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Aches and Pains a Real Part of Professional Wrestling

Posted: Jul 24th 2007 By: CMBurnham

Championship belts come and go for professional wrestlers, but battle scars last forever.

From dislocated jaws and shoulders to broken necks to a ripped-off ear, professional wrestlers have injured themselves in just about every way over the years.

With flying bodies, steel cages, baseball bats wrapped with barbed wire, fire, tables, chairs and thousands of screaming fans who want to be entertained, there are plenty of ways, reasons and motivation for wrestlers to put their bodies on the line.

"I've lost count of how many injuries I've gotten from wrestling," former WWE superstar Rikishi said.

Outcomes of matches may be scripted, but when a grappler gets hurt, he must play through the pain or take time off.

"When people say that wrestling is fake, I tell them that I've had two neck fusions and need to get a third one, I need to get both knees replaced, and I had 11 knee surgeries and a back surgery, but thank goodness wrestling is fake or I might have really gotten hurt," said Terry Taylor, a former wrestler. "Whether it is real or not, it's like stunt work. You still take the falls, there's still danger. They think we're actors and we're not."

This year alone, World Wrestling Entertainment has had several main-event wrestlers take time off due to in-the-ring injuries. The past six holders of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the main belt on 'Smackdown,' have suffered injuries within six months of their reign. The latest one, Edge, was stripped of the title last week after he tore his left pectoral muscle and will miss four months of action.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling says less than five percent of its grapplers have suffered in-the-ring injuries. And there's no way to calculate the amount of time wrestlers on the hundreds of independent circuits across the country have missed.

While much has been written and talked about concerning the premature deaths of pro wrestlers outside of the ring - including Chris Benoit last month - in-the-ring deaths have also occurred.

Story lines might change and fans who pay to see a superstar in their hometown could get stiffed because of injuries. Fans who hope to see something extraordinary, may end up with nightmares from a grisly injury.

Whatever it is, in-the-ring injuries are as much a part of wrestling as a talent's arsenal of moves or a referee who gets distracted during a match's crucial moment.

"No amount of money is worth your body, I'm sorry," said Duncan's Bill White, who has more than 40 years of experience in the ring.

Don't say fake

A television reporter once made the mistake of asking wrestler "Dr. D" David Schultz if his sport was fake. Schultz showed him, slapping him to the ground and then hitting him again.

Schultz isn't the only wrestler to take umbrage to the question, "Is wrestling fake?"

These days, fans - and reporters - are careful not to make the same mistake.

"They know it's real. Most of the time now, they don't say fake," said former WWE superstar Dustin Rhodes, who wrestled under the moniker "Gold Dust." "They say, 'We know it's choreographed, but do you really get hurt? Are the chair shots real? Yes they are. Is that real blood? Yes.' "

Rhodes certainly knows about injuries, as the scar across his right hand can attest. He suffered four broken metacarpals and underwent surgery after he did his longtime finishing move - a bulldog - to Road Dogg Jesse James.

"Ultimately, at the end of the day, injuries are going to happen," American Wrestling Alliance commissioner Dale Gagne said.

Slow motion and ringside seats give fans a better view of how a match is conducted and how injuries occur. Wrestlers often continue their match after they get hurt, but sometimes there's too much pain.

Paramedics are occasionally used to progress a story line, but sometimes they are needed.

"Everybody asks (if it's fake)," Boiling Springs wrestler T.J. Mack said. "But how do you fake a chair shot?"

"How do you fake falling through the air 20 feet?" his brother and tag-team partner Kirby Mack said.

Is bigger, badder better?

One of wrestling's biggest bumps occurred when The Undertaker threw Mankind (Mick Foley) from the top of a cage into an announcer's table 16 feet below.

"As God as my witness, he is broken in half," announcer Jim Ross said during the 1998 pay-per-view King of the Ring in Pittsburgh after Foley landed just feet from him.

Foley got up, got back on top of the cage and was thrown from the top of the cage into the ring. After the match, WWE chairman Vince McMahon made Foley promise to "never do anything like that again," Foley wrote in his book "Have a Nice Day."

During that classic match, Foley dislocated his jaw and shoulder, bruised a kidney, broke two ribs, lost a tooth, received 14 stitches and suffered a concussion. The incident stoked his popularity.

Those two moves may have triggered the rise of insane antics from wrestlers. If Foley was the groundbreaker, others would try to follow his lead.

"The reaction of the crowd was phenomenal," Foley wrote. "I have never experienced or seen a reaction like it before, and I doubt I ever will again."

"When Mick Foley did the plunge off the top of the cage, I think he raised the bar to a level that is basically unachievable," said Mike Mooneyham, author of "Sex, Lies and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation."

"That bar was raised to a level where it would be stupid to see other guys try to imitate that, but a lot of them did."

Back flips off the top rope out of the ring, a leap from the top of a 20-foot ladder and matches with hard-core rules soon followed.

"It's only going to get worse. They do all this stuff, these young guys and God bless them that they can," Rhodes said. "Violence and sex, that's what (fans) want. If it's not violent enough, they don't want to watch."

Matches with chains, leather straps and scaffolds - which were popular in the 1980s - aren't enough anymore.

The need for more action and entertainment has grown as the wrestling business grew from a regional to a national phenomenon.

"Things have to keep getting bigger, better, faster and stronger like everything else," Gagne said. "We have to continue to add elements to the wrestling business."

From someone dropping an opponent from high above to baseball bats covered with barbed wire, fans cheer loudest when something gruesome happens.

Wrestling promotions, though, such as WWE and TNA now stop some wrestlers from doing moves that are deemed too dangerous.

"First, we hire great athletes," said Taylor, the director of talent for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. "Then, we have the ability to say no to a dangerous move or - and I would have never said this 10 years ago - stunt. We try to protect our wrestlers from themselves more often than not."

Subject to change

Sometimes, it's in small print at the bottom of the poster, but promoters always let fans know - cards are subject to change.

When it comes to pro wrestling, anything can happen and injuries are often one of the ways story lines develop and championship belts change.

Earlier this year, Triple H was going to be in the main event at WrestleMania 23 on April 1, but he tore his right quadriceps on Jan. 7 and hasn't returned to the ring since. Instead, WWE used a John Cena-Shawn Michaels title match.

"(Injuries) put major kinks in story lines," Mooneyham said.

On June 24, TNA Wrestling had one of its largest pay-per-view broadcasts and had to change its tag-team title match because Scott Steiner was in a Puerto Rico hospital instead of in Nashville for the show. Two weeks earlier, Steiner took a kick to the throat and suffered a lacerated trachea, which required surgery. Doctors also induced a coma and he stayed in the hospital for two weeks.

Instead of a historic match between two of the sport's best teams, Rick Steiner teamed with Road Warrior Animal for the match against Team 3D (formerly the Dudley Brothers).

"We're very sorry that Scott got hurt ... but the show has to go on. People still paid their $30 for the pay-per-view," Taylor said. "They want to see Scott Steiner, and when we can't produce Scott, we have to come up with something that is a suitable and equal replacement as best we can."

Stopping the injuries

Many wrestlers have a long list of injuries they've endured in the ring and the surgeries that follow, but most wouldn't dream of doing anything else.

Some promotions have turned the corner from old-school pro wrestling to a brand of sports entertainment that involves outlandish stories, moves and matches.

"I think the envelope has been pushed so far," Kirby Mack said. "When people start getting tired ... you have to come up with something else to spark their interest."

Going back to your grandfather's wrestling simply won't work. Young fans want high-flying spots and chair shots.

As long as that continues, in-the-ring injuries will also continue.

"I don't think there's any way around it. It's just the nature of the business," Mooneyham said.

"I don't think we'll ever go back to real mat-oriented wrestling where guys have rest holds on each other for a minute or two."

And wrestlers will continue to do the high-risk moves.

"You have to be a special person to be a professional wrestler," Rikishi said. "You have to sacrifice a lot."

Sometimes, even your body.