The Merits of Danger in Professional Wrestling
The first essay in two months, all about how violence is good?
CW/ blood, extreme descriptions of violence
Something that has always drawn me to professional wrestling is the capacity for things to go wrong, for the planned violence to pivot into something else, something that removes the artifice and embeds a real sense of danger and horror into a match. Wrestling is always dangerous but when you see so much of it, you have a tendency to forget about how close every performer comes to severe damage, one botched spot could lead to a major injury or death. So many of my favourite matches are about what happens when real danger becomes a part of the fictional story, where a babyface’s drive is amplified because the performer themselves is fighting through real agony. It can often be difficult to accept the merits of wrestling as a dangerous artform, since we are still learning about the implications of these rough matches, brutal stunts and reckless disregard of health and wellbeing. So many former wrestlers struggle to walk, struggle to think and have various degrees of mental and physical issues following their careers as athletes. Measures such as banning unprotected chair shots to the head in many companies or attempting to work a safer style of wrestling are good things for the long term health of the professionals, there will never be an argument from me against things that help protect the talent. Likewise, so many spots that will be depicted over the course of this essay should never have happened, and in several cases, the lives of the wrestlers themselves would have been better off if these mistakes, botches and moments of extreme violence never happened. If we could take them away and restore their long term health, then we would and should.
But that being said, the knowledge of their damage doesn’t remove the masterful moments that have been caused. It doesn’t detract from the additional merits of storytelling that can come from a major botch, an untimely injury or bloody spectacle gone wrong. Wrestling is live art, built on collaboration and violence, it is dangerous all the time and sometimes, that danger manifests in a way where the suspension of disbelief disintegrates for an entire audience, where reality bleeds onto the canvas and the stakes become more than just caring about booking. At a time where wrestling is either becoming further scrutinised for the carny violent impulses that made it a success, or leaning into them in absurd ways that hold no storytelling merit or true audacious spectacle, it feels important to make my case for wrestling’s danger, even when it’s horrifying, bleak and unsafe. Many readers might not find this style of wrestling entertaining, they might react with horror upon seeing some of the violent images or learning about the context of mutilated brains and bodies, and that’s okay. But for me, wrestling is an artform that’s built upon blood, sweat, tears and agonising pain and it’ll never be more conflicting, more primal or more effective than when that pain is unmistakably vivid. I hope I can make my case for some of these matches’ mastery, not in spite of their brutality, but because of it.
One of the most infamous examples of wrestling going wrong is Shane McMahon’s botched suplexes through glass against Kurt Angle at King of the Ring 2001. In the middle of their bloody street fight, the younger McMahon was supposed to be thrown through several panes of sugar glass, creating that satisfying smash and explosion of shards as he flies towards the ground. It was supposed to be an entertaining spot to help transition into the match’s third act, where a dazed and beaten Shane fights off of animalistic instinct but can’t survive the remainder of Angle’s offence. It should have been a memorable spot, played on highlight reels for decades, a fun example of how carefree and chaotic Attitude Era hardcore matches could be. Instead, someone in production made an error, leading to the wrong type of glass being used, meaning that Shane didn’t go through the first pane of glass when Angle threw him. His head bounces off of the solid glass and slips down onto the concrete, smashing his skull against the gravel as his body goes numb. At that point, there is a gasp in the crowd, a collective understanding that something has gone wrong. The illusion and immersion shatters for a second as concern overwhelms the raucous Attitude Era crowds. It is a sickening moment, one that clearly no one knew how to react to, and that was amplified by the confusion on Angle’s face as he stares down at the clearly dazed Shane. But they don’t stop. The plan is for Shane to go through that pane of glass, that’s what it’s there for. The match has to continue, Shane won’t let the referee or Angle stop the match from going on the way it’s supposed to. So Angle picks him up again and successfully suplexes Shane through the glass, with the cathartic smash feeling like a sign of collective relief to the audience. (Wrestling is the only artform where someone going head first through glass is an undeniably positive thing.)
But, there’s another pane. Shane is concussed but insists that Angle throws him through the second one, you can even see his insistence on the footage if you pay close enough attention. No one is going to stop the match aside from Shane’s father, the owner of the company Vince McMahon, and he’s currently torn between keeping the show going or calling the match off to protect his son. Shane is refusing to change plans, even with the acknowledgement of the ludicrous danger and further damage to the head. So Angle suplexes him once again, onto the second pane of glass and once again, Shane doesn’t go through it on the first attempt. The tragedy of this spot is that he fails the second time as well, with Shane’s head gliding down a solid structure for the third time within a couple of minutes. Angle then refuses to try a standard German suplex again and uses his power to throw Shane through the second pane with an overhead Belly to Belly suplex, primarily putting the damage onto Shane’s shoulders instead of his neck and head. At this point, in any other industry, medical personnel would have rushed to his aid, he is clearly not fit to be out there, he is struggling to move, his eyes are completely dazed to an unhealthy degree and there are shards of glass embedded in his upper body. He is not fit to continue, he shouldn’t have continued. But this is professional wrestling, an industry built upon the backs of insane people with high tolerances for pain and a necessity to finish what they’ve started. The match will continue, even with one man overwhelmed by physical trauma and the other clearly shaken by the guilt of inflicting it.
Angle drags Shane’s lifeless body down the ramp and into the ring, but the match doesn’t end with a quick pinfall which people would have understood, maybe even appreciated. It keeps going and the fact that it does, that the planned Shane comeback does briefly happen even with his physical woes, creates this intangible feeling of connection between Shane and the audience. The structure of the match has went from being an analytical decision to establish sympathy for Shane McMahon as a protagonist, into being an animalistic connection between performer and viewer. It’s no longer the character that is fighting to overcome traumatic pain but the man himself, a man who can barely see straight, who has taken physical punishment that should have landed him in the hospital, a man who refuses to stop until he cannot move a muscle. It is unity through pain, a desperation to watch the hero overcome agony that seems impossible to cope with.
Wrestling to me means something so special because I found it when I was in the most physical pain of my life, pain that I hope to never have to experience on that scale again. I connected with the babyfaces such as Sami Zayn, Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan and Ricky Steamboat because I believed in their suffering, the mental anguish of losing and the physical anguish of a job built upon punishment. They made me feel less alone in hurting and whether or not they won or lost, they always got back up and tried to fight again, even if it hurt to breathe. That connection to professional wrestling as a conduit to explore the fight against pain itself is only amplified when the boundaries of performance art shatter. Seeing Shane refuse to give up is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, it creates a desperation for him to win, even twenty years later when the result is defined and inevitable. He just needs to do it, because he’s gone through so much to keep trying. You can create that connection to a character to ensure that desperation through years of booking, whether it’s Kofi Kingston, Tetsuya Naito, Becky Lynch or Daniel Bryan, but to do it through one match is something else entirely, something that can only be accomplished by the masters and by the maniacs. Shane McMahon lost that match and he probably lost something major in his own mind after taking those bumps, but that moment of babyface survival will live on forever. For that one night, he will always be the bravest hero in the world.
The art of a concussion in professional wrestling is not just extended to triumphant displays of fighting against pain, but can help amplify the tragedy of an already bleak narrative, creating something that truly has the resonance of a bleak late Western. The perfect example of a match being amplified in its melancholy and devastation through damage to the head is the end of The Undertaker’s streak against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania XXX, where Taker suffered a concussion early on and was unable to remember anything that happened in his last match as an undefeated WrestleMania superstar. The outcome was predetermined, the reality was set before The Undertaker walked out, a legacy of 21 victories and 0 defeats at the biggest wrestling show in the world would be over, something that many thought would never end. After years of defying those who tried to end his streak with athletic, narratively ambitious workrate classics with CM Punk, Triple H, Edge and especially Shawn Michaels, the streak ended in a feud with little build, in a way that seemed completely disappointing, unremarkable and downright offensive to many fans. If it had to end, why did it have to end like that?
While it would be easy to debate the merits and drawbacks of having Lesnar be the one to do it, the match is unmistakably a unique specimen within the WWE climate, because it is agonisingly sad for the majority of the runtime. Undertaker’s matches following this one would lean further into the struggles and botches shown here in a way that’s depressing in a completely different manner, but here he struggles like an old cowboy who can’t survive this latest showdown. With hindsight, it is clear from a certain point that the character and the man himself can’t take much more offence, he’s just not in the right space anymore and Lesnar’s too dangerous of an opponent to be able to defeat with good luck. He struggles with Tombstone counters, is sluggish while walking around and is especially worn out by the finish. Seeing this larger than life, fantastical character struggle to stand up without tipping over is the wrestling equivalent of seeing your parents cry for the first time, the intense realisation that they’re just human like everyone else consumes everything, and that illusion of them as gods never truly returns afterwards. It goes on for a while and the action is never exhilarating enough to cover up the knowledge that The Undertaker is not okay, and by the time the finish comes close, the ache of sadness that’s found in his eyes overwhelms to a breaking point. No one can live forever, nothing can last forever. Everything fades, everything dies, sometimes it is a beautiful crescendo and sometimes, it’s a sudden thud of agonising brutality. With this match, it wasn’t just the streak that died, but the Undertaker’s career. He’d spend the rest of his active career trying to make up for the lost memories of this match, trying to recreate the goodbye that he was robbed of, and he’d look worse and worse every time until his retirement match happened in front of no one.
As the bell rings after the three count, with the 21-1 looming over the stadium and the faces of fans paralysed by shock, we see the eyes of the Undertaker as he tries to process the end. There’s nothing there, just a ghost where a man used to be. It would have been powerful but anti-climatic if the streak had ended after a normal competitive match without the stakes required of that result, with the concussion, it is so much sadder but also feels like the only way that it ever could have ended. If it could have been taken away, it should have been, but we don’t live in a world where the past can change, where we can make things better by wishing for the ideal reality. All we have is this, the match as it exists, the outcome and consequences that comes from the most shocking wrestling match of all time. Maybe the fact that Taker can barely stand and needed to go to hospital afterwards takes away from the poignancy of the moment for some. But for me, it reminds me that no old cowboy gets to go down in a blaze of glory.
Thankfully, there are other instances of matches that are violent to a more considerable degree without a concussion being involved. Unfortunately for the squeamish, this one is not going to be more fun to watch or talk about. Eddie Guerrero is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, a wrestler who had unmatched charisma and technical acumen, someone who could play a lovable babyface or a despicable heel better than just about anyone else, and who could deliver a masterpiece with pretty much any opponent if given the time. His run in 2004 is an all timer, the last full year of his career before his tragic passing in 2005, and it was arguably the greatest 12 months of his time as a wrestler. He put on one of the greatest underdog stories in wrestling history against Brock Lesnar, where he won his only world championship at the end of a truly transcendent display and jumped into the crowd with delight. He worked a technical classic with Kurt Angle at WrestleMania with an inventive finish that represented everything that people loved about him as a worker and as a character. But somehow, most importantly, he wrestled JBL.
JBL, formerly known as a midcard tag team wrestler called Bradshaw, had just morphed into an arrogant rich racist who disrespected Eddie for his culture, made some truly outdated segments where he simulated hunting immigrants at the Mexican border, and in one of the most insane plot points in WWE history, he gave Eddie’s mother a (scripted) heart attack at a house show leading up to their title match. JBL was a solid worker who has been underrated by time, but he’d have never felt even close to as major as he turned out to be without this first match with Eddie at Judgment Day 2004. The two fought with some intensity but didn’t quite click into full gear immediately, they paced themselves while maintaining their hatred, and it would have likely turned into an extremely solid championship match if it kept a steady momentum. But it is one of the greatest matches in the company’s history, something that no one could have expected, and that sudden shift all stems from one of the most infamous botches in wrestling history.
Following a chair shot to the head from JBL, Eddie does a blade job, the act of cutting yourself intentionally to draw blood in the forehead. Before it was banned by WWE in 2008, the art of blading was extremely common for wrestlers in the main event, something to add some drama to a heated feud. In this match however, Eddie mistimes his slice and lacerates his skin way too deep, essentially creating a hole at the top of his head. As soon as the camera captures his face, it is clear there is something wrong, that the violence has gone too far. Dark red blood gushes out of his temples, with pulsating squirts practically shooting out of the hole in his skull. His eyes are completely covered with crimson, the concrete has pools of the stuff forming underneath his head. It is disgusting to look at and it caused further distribution of the PPV to require an Adults Only certification, since the blood flow was deemed unsuitable for a TV-14 audience. Instead of stopping the match or doing something to stop the blood from flowing, JBL decided to lean into the relentless waves of claret and continued his assault on a practically immobile Guerrero. When both men are back inside the ring, the white canvas quickly gets stained by the blood before JBL pulls one of the most ingenious heel manoeuvres I’ve ever seen.
Guerrero is completely inactive, practically unresponsive and JBL applies a sleeper hold which is a blood choke. It cuts off the carotid artery and deprives the brain of additional oxygen, but most importantly for this match, it causes blood in the head to rise. When there is an open wound on the person caught in the sleeper, it means that very bad things happen. Even though Eddie’s face is already completely coated in a crimson mask, you can see even more blood squirt out of the hole and create a fresh coat of bloody paint over his stained skin. JBL’s wrists and arms get covered with additional drops and Eddie’s face gets darker and darker as the hold’s grip intensifies. It seems unbelievable that he can survive taking the move but he does. He manages to survive the sleeper and then begins to counter JBL’s offence, mounting a comeback that seems like it shouldn’t be possible. The crowd reacts incredulously at every move of Eddie’s, as they’ve seen what he’s been through, they know he shouldn’t be able to stand up after losing so much blood.
After he gets backstage following the match, he passes out from shock due to blood loss, but for now, he’s the fucking best in the world and he will not stop until JBL is beaten and bloody just like he is. It is one of the most disgusting incidents I’ve ever seen and yet, it sums up just how charismatic and essential Eddie Guerrero was as a performer perfectly. He could be the most charming and likeable character in the world while he was leaking half of his own blood onto the floor, and there’s pretty much no one else who could ever stay the same. The man continues living up to his gimmick and sends the crowd home happy, even though he’s moments away from completely losing consciousness. The fact that the match has a DQ finish at the end doesn’t take away from how monumental the journey was, and lets Eddie embrace the fun side of a botched blade job before the collapse kicks in. It is maybe the best argument both for and against blading, as it is undeniably barbaric and showcases the danger of the practice unlike any other incident, but it’s impossible to deny just how powerfully it cements Eddie as a hero and JBL as a villain. If you’ve never understood pro wrestling dynamics in action before, in some ways, this is the match that most understands the power of a good face/heel pairing, and it only took a man almost dying from blood loss to pull off. Besides, it’s just the coolest thing in the world to see that blood on Eddie’s face, knowing that nothing could stop him from being the greatest. Nothing ever would.
There are countless examples of spots going wrong, blood going too hard, danger infiltrating a wrestling match to the extent where it fundamentally shifts into something else, to the extent that this essay could be even longer than it already is. The Rock vs Mankind from the 1999 Royal Rumble is different. Out of everything I’ve ever seen in wrestling, I think this is the cruellest, most repugnant and horrifying match out there, not because it’s the most graphic (by no means) or because it caused the most damage, but because it is fundamentally built upon the destruction of Mick Foley in the most terrifying and traumatic way. It is also one of the greatest works of art that the wrestling industry has ever accomplished, not just in spite of the damage suffered by Mick, but directly because of it. It is one of those matches that is absolutely defined by the terrible, reckless and downright evil decision making by the agents, producers and The Rock himself, one that could have resulted in a lawsuit in any other industry but is just par for the course in professional wrestling. Mick Foley is not a man who has suffered lightly. If wrestlers are defined by their capacity to take pain, Mick is the greatest who has ever lived. The man has been sent through burning tables, taken barbed wire to the face more times than most of us have blinked, fallen off of and through the Hell in a Cell cage, sent face first into hundreds of thumbtacks and has had to rip off half of his own ear with just his hands to stop himself from suffocating to death. He is the walking apocalypse of his own destiny, a man who had one mission, to destroy himself irreparably for the sake of entertainment. The Rock should not have been his most violent opponent, the former Rocky Malvia and future biggest star in the world is not known in hindsight for his rabid edge, but he was a mean motherfucker in the late 90s. In particular, in the era where every worker had a reckless disregard for CTE and a penchant for weaponry, The Rock was the master of the chair shot. He wasn’t the strongest worker but no one hit someone in the dome with a steel chair like The Rock, he swung like it was the World Series, smashing his opponents’ brains with no sympathy or regard for their health. He once murked Ken Shamrock, a legitimate tough guy, with a chair shot so brutal that he got eviscerated for it backstage. While he’s softened over time, no one should ever forget that the initial reason why The Rock became the biggest star in the world is not just because of his charisma, but because he has the power to hurt you, to hurt anyone that crosses his path. He never hurt anyone more than Mick Foley.
This is the only match on this list where the inciting incident of danger happens right as the finish approaches. There is no second half shift following the big moment of chaos, no massive comeback, just unflattering and heartbreaking suffering. The majority of the match is an extremely fun hardcore brawl, similar to Angle and Shane in a way, as they fight across the arena, do some fun weapons spots and eventually, cause a mini explosion in a spot that could have easily ended the night for either man. It was a very fun WWF Championship match that continued their rivalry well, an undeniable source of entertainment for most fans in attendance that evening. It could have ended and been remembered fondly as a great title match from the Royal Rumble PPV, gone down in history as a nostalgic gem for millions of people. It continued though and that lead to one of the most controversial spots in history. Chair shots to the head have been banned by WWE because of reports that they damage the brain to a considerable extent, potentially leading to CTE or other forms of brain trauma. This policy was enacted soon after the Chris Benoit murder/suicide, where it was reported that his brain had significantly degenerated due to an array of concussions and untreated head injuries. Obviously, this knowledge wasn’t widely known in 1999, but the impact, pain and damage of a severe unprotected chair shot was.
As the match approached its climax, The Rock handcuffed Mankind’s hands behind his back, ensuring that he couldn’t protect himself. He grabbed a chair and hit him over the head with a sickening thud. Mankind doesn’t go down so The Rock hits him again, harder than before and you can feel the audience wince upon the impact. He hits him again and again and again until Mick is wandering around the ring with no semblance of where he is. As he moves, The Rock hits him again over the head, directing him up the ramp for where the finish is going to be and hitting him repeatedly as he stumbles. By the time the final bell is rung, Mick took 11 unprotected chair shots to the head from the man who could wreck someone’s night with a single one. His family was in the front row and had to leave ringside because they were traumatised by what they saw, by how far The Rock took it. Mick’s daughter was in hysterics over the sequence and Mick himself didn’t forgive The Rock for a long time for the intensity he delivered those shots. It is disgusting to witness, the sound of that chair colliding with bone is haunting considering what we know about concussions now. It is a miracle that he’s as healthy as he is now, it could have been so much worse if luck wasn’t on his side.
Yet, as much as it makes me sound like an asshole, there has never been a moment where desperation for the pain to end has felt more real or poignant in pro wrestling. The way Mick stumbles around is heartbreaking but how he refuses to stay down is extraordinary. It is reminiscent of Eddie, of Shane, of all the others who’ve experienced this type of match structure, but there is no release. He suffers and he keeps getting up, but it doesn’t matter. There is no victory in his future, just unconsciousness and a series of emotional and physical traumas to reckon with. It is impossible not to react when you hear the cries from his voice as he refuses to quit, the way his throat quivers when he screeches “No” and the way he almost runs away from the brutality of The Rock by the end of the onslaught. There is not a single second of hope to be found amongst this violence. It is heartbreaking in every conceivable way and for a moment, wrestling is real. All illusion shatters and you are left with broken dreams, burst blood vessels and bruises everywhere across the body. There has never been a moment to shatter the element of artifice, because there is none left after those chair shots. It is a masterpiece, one of my picks for the 20 greatest matches of all time, the greatest work of horror ever seen inside of the squared circle, and it’s utterly grotesque. That’s the struggle of loving professional wrestling, your morals get in the way.
In the final match of his career, my pick for the greatest match of all time, “The Wrestler” Katsuyori Shibata ended his entire run as an active competitor with one single move. A headbutt, similar to hundreds he’d delivered before, but one with the force that provoked a subdural hematoma, something that paralysed one side of his body and almost killed him. That was four years ago and he hasn’t stepped back into the ring as an active competitor and it’s possible that he never will. Yet, in that swansong match against Kazuchika Okada, he gave absolutely everything to that performance. He showcased every single aspect that made him such an essential and beloved talent across his career, composing an utter masterpiece that is only made better by the fact that he gave everything his body had left to complete it. By the finishing stretch, Shibata does the headbutt, hitting it sickeningly hard towards his younger opponent and for a while, he just stands there. The camera zooms in on his face as blood starts to trickle down his forehead, dripping down his face as he realises the weight of the move. A few minutes later, he would lose and he’d never wrestle again. But that shot of the blood coming down his forehead, especially given the weight of his retirement shortly after, is a moment that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world. Not in wrestling, or in movies, or in other sports. It is the type of moment that sacrifices an entire career, one that has the weight of 20 years thrown into it, one that will live on forever as the greatest encapsulation of wrestling’s conflicts ever conceived. This is an industry where the purest form of beauty comes from someone losing their career, where one perfect moment can lead to a lifetime of health issues. Yet, sometimes, these moments of violence can lead to emotional celebrations like Shibata’s return to the ring where he declared “I am alive” to an audience of crying, grateful fans who thought they’d lost him. Does that make it worth it? There will never be a simple answer to the complications of the business, that’s why it’s so fascinating, so hard to reckon with. But I can’t imagine wishing that we’d said goodbye to Shibata another way, there’s never been a more perfect goodbye.
Wrestling is an industry where people break their bodies every night. A single bump could floor someone who isn’t prepared for it, everything in wrestling hurts. The business is built upon people who have decided to inflict suffering on themselves for an artform that is widely mocked and reviled by outsiders, and whose pain is occasionally undermined by those that watch their work on a regular basis. It is a business defined by danger. Looking back at these matches, we can see that times are changing in professional wrestling, for the good and the bad. We can see matches getting safer in a lot of ways, precautions being taken, locker room culture improving significantly from the days of Chris Benoit and Hardcore Holly, a general sense of stability and safety that is more prominent than ever before. In many ways, it’s a good thing that wrestling won’t always have to rely on people being concussed or violent spectacle that takes years off of a career. Maybe the world and the industry would be better if Mankind never fell through Hell in a Cell, Danielson didn’t get his retina detached by a Morishima forearm, or Misawa didn’t Tiger Suplex Kobashi off of the ramp onto the floor, even though they’re all moments that transcend the boundaries of the medium.
Maybe wrestling is losing its place for spots like Tetsuya Naito and Kota Ibushi doing suplexes on the apron, and that’ll be good for the workers and their health and maybe even the business itself. But if or when we lose that era, that specificity of embracing the things that go wrong, of leaning into the darkest side of pain and human suffering, it will be elegiac and tragic. We shouldn’t do things like Mankind vs The Rock again, but they should never be forgotten, never be dismissed for their ability to provoke emotion and anger out of an audience. The beauty of those impulse connections that chew up logic and leave nothing but pure emotion will be missed so much, it’s a feeling that feels so uncommon in contemporary wrestling already. The danger is the thrill, just like skydiving or jumping off of a cliff, it wouldn’t be so thrilling if there wasn’t the chance of it all going wrong. Maybe that’s just the carny way of looking at it, but it feels true to me. If it goes, we lose more than just some terrible instances of violence, but all the sacrifices and screams that have built what we have now. It all hurts in this industry. That’s why we love it. Hopefully, the future will ensure that the pain always means something.
The CTE issue is one being discussed more. CM Punk came to mixed martial arts and just got beat up. These guys don't remember where they left their keys at 40. Many have come from D1 or D2 and have legitimate skills but they do it all their lives. Chael Sonnen has been cutting weight since he was 11 years old... Rousey is a judo champion. Huge respect to these entertainers who do not get the respect they deserve for their hard earned skill... The steroid usage has played a dangerous part as well as brain/body trauma. It's a bizarre sport but we are still in that "JUST BLEED" era although I think theirs light at the end of that tunnel with that too.
I really can't stand Lesnar though, even with a boombox that guy is a horrible person from what I've seen lol.
This writing got me fired me over here bro!
This was absolutely epic. My favourite yet! Nice one... Proud of you brother xxx