The Wounded

May 16, 2004 -- As Eddie Guerrero wanders unknowingly towards the side of the announcer's table, John Bradshaw Layfield turns suddenly, steel chair in hand, and blasts Eddie with sickening force, right on the top of his head. The sickening sound of steel on bone resonates through the arena, as Guerrero crumples to the ground.

Moments later we are greeted with a horrific sight: As Eddie sits upright, his back against the fan barricade, blood cascades out of a gash in his forehead, covering his face and chest in mere seconds. The bleeding is profuse and uncontrollable. What would normally be considered a medical emergency goes untreated for 15 minutes, and Guerrero loses a drastic amount of blood as he finishes the match.

January 7, 2007 -- Triple H aggressively lifts Randy Orton to deliver his signature Spinebuster. At the point of impact, however, something is clearly wrong as Triple H clutches his right thigh, in agony. When his knee impacted the mat, the force tore his right quadriceps muscle (the largest muscle in the human body) right off the bone.

Triple H knew he was severely hurt, and communicated it to the three other men in the ring with him, as well as the referee, yet received no immediate medical attention, wrestled for over 10 more minutes with only one good leg, and finished the match. He would later undergo major surgery to repair the damage, and be sidelined for over eight months.

These are just two of countless other examples of WWE Superstars working through injury, something that is hard for a lot of people to understand. It seems odd to wrestle through a ruptured muscle, or a broken bone, or a severely lacerated head-wound, but it happens more often than you might think. Their is a sacred phrase in the Pro Wrestling universe, and that is simply "The show must go on." and anyone who chooses to lace up a pair of boots, needs to quickly learn to adopt this philosophy.

Half of it is passion. The undying drive to put on a good show for the fans, no matter what happens. The cameras are on, the lights are shining bright, and the fans are chanting your name. It would be hard for anyone to just pack it in, in spite of an injury.

The other half is kayfabe. From the moment the WWE logo appears on your TV screen, to the moment it's made its departure, the talent is living and breathing in kayfabe. Someone gets hurt during a match? Good, that's probably what their opponent said he was going to do to him. There are no breaks to get a doctor out to the ring and take a look at him, that is directly breaking kayfabe, and breaking kayfabe when the cameras are on is a gigantic no-no.

As a bit of an aside, breaking kayfabe in Pro Wrestling, would be like Rachel calling Ross "David" on Friends, and having it air.

Though some people may call it sheer stupidity and moronically reckless, there is a lot to be said for the dedication wrestlers have to their profession and their fans. To them, the show is #1 and everything else comes second. We should all be so lucky to find something that we're equally passionate about.

As of late, WWE has taken a much more family-friendly approach to their programming (something I will surely blog about later) and there are much fewer incidents like the ones I mentioned above, due to new "rules" being put into effect such as no more chair shots to the head, which can be partly credited to the discovery of extensive brain damage on Chris Benoit's brain (another topic I will cover here eventually.)

For those of you who stuck around to the end, you are rewarded (or possibly punished) with video footage of the two incidents mentioned at the top of the blog! Please be warned, things cannot be "unseen" in life, and if you are at all squeamish at the sight of blood, do NOT watch the Eddie Guerrero clip. I realize that now it is like a car crash, and you simply must look, but please be warned that it is extremely graphic not to mention mind-boggling that someone could lose so much blood and live to talk about it. The Triple H clip is harmless, though very interesting.

So whether you like Pro Wrestling, you hate it, or you just don't care, all I'm trying to do is help these guys earn a little more respect for what they do, and hey, maybe next time you hear someone talking about "all that ketchup on his face" you can say "Hey man! That shit's real!" Eddie Guerrero would appreciate it!

Eddie Guerrero at Judgment Day '04

Triple H at New Years Revolution '07

NOTE: Just as an interesting but related side-note, Chris Jericho actually attributes the fact that he's never sustained an in-ring injury, to being raised in Winnipeg. He says the cold makes us "Vikings", and you are welcome to take that however you please ;-)