10 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Buff Bagwell
6. The Real Story Behind WCW Paralysis
22 April 1998 was a pivotal moment in Buff's life. He was taping a bout on WCW Thunder when disaster struck; Bagwell teamed with Scott Norton vs. Lex Luger and Rick Steiner. During a seemingly routine bulldog spot, he took a painful bump and there were fears for the man's life.
It didn't look good, but VICE added context.
Most reports since have discussed Buff being paralysed by the incident, but that's not the whole story. It turns out that temporary paralysis was a reaction to his severely bruised spinal cord. The swelling around the cord fools your body into thinking you're paralysed, which is crazy.
That paralysis effect goes away as soon as the swelling eases, so docs focused on that. Again, that's insane to learn about all these years later. Technically, Buff did suffer some paralysis, but it was his own body responding to the trauma rather than paralysis because of the actual injury.
The more you know, eh?