WWE Payback 2016: 10 Things You Might Have Missed

4. Learning The Ropes

Kevin owens
WWE Network

There's a reason why only experienced wrestlers and those who have been taught properly are supposed to touch the ropes in a wrestling ring - they can be very, very dangerous. Many companies use padded steel cables, while some (including WWE) use actual ropes, but both can be treacherous, sometimes even to experienced grapplers.

Enzo Amore was the first superstar to get hurt by the ropes, suffering a very scary injury that forced the PPV's opening bout to stop. He was thrown out of the ring, but he caught his head on the middle rope, then smacked it on the canvas. Enzo rolled out of the ring and wasn't moving, then had to be stretchered out. The news came later that he had suffered a bad concussion, which is certainly awful, but it could have been even worse - at the time, a broken neck didn't look out of the question.

Later in the show, Chris Jericho - who's been wrestling for 25 years - ran afoul of the ropes, though not nearly as badly. Jericho was wrestling Dean Ambrose and charged in at the ropes, but smacked his face on the top rope. He was bleeding soon afterwards, though that might have happened when he and Ambrose bumped heads on a tope.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013