The Will Smith slap incident at last night’s Oscars will go down in internet history. Unsurprisingly, everyone reacted to it, including the wrestling community.
For those who somehow missed the incident, Will Smith slapped comedian and host for the night Chris Rock on stage. The reason? Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith. The host mocked Jada’s alopecia with a GI Jane 2 line.
Smith initially laughed before taking exception to this, marching on stage before slapping Rock and stunning the crowd into silence.
Needless to say, the incident sent the internet into a meltdown.
Mick Foley has a laugh about Will Smith slap
Different representatives from the wrestling world jumped onto social media to meme the event. WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley was no different.
‘Cactus Jack’ compared Chris Rock’s reaction to Billy Gunn’s ‘no-selling’ during losses, a trend that Gunn has been criticised for in his career. His tweet tickled fellow wrestling star Hurricane Helms, who responded with laughing emojis to Foley’s quip.
If the Will Smith slap was faked for ratings, the comedian did not do a good job of selling it, to be fair. Either that or he took the hit like an absolute champ.
Chris Jericho seizes a trolling opportunity
AEW star Chris Jericho saw the slap as another chance to troll fans of All Elite Wrestling and the WWE.
His tweet, a still shot of Smith’s slap, labels the actor as a representative of ‘#sportsentertainers’, and Chris Rock as ‘#prowrestlers’. Clearly, this is pushing Jericho’s latest angle with his faction, the ‘Jericho Appreciation Society.’
Recently, Jericho generated a lot of heel heat in the AEW world by calling himself and members of his faction’ sports entertainers.’
This outraged AEW fans, who consider the company to be a pro wrestling business. Jericho’s group gained more heat by claiming that they, as sports entertainers, would beat up pro wrestlers and take over the AEW.
On another note, the WWE call their wrestlers’ sports entertainers’; so, this is likely Chris Jericho aiming another troll at his former employers too.
Mark Henry bills AEW match
WWE icon Mark Henry got involved in the meme race. He billed a potential AEW matchup between Will Smith and Chris Rock, retweeting a brilliant photoshop of the pair having a pre-match interview with himself.
The former World’s Strongest Man also wrote “looks like there’s been enough talk!” – his famous line during AEW commentary. Of course, fans took the opportunity to finish off the line, hilariously replying, “ITS TIME FOR THE MAINNNNN EVENT!”
The internet never fails to make a meme out of viral events.
Featured image credit: Getty