Few wrestlers are as famous for taking damage as Mick Foley, and few individual injuries in the sport are as well-known as the time Foley lost his ear. While competing against Vader in Munich, Germany in 1993, Foley was tossed to the ropes, got his head tangled in them, and fell to the outside of the ring, suspended by his own head caught in said ropes. While Foley had done this spot many times before, on this night, the ropes - actually steel cables covered in rubber - were so tight that he was nearly choked out. Foley finally managed to pull himself free, but in doing so, a chunk of his ear was literally "pushed" off of his head. A heavily-bleeding Foley finished the match, of course, then went to the hospital for surgery (though due to the nature of the separation, doctors were unable to reattach the ear). Twenty-one years later, Foley is still missing a large chunk of his right ear, and - as he noted in a famous ECW promo - can't wear glasses.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
