Professional Wrestling is Not for Sissies: A Review of Major Injuries Sustained by Famous Wrestlers
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By Shannah “Queen B” Beasley
On the heels of the article I wrote last week and my comment about people thinking professional wrestling is phony, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some nasty injuries received during these “fake” matches. I quickly found out, this research was not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. I can handle some pretty gross stuff, but I had to look at a few of these with my hands over my eyes and peeking through my fingers!
Let’s start with Rey Mysterio who weighs 175 lbs versus The Undertaker who weighs 300 lbs. The Undertaker seemed to have control of the match until Mysterio took a leap off the top rope. When 175 lbs comes flying off a rope that is 5 feet off the ground and lands fanny to face, some serious damage can occur. The Undertaker walked away with a concussion, a broken nose and a broken orbital bone.
Moving on, we can look at Sabu and his history of gruesome injuries. His list includes broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken neck (twice!) and the most disturbing one in my opinion—he tore open his biceps and required stitches to close the 10 inch gash. He was fighting Terry Funk in “Born to Be Wired” — a no rope barbed wire match. After he crashed into the wire, he used tape to close the gash and finish the match. At the conclusion, both Sabu and Funk had to be cut from the wire by ring technicians using wire cutters.
In a 1994 match, Mick Foley was attempting a hangman but it went terribly wrong. He got trapped in the ropes and in his effort to free himself, he ripped his ear right off his head! In a 1990 match, Big Van Vader was paired up against Stan Hansen. Before the match even started, Hansen accidentally broke Vader’s nose with a bullwhip he carried into the ring. During the match, Hansen inadvertently poked Vader in the right eye with his thumb. His eye popped out of the socket and Vader pushed it back in and finished the fight. He eventually ended up with a metal plate under his eye due to the injury. Then there was the match where Joey Mercury got slammed in the face with a ladder that caused a literal waterfall of blood to stream down his face. That one resulted in a nose that was broken in 3 places and gashes that took 30 stitches to close.
Finally, the number one all time most gruesome injury in my opinion was during a match between Big Show and Sid Eudy. It looked like a normal fight with nothing out of the ordinary happening until Sid came off the top rope and landed his right foot into Big Show’s chest. As he came down, he planted his left foot on the canvas and snapped his tibia and fibula like toothpicks. His foot turned completely the wrong direction and flopped around like a turkey neck on Thanksgiving morning! Try to watch that one without certain body parts puckering. HORRIBLE!
So after reading all of this, if you still want to argue that professional wrestling is fake or phony, I challenge you to go to YouTube and look up the top 15 most horrible injuries in wrestling. Let me know if you can watch them without cringing, hiding your eyes, or screaming like a little girl!
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