30 Surprising WWE Facts You Probably Didn't Know
7. Steve Austin's Karmic SummerSlam 1997 Injury
‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin's career-shortening neck injury, as everybody knows, came after a botched piledriver reversal at the hands of Owen Hart at SummerSlam on August 3rd 1997.
Contrary to reports and to nearly twenty years of misunderstanding, Austin didn’t break his neck in the incident - but adapting to the fallout from that injury forced a change from his more technical wrestling form to the brawling style that he became best known for.
Another thing that not many are aware of is that the botch mirrored an eerily similar screwed-up sequence in a match in Japan five years or so earlier.
In that incident, Masahiro Chono had his neck seriously injured after a botched piledriver reversal. Adapting to the fallout from that injury forced a change from his more technical wrestling form to the brawling style that he became best known for.
His opponent? Steve Austin.