8 Most Ridiculous Wrestler Injuries To Occur Outside The Ring

The Brawl For All tournament in WWF in summer 1998 was, notoriously, the stupidest idea that the company attempted during the Attitude Era: and that title’s got a lot of competition going for it.

A shoot fight amongst untrained performers used to a worked business, with a massive cash prize, vague and inconsistent rules, a complete inability for anyone to control the outcome and with the very real possibility of genuine injury for any and all people who chose to complete, the Brawl For All tournament limped across WWF programming for three months to crowd reactions ranging from supreme indifference to actual anger.

Steve Blackman, the ‘Lethal Weapon’ had a better chance of winning it than most. He had actual martial arts training, and was a genuine hard man, one of the toughest in the company. His first round match defeating Mark Mero set the tone for expectations, Blackman swiftly demolishing the man with takedown after takedown, like a machine. Everyone else involved knew that Blackman was the dark horse, primed and ready to take the lot of them. That is, until while training for the next round, Blackman put himself out of the race.

He’d been sparring and practicing takedowns during a perfectly routine training session, when his unnamed sparring partner sat on the side of his leg. This caused it to hit the floor at an angle, bending in just the way that knees aren’t supposed to bend and ripping cartilage. Steve Blackman, the tournament favourite, the ‘Lethal Weapon’, was punked out of the $100,000 prize money by a poorly timed rear end.