New Rings = Broken Necks?
Written: Some time in November of 2001.
iReason for this Writing:i
I do not remember exactly when I wrote this article, but I believe it was around November 2001, shortly after Rhyno became the latest superstar in a short time-frame to suffer a neck injury. This was simply me “thinking out loud” about what could be causing the “broken neck epidemic” of the time.
Article
Mick Foley once said that, shortly after his HIAC match with Taker (King of the Ring 1998), Vince replaced the old, worn-out, stiff-as-hell wrestling rings that they had been using for years with newer, “bouncier” rings. The springs in the old rings were totally worn-out, causing the ring to have very little give when landed on. Foley even drew attention to the fact that, prior to his HIAC match, the rings barely moved when someone landed, whereas afterwards, they very visibly “bounced” after a landing.
Now, while the more hectic travel-schedule, more “intense” in-ring style, and the roughly seven-billion German-suplexes we’ve seen over the past few years all no doubt have contributed to the many spinal-injuries WWF wrestlers have suffered in the last few years, I have a feeling that the new rings themselves might also be a major factor.
Since the rings now have much more give, is it possible that the wrestlers’ heads and necks are bouncing around too much when they land? Are the wrestlers having to tense their necks harder now to keep their heads from bouncing than when they were using stiffer rings? I can’t exactly claim to have studied the physics involved, but it seems safe to say that, since the rings now react differently to the wrestlers, the wrestlers also now have to react differently to the rings.
Remember, this sudden “outbreak” started roughly a year after they replaced the rings (mid- to late-1998), with Austin in November 1999, and, while there’s little doubt that the “stinger” Austin received against Owen played a major part in his neck-problems, the sheer amount of wrestlers having neck-surgery now can’t be denied. Guys like Bret, Shawn, Owen, Steamboat, and countless other guys who wrestled similar styles to those that are now getting injured never had problems like this (keep in mind that Shawn’s and Steamboat’s problems are due to a single wrong move, and not the result of “wearing down” over time), and, on top of that, no other fed has experienced anything like this. Just look at guys like Rhyno and Benoit, who have tons of experience in other feds; they wrestled for YEARS without problem, but soon after entering the WWF, they’re on the side-lines.
I could be totally wrong about all of this, but I think it’s something worth exploring.
2009 Edit:
WWE superstars who have suffered “over time” neck injuries since 1998:
- Steve Austin
- Chris Benoit
- Edge
- Rhyno
- Scotty 2 Hotty
- Kevin Nash
- Test
- Gregory Helms
- Val Venis
- Jesus Aguilera
- Kurt Angle (Pre-Existing, but Repetitive)
John Cena
