10 Wrestlers Who Escaped Certain Death
7. Mass Transit
The only person on this list to sadly pass away shortly after his near-miss, Eric Kulas' brief engagement with professional wrestling remains one of the darker chapters the industry's notoriously potted history.
Then just 17 but pretending to be 23, Kulas also lied to Paul Heyman about being a trained wrestler when the ECW boss was in desperate need of a replacement for Axl Rotten at a November 1996 Massachusetts house show.
Making what would prove to be one of his worst ever decisions, Heyman hurriedly gave Kulas the green light, and the newly-christened 'Mass Transit' would partner D-Von Dudley for a brutal brawl against The Gangstas.
After countless weapon shots to the head, New Jack intentionally cut Kulas with a surgical scalpel, following the youngster's pre-match request to bleed despite also never having bladed himself.
A court inquest would later reveal footage of Jack asking Kulas if he was 'alright?' but the in-character Gangsta didn't espouse such duty of care on the house mic. Grimly declaring 'I don't care if the motherf***er dies!' Jack continued the beating as Eric's father Stephen screamed about his true age and pleaded for the beatings to stop.
Grainy footage showed blood literally shooting upwards from Kulas' wound in an ugly visual that was naturally feasted upon by tape traders and early internet adopters alike. ECW's planned early-1997 pay-per-view was pole-axed, and the company was wrapped in lawsuits following the incident.
Experiencing weight problems for the remainder of his short life, Kulas died in 2002 due to complications from gastric bypass surgery. He very nearly perished in a far more public setting.