10 Ways Wrestlers Faces Were Altered Forever Because Of Wrestling
This article title may spawn many Rey Mysterio eye jokes.
Pro wrestling is tough on a performer’s body.
For as safe as they athletically try to be to protect themselves and their opponents in the ring injuries are rampant in the industry and are inevitable to occur on occasions, even for the safest of long-time performers like Chris Jericho, Bret Hart, and Randy Orton who spent their careers taking pride in making their wrestling look as real as possible without hurting their opponents.
Injuries range from nasty bruises to gruesome damage to the body, like Joey Mercury’s nose exploding at Armageddon (2006) after Jeff Hardy seesaw-ed a ladder into his face or Sid Vicious suffering a horrendous near career-ending leg fracture at the WCW Sin PPV or Goldberg concussing and mule kicking Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart’s career away at Starrcade (1999)
WWE and other major promotions have done their best in the 21st century to protect their performers more by banning chair shots to the head and certain moves like piledrivers and buckle bombs. They’re doing all they can to prevent facial injuries like Daniel Bryan detaching his retina or Cesaro‘s two front teeth being shoved five millimeters into his gums or Seth Rollins’ knee frightfully breaking John Cena’s nose.
Injuries to the face sometimes have forever painful consequences for wrestlers. Here we’ll look to 10 times performers had their faces permanently altered from wrestling...
10. Cody Rhodes’s Ghastly Scar
At AEW's Full Gear pay-per-view Cody Rhodes took on Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship. Sadly Rhodes didn’t come away with the belt but did come away with an injury that scarred his face for life.
It happened when Rhodes chucked Jericho over the top rope and ran at him to hit a suicide dive. Rhodes missed (as planned), but the metal platform ramp connected with his face. Rhodes’s head poured blood through the rest of the match.
Good thing it took place in AEW for fans as if it were WWE in their PG era the match would have been stopped for a significant amount of time to cover the blood spewing from Rhodes. You looked at a bloody Cody living in the moment in the match and could only think his Dad Dusty would have been so proud.
The next day AEW posted online an update of Rhodes and his injury, including a gruesome picture. It confirmed Cody suffered a costochondral (rib) separation and had to get 8 stitches to cover the wound on his face, with him not being cleared for action for a short period of time afterwards.
People have joked online how the scar leftover has left him with a permanent People's Eyebrow.