10 WWE Careers That Ended Too Soon Due To Injury
Accidents can happen at any time, and careers can end without warning.
Night of Champion's main event saw Sting perform at a level fans haven't seen from him in years, and he more than managed to keep up with Seth Rollins blow-for-blow for the majority of the match. Unfortunately, following a buckle-bomb from the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Sting collapsed to the ground and although he finished the match, it's rumoured the fifty-six year old may be forced into retirement.
All it takes is just one match to end everything for a wrestler, and whether it's immediately, or several years down the line, their retirement can all be traced back to that fateful encounter. It can be something as spectacular as a dive from the top of a ladder, or something as mundane as falling the wrong way.
No wrestler can ever know if the match they're heading into is the last one they'll ever wrestle.
Whether it's legendary wrestlers finally pushing their body past its breaking point, or young upstarts cut down before they can make their mark on the business, the risk is the same for everyone that steps into the ring. Here are ten matches that in one way or another were a contributing factor to the end of wrestler's career.
10. Shawn Michaels
At the close of the 2000s, Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker had two matches that are considered by many to be two of the greatest WrestleMania matches of all time, but ten years earlier they had a match that for a while ended The Heartbreak Kid's career.
From 1997 into '98, The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had a rivalry that intensified following Bret Hart's dramatic departure at Survivor Series, and culminated in a casket match at Royal Rumble 1998.
During this match, Shawn Michaels took a back body drop over the top rope and landed awkwardly on the corner of the casket, which herniated two discs in his back and crushed a third. Michaels would make it a few more months to WrestleMania where he dropped the WWF Championship to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, ushering in the Austin era.
Shawn Michaels immediately disappeared from WWF television after WrestleMania, retiring from wrestling seemingly forever, as HBK continued to struggle with his personal demons. Unlike everyone else on this list, Michaels got a second lease on life four years later and returned to the ring without missing a step, staying an active wrestler for another eight years.