8 Most devastating career-ending injuries in wrestling history
Wrestling is a career with terrifying occupational hazards. On a nightly basis, wrestlers both male and female have to wrestle in dangerous matches that require them to put their lives in the hands of their opponents, literally.
And when a wrestler isn’t busy worrying if their opponent will drop them on their head accidentally, they have to be mindful of their surroundings and make sure that every move they do is both done safely and looks good on camera and for the audience.
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The biggest occupational hazard of pro wrestling is the injury. To this day, there likely isn’t a single wrestler past or present that didn’t spend time on the shelf nursing a serious injury or requiring surgery. Particularly nasty injuries take sideline a wrestler for months or even beyond an entire year depending on their severity. For the wrestlers that suffer through these kinds of injuries, they can only hope that they’ll still have a spot if/when they come back from said injury.
Then there are those that aren’t so lucky. There are some wrestlers whose careers ended in an instant due to one botch or one error in judgment in the ring. These are the wrestlers that suffered devastating injuries that not only caused them unimaginable pain but also ended up ending their wrestling career permanently.
This article will chronicle eight such wrestlers whose careers have been ended by terrible injuries, and it will serve as a warning to anyone that has the gall to think that wrestling is either easy or risk-free due to its scripted nature.
To be clear, in this article we’re talking about wrestlers whose wrestling careers ended with either a sudden injury or a diagnosis that came up completely out of left field which prevented a wrestler from wrestling any further.
#8 Sting's wrestling career ends following a Bucklebomb
When WWE signed Sting in 2014, it was a huge deal because many people thought it would lead to a plethora of dream matches. Unfortunately, Sting only wrestled in two matches in WWE before announcing his retirement at the 2016 WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony.
The reason for this is because Sting suffered a career-ending neck injury in a WWE Championship match against Seth Rollins at Night of Champions 2015, Sting took a Bucklebomb from Rollins and suffered a legitimate neck injury.
Although he did finish the match, the 56-year-old Sting was told that his neck injury would require surgery. Although he hasn’t actually undergone the surgery as of yet, Sting did announce his retirement from wrestling when being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2016.
While few people expected Sting to really put on a grappling masterpiece at his age, his presence in WWE was an ever-present sign that there was a remote possibility that he would have his dream match with the Undertaker.