10 Wrestlers Who Couldn’t Legally Wrestle!

‘Ravishing’ Rick Rude badly injured his back in a match at NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 1994 wrestling Sting, landing horribly wrong when he took a suicide dive from his opponent on the outside of the ring.

Rude managed to finish the match, even picking up the win and regaining the WCW International World Championship. He would later vacate the title and retire, collecting in on his Lloyd’s of London insurance policy, making his match with Sting at Dontaku his last as an active competitor. Rude would still make appearances for WCW, ECW and the WWF after this though, dabbling in colour commentary and managerial roles, like being the ‘insurance policy’ for D-Generation X in their early days - an inside reference to Rude’s insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London.

Rude was advertised at ECW Heat Wave (1997) to tag with Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman against Jerry Lawler, Rob Van Dam and Sabu, but ECW got around Rude’s injury/policy by quickly turning the match into an angle where Rude turned his back on his team by attacking them and taking no bumps, all the while wearing a polo shirt and jeans.

Eric Bischoff on his 83 Weeks podcast has explained how the Lloyd’s of London policies worked, especially in relation to Rude:

"Lloyd’s of London used to write policies for professional wrestlers. And they were expensive policies. If you were to become disabled as a result of your work in the ring, you would get a sizeable payoff. In Rick’s case, I think it was a $350,000 or $450,000 payoff. Somewhere in that area. But once you took that check, you couldn’t wrestle again. Getting that check means that you were permanently disabled. You had to get a doctor to examine you and sign an affidavit saying that due to your injuries you were no longer able to perform in the ring, and that was the end of your career. That would trigger the payout from Lloyd’s of London. And that’s exactly what happened to Rick."