10 Wrestling Stunts Which Nearly Went Very Wrong

Even the tragic, senseless death of Owen Hart, following a fall from the rafters of Kansas City's Kemper Arena in 1999, wasn't quite enough to dissuade the wrestling industry of its penchant for placing performers in unnecessary stunts. But for a last second intervention, the same dreadful fate could have befell WCW icon Sting over two years prior - and yet, lessons were not learned.

At the outset of the 20 January 1997 edition of Monday Nitro, a rampaging Randy Savage cleared the ring to announce his return to a company increasingly tainted by the nWo. As a flustered Jacques Rougeau remonstrated, down swooped WCW's resident inquirer Sting, as if from nowhere.

In reality, the painted vigilante had rappelled some 140 feet from the ceiling of Chicago's United Center. But for a bit of undignified twirling, the stunt came off entirely without hitch - though Sting's sigh of relief upon landing two feet firmly on the ground belied his cool exterior. It had nearly went so very wrong.

As Steve Borden explained in a 2004 shoot interview, as he stepped over the edge of his perch, the stunt coordinators realised he'd been harnessed backwards. "I’m telling you, if I’d stepped over and done it," recalled Sting, "the same thing that happened to Owen would have happened to me."

Nevertheless, despite the close call - and more gravely, Hart's passing two years on - WCW and Sting continued to run similar stunts. Eric Bischoff, speaking on his podcast in 2017, told how there was "a pretty intense debate about that," but "ultimately we decided we knew what we were doing." Thankfully, there have been no repeats of Owen's tragedy since, but even a 0.01% risk is not worth taking.