8 Most Ridiculous Wrestler Injuries To Occur Outside The Ring
2. The Fake Foot
Kerry Von Erich, second generation wrestling star and scion of the legendary Von Erich family, had a secret. One that, kayfabe being what it was, he barely ever let a living soul know about: from 1986 onwards, he only had one foot.
In June 1986, Kerry Von Erich was involved in an awful motorcycle accident, and nearly died. Dislocating his hip, he also seriously injured his right leg, and continued to have problems with his foot even after surgery. Scuttlebutt (like gossip with a drug problem) says that he attempted to rehabilitate the injury too soon after surgery and simply reinjured it. Whatever the case, doctors eventually had no choice but to amputate it.
Like Ed Leslie, Ric Flair, Eddie Guerrero and others before him, Kerry Von Erich was a pro wrestler, which means he’d been training from day one in continuing to work through pain and discomfort. The constant fear when coming up is that if you can’t work, you lose your spot. Having lost a foot, he simply wore a prosthetic foot to the ring: he even showered afterward wearing his boots. Pretty much none of the boys even knew that his original accident had been that serious.
Although his painkiller addiction would cause serious issues in his life for years afterwards and help contribute towards his tragic death, the image of Kerry Von Erich wrestling with one foot without anyone suspecting – working the world – is a glorious one.