It’s not Vince McMahon’s Best Friend Race, wrestling is a high-contact, full-beef stuntshow. Hundreds of dates a year, the adrenaline of the crowd, the heat of the moment, dread it, run from it, injury still arrives.
Sometimes injuries happen during house shows, resulting in thousands of fans sifting through grainy footage like gothic prospectors to see Seth Rollins’ knee explode, or Paige’s in-ring career end with a slightly too hard kick to the back. Sometimes wrestlers get injured and through sheer demented fortiude we don’t notice until after the match is over, because every wrestler has ‘finish the match’ scratched deep on their soul by the long fingernail of tradition.
Some wrestlers, like Droz, get injured on a pre-taped show that never airs, but sometimes, some-horrible-times, injuries happen live and everyone watching at home suddenly gasps and is forced to confront the fact that, damn wrestling, you scary.
12. And You Face Plant Teach That
Enzo & Cass, aka the entire cast of the jersey shore squeezed into one infected leopard and his giant mouse pet, slowly drowned on the main roster, with their terrible break-up and terrible feud leaving both characters dead in the water before both men were separately released. However, back in 2016, after a dynamite run in NXT everyone was very excited to see what the paid would achieve. As such, hopes were high going into Payback and the match between Enzo & Cass and the Vaudevillains to determine the number 1 contenders to the New Day’s tag straps. After just three minutes, Simon Gotch went to throw Enzo out of the ring, however he didn’t fall to the mat quick enough and his head collided with the taut ring ropes. His head bounced off the ropes with enough force to knock Enzo out as his head then smacked off the mat. To make things even worse, Enzo then slid to the floor, out-cold, banging his head again on the floor before Gotch, not realising what was happening, grabbed Enzo’s head with both hands before he could be backed off by the ref. The match was called off as EMTs rushed to ringside, making the creative decision to have New Day be present at ringside watching and eating popcorn, suddenly excruciatingly awkward.
11. Technical Keith Orton
The tragic opera of the meat between Randy Orton’s arms and his neck (working title). Randal Keith has had his career plagued by shoulder injuries, from as far back as his debut year in 2002 so much so they now resemble a sat on pack of twilights. Credit to Randy, he’s always seemed to be able to finish matches through the pain, apart from the injury he sustained at One Night Stand 2008. Randy fought Triple H last man standing, shoulder vs quad in the battle of the recurring injuries. After a match involving choking with wires, steel steps and other hardcore palaver, the match ended with randy being chucked over the top rope. The Game reversed an RKO, plonked Orton on the outside who landed hard on his shoulder, and shattered his collarbone. Halfway through the ref counting randy down, we get a rare on camera shot of him throwong up the X, secret code for s*** has gotten real, and it looks like that’s going to be the end of the match as, you know, Randy literally can’t stand up unassisted. Triple H thinks, not like this, not on PPV, picks Randy up at 9, throws him shoulder first into the barricade, because b***ard, then nails him with a sledgehammer shot, finally letting the ref count the 10 and get Orton some goddamn medical help.
10. Cesaro Eats His Own Teeth
In Switzerland, teeth eat you! Of all the ones on the list, this one gives me the heebiest of jeebies. No Mercy 2017 saw the abusive relationship of Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins go up against the Dream Daddies Sheamus and Cesaro for the Raw Tag Team Championships. Cesaro attempts a Neutraliser, which is counter into a slingshot into the corner. Cesaro then collided with the ringpost with such force that, oh god i hate it, his two front teeth weren’t knocked out, they went up, INTO HIS GUMS. eeerrrhrhhhh. The match continues and we’re not sure anything’s wrong until rollins kicks cesaro and the face and the red stuff goes everywhere. Thankfully WWE were on hand to show Cesaro’s hibernating chompers and a slow close-up, just in case anyone was watching the PPV over fucking dinner, thanks everyone. Cesaro finished the match, because of course he did – inhaled his own teeth, makes sense – and then had to have his teeth surgically removed from the inside of his fucking head. Stop wrestling. Stop all of wrestling.
John Cena’s Nose
Normally when we say nasal in relation to seth rollins its for a different reason. So, you know how in wwe video games you can create a wrestler and, if you’re not happy with where their nose is, you can move it using a slider? Well, seth rollins wasn’t happy with where John Cena’s nose was, and moved it with his f***ing kneecap. Seth taking his architect role a little too literally there. Cena and Rollins were wrestling on the July 27th episode of Raw in 2015 when an errant Tiger Knee sends Cena’s schnoz into parts unknown, aka, in the region of his f***ing ear. There’s something morbidly thrilling about watching god bleed and the most invulnerable human specimen in wrestling to be literally bent out of shape. Cena finished the match in an effort that transcends heroic and moves into cosmic, and was back in time to wrestle at SummerSlam a month later, because if you tell an injured wrestler to stop wrestling they will break your leg and then demand you finish YOUR match. What match, you say through streams of tears. Finish the match, the wrestler will whisper.
8. The Nose Knows
Staying in olfactory country a bit longer, and the most iconic nose botch since the birth of Paul Levesque. Armageddon 2006 and a fatal fourway ladder match for the WWE tag team championships pitting Brian Kendrick and Paul London against William Regal and Dave Taylor, MNM and the Hardy Boys. I strongly advise at this point that anyone eating anything involving pasta sauce, ketchup or a human orbital bone not listen to this next bit. Jeff Hardy was sat on the turnbuckle as Matt, Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury fist bickered over a ladder that was leaning against another, see-saw style. Jeff Hardy saw the opportunity for mutually assured destruction, his favourite kind of destruction, and hurled himself onto the ladder which sprung up into the faces of Matt, Johnny and Joey. Matt was fine, Johnny was fine, Joey was a C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER. The ladder flattened his nose and smashed his orbital bone, sending blood gushing every which way like his nose was a lawn sprinkler and it was a really bad summertime.
7. Vince McMahon Walks His Legs To Death
Also known as the importance of stretching. There’s powerwalks, there’s powerwalks and then there’s powerwalks that end with you rupturing both quads like a total doyle. Cut back to the royal rumble 2005 and the chairman completing the latest chapter of My Ludicrous F***ing Existence The Vince McMahon Memoirs. The rumble was supposed to end with Batista winning without complication, but life proceeded to complicate things by the way of an almost too good to be true botch which saw both men tumble out of the ring and hit the ground at exactly the same time. Literally, exactly the same, it’s insane. Despite there being precedence for this at the 1994 Royal Rumble with the double elimination of Bret Hart and Lex Luger leading to a draw, because this time that wasn’t the plan, everyone had to improvise, and vince said, hmm we need a distraction while we come up with something. I know, I’ll walk out there without limbering up, try and slide into the ring, crack my legs on the apron, and then sit in the ring like a grumpy child at his birthday puppet show and hope no one notices I’m in colossal pain. Sheer beautiful madness. Vince barked orders from the ground, the match was restarted and the right man won, but not before the cosmic gift of vince’s bad legs.
6. Daniel Bryan Touches A Nerve
Well, I’m awfully glad that Daniel Bryan isn’t retired anymore because gosh it makes it easier to write jokes for this bit. D-Bry may be the most affable man to kick you in the chest until your doctor bursts into tears, but he’s as strong a proponent as anyone of the go hard, don’t rest, finish the match mentality. Scariest of all was the revelation that he once hid the fact that he was having seizures from the WWE medical staff. Daniel, we love you, never do that again. Those seizures began as a result of the June 17th 2013 episode of Raw, when Daniel Bryan wrestled Randy Orton in a No DQ match. During a botched suicide dive, Bryan flies at little too far and crashed his head into the barricade, giving him a legitimate nerve injury. The doctor comes over and tries to get bryan to stop because he was losing feeling in his arms, and if you watch the match back you can notice slowness in those limbs and a lack of coordination. Protecting Bryan from further injury, the match was ordered to be called off from the gorilla position. Furious, Bryan stormed backstage and got into a screaming match with Triple H, which went something along the lines of ‘don’t try to take care of me ever again’ which is the exact point where professional crosses the line into carny. Look, this was around the time that the Goat was becoming the hottest wrestler on the planet and beginning a proper main event push, so you can understand Daniel Bryan trying to be reliable, but yeah the accumulation of damage from this injury led to Bryan vacating the WWE World Heavyweight Championship after only 64 days, which is heartbreaking.
5. I’m Still In A Dream, Snake Beater
Hey, this entry’s about an injury being done on purpose. Fun! ‘Brock Lesnar once intentionally broke a man’s head open’ is one of those sentences that feels like it’s always existed. Like, once concepts and rational consequence had emerged from the primordial ether it went, ‘meat good’, ‘fire hot’ and ‘yeah brock lesnar’s definitely broken a guy’s head open.’ Because he’s a pacific rim machine powered by twin brothers rage and survivalist aggression. He’s f*** you got mine in branded shorts and I’m surprised he’s only opened three dudes up with the point of his elbow. It’s become part of Lesnar’s crisis moveset, something to call on for special occasions. Cena pulls out the rolling double AA, Orton has the punt, and Brock takes his elbow pad off and performs head percussion until you bleed hard-way, are you not sports-entertained? He’s done it to Cena at Extreme Rule 2012, Roman at Mania 34 but the really bad one was against Orton at SummerSlam 2016. He actually caved his skull in a little bit, cut way deeper than he was supposed to, giving Orton a huge concussion and quotes ‘working the boys’ so much that Jericho squared up to him backstage after watching the match. And how did it feel to see the biggest party of the summer end via intentional gruesome injury. From someone who was actually there, yeah, not great.
4. For The Love Of Mankind
If I’d opened up this list to other promotions, we could have had 10 awful flavours of mick dicking his carcass up the wall for mild applause. So few men have given so much for such little relative return, I hope that Mick Foley is happy every single second of his life. The man’s wrestled with barbed wire, on thumbtacks, and has left an ear in the ring as casually as someone forgetting their wallet in the car. His masterpiece, is the Hell in a Cell match against the Undertaker at King of the RIng 98. If wrestling is stuntwork spectacle, then what is more wrestling than Mick flying from the cell. As much as that was the keynote stunt it was actually the chokeslam through the top of the cell that truly destroyed Mickles. It wasn’t supposed to happen, so the story goes, just a chokeslam on a chair on top of the cell, but the roof broke, Mick fell, chair and all. He was briefly knocked out cold, two of his teeth were knocked out, one of which was sent through his lip, INTO HIS F***ING NOSE, for all to see I’ll point out, he suffered a dislocated jaw, a dislocated shoulder and a bruised kidney, all as Jerry Lawler said, matter of factly “that’s it, he’s dead.” However, worse was yet to come.
3. The Assassination Of Mick Foley By The Coward Dwayne Johnson
There are squash matches in wrestling, there are savage beatdowns, but rarely when watching WWE do you get that sick cold feeling in your stomach, “oh no, I’m watching a man die.” I’ve always had an aversion to that feeling, which is why I’ve never been into my proper deathmatches, but if there’s one time I’ve felt that watching Vince McMahon’s Wholesome Slams it’s Royal Rumble 99 with the I Quit match between The Rock and Mankind. The match starts and it’s so far so good, walk and brawl, up to the entrance way, nasty-looking but safe bump as Mick fell onto the quotes ‘electrical circuit board’, but then Foley gets his hands cuffed behind his back, and then the match turns into a horror film. Rock hits a mick foley with an unprotected chairshot to the head, Mick starts bleeding under his mask, then another, then another, then another, then another, then Mick starts stumbling, walking to the back, he’s staggering, he doesn’t know where he is, then another, then another, then another, then another, then another, the last, to the back of his head. 10 unprotected, full force chairshots, in front of Mick Foley’s f***ing family. Rock went off script, got carried away, there were more headshots than there should have been, whatever the story. We are so lucky that Mick Foley is alive and in the realtive health that he’s in today. Unbelievable drama, yes, but knowing what we know now, it’s genuinely disgusting to watch
2. Redesign Rebuild Retire Sting
And speaking of that dull knot of dread, Night of Champions 2015, and that moment that a fan never wants to experience, “ah, I’m watching a man’s career end right in front of me.” Seth Rollins features a few times on this list, and he’s caught flack for having a fair share of injuries under his watch, but this wasn’t on him. Wrong move, wrong age, wrong landing, a bunch of factors that seem obvious in hindsight but if anyone says they thought Sting was in danger going into this match, they’re damn liars. Rollins goes for a buckle bomb, actually the second of the match, the first went fine, sting lands in the corner, falls, can’t get up. Rollins then vamps to the crowd as you can see that he’s f***ing petrified inside. Sting tries to run the ropes but stops and slumps into the ring. Through a sheer miracle and also the weight of expectations, I guess, he finished the match, but suffered a neck injury, nerve damage, numbness in his limbs, and he hasn’t stepped back in the ring since. Wrestling is real.
1. The Most Expensive Piledriver In Wrestling History
SummerSlam 1997 is one of the most significant PPVs of all time, in a terrible way. It took the man who would become the biggest drawing star in the history of business, who would make amounts of money even Hulk Hogan hadn’t made, and put him on borrowed time. You could argue that Steve Austin’s absence between Survivor Series 99 and Unforgiven 2000 allowed Triple H, Mankind and the Rock to flourish, but man, the biggest star in the business, sitting out for a year while wrestling was the hottest it has ever been, it’s heartbreaking. We know the story. Owen hart and Austin were wrestling in a Kiss My Ass match, of all things, where Owen hits Stone Cold with a sit out tombstone. Austin’s head is way too low, his spine compresses, he severely damages his neck and is briefly paralysed. Does Austin finish the match, you know the answer to that already. Was it painfully, horribly obvious that Stone Cold was really really hurt, yes, that too. Steve Austin retired in 2003 at 39 years old, which is no damn age, even in wrestling. It’s a weird old sport we like. The highs are high, but lows are something else.
And what wrestling injury do you remember watching that really affected you? Let us know in the comments below, and don’t forget to like and subscribe to WrestleTalk for more news and lists.
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