10 Most Horrific Wrestling Injuries
Don’t try this at home.
When your life’s work involves taking flat back bumps on plywood night in and night out, injuries are bound to flare up at some point. Some are minor enough to be worked through, others not so much.
For these 10 wrestlers, injuries weren’t just a hindrance on their craft, they were life altering and in several cases, career ending. Despite enduring the absolute best training and strength and conditioning work, not even the best of the best are safe from one bad landing and its seemingly endless list of consequences.
From broken bones to brain damage to blindness and blood loss, wrestling may be a work but the pain is all too real. As dangerous and more wear and tear prone than any other athletic job out there, wrestling has left a highway of broken bodies for the sake of our entertainment.
A testament to the bravery of the men and women involved and to their skill that these tragedies don’t happen often, wrestling is not an art form for the fearful and the hesitant.
And remember... DON'T try this at home.
10. Allan Funk
Allan Funk was best known for his comedic midcard work in promotions such as WCW and TNA in the early noughties.
On September 27, 2003, Funk wrestled in Helsinki, Finland, teaming with Mike Sanders to take on Elix Skipper and Sonny Siaki. When Siaki went for a split legged moonsault on Funk, he botched the landing, resulting in his knee pulverising Funk’s face. The impact shattered Funk’s orbital bone, his jaw, his nose and left him deaf in his left ear.
Although his left ear has remained 100% deaf to this day, the rest of his injuries managed to make a full recovery after 4 extensive surgeries to repair the damage. After a 2 year hiatus, Funk successfully made his in ring return with an appearance at Vince Russo’s Ring of Glory promotion, playing a character known as Queen Herod because Vince Russo.
Funk has only wrestled sporadically in the years since. The 48-year-old’s last most notable appearance was for the MTV series, Lucha Libre USA: Masked Warriors which ended in October 2012.