The big one... when Owen Hart accidentally broke Steve Austin's neck in 1997 it would go on to cost the WWF millions of dollars in lost potential. Austin ended up the biggest WWF star ever, but his career was cut short by at least half a decade due to the neck injury. He could have gone on to make a ton more money from 2002 until at least 2006, and even longer on a part time basis similar to The Undertaker. The severity of the broken neck just wasn't going to allow that - Austin wrestled his last match 11 years ago against The Rock at WrestleMania 19. The WWF's plans had to be changed in a big way. They first wrote Austin out of the script in late 1999 with the famous car hit and run angle. Austin spent the next year rehabbing from neck surgery, watching on from the sidelines as the WWF held WrestleMania 2000 without him. It was such a shame, the biggest star of the period was unable to work when the company hit its peak. He returned triumphantly with an epic main event performance against The Rock at WrestleMania 17, but by 2002 he was all but done. WWE lost the hottest name in the business to his physical limitations. The worrying thing about this list has been the amount of neck injuries which curtailed careers. In most cases, a short term fix didn't work. Let's hope Daniel Bryan really can escape with just minimally invasive surgery.
