10 Wrestlers Who Broke Their Neck For The Business
7. Stone Cold Steve Austin
1997 was a year full of industry-defining moments, but Stone Cold Steve Austin getting dropped on his head by Owen Hart at August's SummerSlam remains one of the most ghoulishly critical.
Proof when it wasn't needed that everything can change in a New Jersey minute, as well as a New York one, his forced removal from in-ring action in late-1997 inadvertently fostered the storyline that would return the company to box office supremacy in 1998. A physical feud with the Hart Foundation was transformed into a verbal one with company authority figures as 'The Rattlesnake' healed just enough to return to action at the tail end of the year in matches that protected Vince McMahon's golden goose enough to get him to the transcendent WrestleMania XIV and beyond.
Due to a variety of miscommunications before and after the battle, the relationship between Austin and Hart never recovered before the latter's untimely death in 1999. A conversation documented in Stone Cold's autobiography reflects the fragile trust that was ultimately severed by the botch. Austin asked Owen to go his knees on the spot, but didn't fight Owen - the veteran's - assertion that he was going "to his *ss".
Stone Cold really should have, too. He literally knew better...