10 Devastating Injuries That Made Wrestlers WORSE
Triple H once told Seth Rollins to adapt or perish, and, well...
If there's a "No sh*t, Sherlock" quality to that title, consider the following: professional wrestling is by definition a paradox, and this strangeness extends across so much of it.
An injury in wrestling can often lead to a resurgence driven by adaptation.
Ric Flair bumped unlike anybody else because he permanently damaged his back in a plane crash. He took the brunt of the blow on his side. But he was still exceptional at it, and every last one of his incredible peak years, in which he worked circles around everybody, unfolded after he walked away from the wreckage.
Steve Austin broke his neck in 1997 and became the hottest act of 1998. He couldn't bump as well or as frequently as he had as Stunning Steve Austin, but he didn't need to - he was the top guy - and he adopted a chaotic, fiery brawling style lapped up by a public who adored Austin for his complete lack of affectation.
Hiroshi Tanahashi has one functional bicep, or at least it appears that way. Much like Shawn Michaels, he has leaned on his injuries to inform the pathos of the big sell.
Sometimes, a wrestler is too far gone - or too drunk on hubris - to adapt...
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.