fans.
One year, when Triple H was entering the Royal Rumble, a sign near the front row of the crowd could be spotted that read "HHH's Nose Counts As Another Entry." Surely his nose isn't that big that it warrants its own spot in the Royal Rumble match, right? Whether it does or doesn't isn't really relevant at the end of the day, as the sign manages to circulate on social media every January when the Rumble season is in full swing, and the man behind the sign has even poked fun at himself in the process.
Rick Achberger is the man behind the sign, and is commonly known by many as "Rick The Sign Guy" as he has brought a number of creative signs to multiple WWE events over the years, such as telling Naomi she that she fears Cardi B, outing Chris Jericho for having a Taylor Swift tattoo, and my personal favorite because it's so direct, telling Frankie Kazarian that he smells like booze and failure. When it came to his shot at Triple H, Achberger tweeted in 2023 that his own nose would probably warrant its own spot in the Rumble, as his isn't exactly the smallest in the world.
After searching far and wide through countless threads on social media and online, this sign was stumbled upon, and we here at Wrestling Inc. have never seen a more polite burn in all our years of watching wrestling.To be clear, we're not exactly sure what episode of "WWE Raw" this sign appeared on, who exactly it's directed towards, but judging by the fan in the front row wearing a Zack Ryder headband, it puts this sign at around 2011 or 2012.
There is a fine line between genuine heat and "go away heat."If a crowd genuinely hates a character, or the heel is doing something cheap to give themselves or their pals a helping hand, the fans in attendance will most likely boo them for their actions. However, there comes a point where fans become sick of a wrestler for being overexposed, not good enough in the ring, or some non-wrestling-related news has cropped up that completely ruins everyone's perception of them, resulting in "go away heat," or "X-Pac heat" for those Attitude Era fans out there. If anything, that difference was put so eloquently here, as it read "Sir! I feel compelled to stress that we are not booing because of your effective heel work. We are booing because you are simply awful."
Heels have been called virtually every name under the sun, and some of them have been made into their own signs, which we can't show in this list. With that said, this might actually cut deeper than any insult any fan could throw at someone. It's put in such a genuinely nice way, and then hits you at the end by saying that the wrestler, and everything they do, is awful, and that the heel is not even doing their job properly. Actions speak louder than words in most cases, but sometimes, words can really hurt, and these words are painful.
It takes a special type of sign to literally change the way a character acts on TV. Back in ECW, Mick Foley based an entire promo, and in turn, the entire way the Cactus Jack character acted on-screen after seeing a sign that read "Cane Dewey," with Dewey being Foley's three-year-old son. In WWE, a young Dwayne Johnson saw a similar sign directed at his Rocky Maivia character, which hadn't been connecting with the fans as much as he and the WWE higher-ups would have liked. That sign was, of course, "Die Rocky Die," not to be confused with the Sideshow Bob tattoo that read "Die Bart Die," which, as we all know, translates from German to "The Bart The."
In August 1997, Rocky Maivia returned to WWE after suffering a knee injury against Owen Hart and became the newest member of The Nation of Domination. Rocky explained that he had given his blood, sweat, and tears for the fans, he had become, at that time at least, the youngest WWE Intercontinental Champion in history, and all he ever got in return was a sign that read "Die Rocky Die," which would become a chant in the weeks and months that followed. Despite the group being racially motivated at its core, Rocky even went as far as to say that the sign wasn't about the color of his skin, and was simply a matter of respect, something that the fans didn't have for him, and he didn't have for the fans in return.
To be clear, it's very likely that the move to make Rocky Maivia a heel and eventually evolve into being known as The Rock was a plan that was already in motion by the time "Die Rocky Die" became a point of discussion. However, it's nice to think that one small piece of card held up by a fan at ringside would become a domino in a long line of events that would eventually lead to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson becoming one of the most famous individuals on the planet.
We are cheating with this one, as this was technically shown on an episode of "WCW Monday Nitro" in 2000, but honestly, it's too funny not to mention, and might be the single funniest wrestling sign that there has ever been.
If you want to search for the sign yourself, look no further than the July 18, 2000, episode of "Nitro," which was a special Tuesday edition of the show, where Jeff Jarrett took on Stevie Ray of Harlem Heat. During the match, you will be able to see a number of things in the crowd, including at least three guys holding up a sign for 1wrestling.com, a website that no longer exists after its founder, Bob Ryder, who was also an Executive for TNA Wrestling, passed away in 2020. However, you will also see a sign at ringside that has taken on a life of its own in the modern wrestling community.
"Goldberg Eats Corn The Long Way."
While some people will have you believe that there is no right or wrong way to eat corn on the cob, eating it the long way is not only impractical, but would also look extremely weird, and have people questioning how you eat other foods of a similar size. How the sign came back into circulation amongst modern fans can largely be put down to the very popular Deadlock podcast, hosted by the founders of Deadlock Pro Wrestling, who reviewed the July 18, 2000 episode of "Nitro" for their show, and caught them so off guard that it derailed their show for a good two or three minutes before they could gather their composure.
As previously mentioned, the sign has no taken on a life of its own, as eagle-eyed viewers of WWE WrestleMania 40 in 2024 spotted a sign that read "Roman Eats Corn The Long Way," something The Tribal Chief would disagree with, and it has become a popular insult to throw at people because it's so stupid that you almost can't be offended by it. To whoever created that sign, you've done more for wrestling than you will ever know.
Throughout the years, there have probably been hundreds of thousands, and potentially even millions of homemade signs that have been brought to wrestling events, but there is arguably no sign more famous than the one that promised a full-scale riot in 2006.
To say that the fans in the Hammerstein Ballroom on June 11, 2006, did not want John Cena to leave ECW One Night Stand with the WWE Championship would be a massive understatement. Cena was booed out of the building, he had toilet paper thrown at him, and after repeatedly throwing his shirt into the crowd only for it to be thrown back at him, a security guard who worked for ECW threw it back, flipped him the double bird, and joined in with the "ECW" chants that were as loud as they had ever been. On top of this, there was one sign hanging from the balcony that had lived on for nearly 20 years.
"If Cena Wins, We Riot."
The thing that made this sign so iconic wasn't just how it looked, or the fact that it was situated on the hard-cam that made it impossible to miss, but the fact that, on that night, if Rob Van Dam didn't beat John Cena for the WWE Championship, it was entirely possible that the fans would storm the ring and come for Cena's head. It wasn't a sign of disdain for a wrestler; it was a very real threat. Thankfully for all the people in the Hammerstein Ballroom, although given the security's views on Cena, they probably would have joined in, there was no rioting as RVD became the WWE Champion for the very first time.
In the years since ECW One Night Stand 2006, the "If Cena Wins,We Riot" sign has been imitated and replicated for various events where the fans want one person to win so badly, they will literally kill each other if it doesn't happen. A black and yellow version that read "If Punk Loses, We Riot" was visible at WWE Money In The Bank 2011 for CM Punk's match with John Cena. AEW fans had variations of the sign as recently as All In Texas on July 12, 2025 in support of Hangman Page for his match with Jon Moxley, and at GCW's first-ever event in the Hammerstein Ballroom in 2022,"If Cardona Wins, We Riot" was not only a banner on display in the crowd for Matt Cardona's match with Joey Janela, but Cardona even turned it into a t-shirt.
