8 Most Ridiculous Wrestler Injuries To Occur Outside The Ring

Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake, known to his friends as Ed Leslie, was out parasailing with friends in Lutz, Florida in 1990, when something utterly stupid occurred. A parasailing friend began to lift out of the water and Leslie, believing himself to be out of harm’s way in the boat, turned to watch her go. He was not out of harm’s way. In point of fact, he was directly in harm’s way, wearing a t-shirt reading I SLEPT WITH HARM’S WIFE shortly after having spilled harm’s pint.

His friend’s knees collided directly with the unlicensed hairdresser’s face, shattering his jaw, his nose and several other bones in his face, and collapsing his palate.

Rushed to hospital, Leslie’s condition was critical: they would need to completely reconstruct his face to keep him alive. Surgeons restructured the bones in his face, inserting eight steel plates, forty screws and over a hundred staples. It took a long time for Leslie to recover, and doctors warned him that he would probably not be able to take part in any form of sport again, much less actually compete as a high level professional wrestler.

Because pro wrestlers are legitimately some of the hardest men on earth, Leslie was back in a WWF ring the following year, and competing again shortly after that: WWF officials were at first hesitant to allow him to perform again, but Leslie’s close friend Hulk Hogan stepped in for him: Leslie would wrestle under a hard protective mask at first, and eventually work without any protection at all.

It’s unlikely that Ed Leslie is anyone’s favourite wrestler, under any of his many rubbish gimmicks. However, the story of his ridiculous injury – having his face pulverised by the flailing knees of a flying woman – and subsequent recovery and comeback, certainly makes him one of the toughest, most impressive people we’ve ever heard of.