He received a gold medal with a damaged freakin’ neck. Earlier than stepping contained in the squared circle, WWE Corridor of Famer Kurt Angle was an completed beginner wrestler, ultimately taking his skills to the 1996 Olympic Video games the place he received gold within the heavyweight weight class. Whereas that damage was Angle’s most notorious, the Olympian was not resistant to extra bodily setbacks in his subsequent skilled wrestling profession. Angle damage his neck as soon as extra in 2003 throughout a confrontation with Brock Lesnar. The Beast Incarnate swung a chair at Angle’s head, leading to yet one more damaged neck.
“What occurred was Brock Lesnar hit me over the pinnacle with a chair, and he introduced it,” Angle mentioned on his podcast (h/t Fightful). “I imply, once I inform you he introduced it, he actually introduced it. The factor is, me and Chris Benoit each obtained hit with a chair by Brock that night time. Chris, earlier than the match began, he advised Brock, ‘Hey, swing sideways on my head as a result of I had surgical procedure on my neck, and I do not need you to come back over straight excessive.’”
Angle was conscious of Benoit’s request, however didn’t ask for the lodging himself.
“I did not inform Brock,” Angle continued. “So he hits Benoit sideways, and Benoit’s neck is okay. He goes excessive and hits me proper on high of my head as exhausting as he might, and I broke — three damaged vertebrae. I had bone chips in my neck, and I had two discs that slid into my spinal wire. So I type of messed myself up once more. That is the third time I broke my neck.”
Weapons-based head photographs have been largely finished away with in fashionable skilled wrestling. WWE banned chair photographs to the pinnacle altogether in 2010, with uncommon cases like Edge and Randy Orton’s con-chair-tos or Triple H and Daniel Bryan’s ring post-related chair photographs breaking that rule. Bryan and Orton have been even fined in Summer time 2013 for having a chair shot to the pinnacle throughout considered one of their matches on Monday Evening Uncooked.
Angle returns to WWE programming tonight on Uncooked is XXX.
