5. Stone Cold Steve Austin Shortens His Incredible Career
Steve Austin is no stranger to unfortunate injuries. Given that many of them occurred during a time when he was the hottest wrestler on the planet, picking just one is tricky. But for my money, the "winner" is the injury he sustained during his Intercontinental Championship match with Owen Hart at SummerSlam '97. As many of you probably know, this was the famous match where Owen executed a piledriver incorrectly and almost broke Austin's neck. Austin was able to win his match as planned after the world's most awkward roll-up, but the injury would keep him out of action for a few months. This is perhaps the most interesting injury on this list simply because in many ways it actually catapulted Steve Austin into the stratosphere. That may be true in retrospect, but the thing to remember is that Austin was likely going to be pushed to the moon regardless of whether he had to almost die to accomplish it. While his time spent cutting promos and Stunning everyone in the company (most famously Vince McMahon at Madison Square Garden) did his character some real good, unfortunately this injury would contribute to Steve Austin's diminishing in-ring style and drastically shortened his career. WWE may have called a successful audible on this one but things would have worked out better for Austin if they never had to.
