10 Devastating Injuries That Made Wrestlers WORSE

10. Triple H

Triple H was an in-ring machine in 2000.

Ripped and huge, he was an exceptional Ace because he bumped like a madman as a proper working heel, but put so much snap on his sh*t that he got over as a warlord on the offensive. Virtually every second of his matches engineered white-hot drama because he could do it all, and he didn't quite boast the political power to labour on and sniff his own greatness. He worked the Rock for much of 2000. He was going to sell for that incandescent fire, and he was going to do it with his incredible shotgun flat-backs.

Everything changed in 2001 when he suffered a quadricep tear in a classic RAW match between the Two Man Power Trip and Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit.

He returned with an even more hulking physique at the expense of the old, Flair-esque bumping prowess. Ironically, he tried to play Ric Flair after he'd turned heel in 2002. Striving for 1986, he instead landed somewhere near 2000, but Vince Russo had the sense at least to keep those matches short. This new, less mobile Triple H got high on both power and the notion that he was so good that he could work slow and make people care more, actually. It didn't happen. Trips worked several great matches after 2001. Some were classics.

But he was nowhere the every night show-stealer - the Ric Flair - he once was.