6. Austin’s History With Broken Necks
If you’re a big time fan of Austin, you’re probably aware of the injury that he suffered at the hands of Owen Hart on August 3rd, 1997. At SummerSlam, Hart delivered a piledriver to Austin and the result left Austin with a broken neck.
The two both talked about the event, and Austin explained “As soon as my head hit that mat, I was thinking Christopher Reeve. Cause I thought I was never gonna walk again, ever. I couldn’t feel anything from my neck down…”
You can imagine this scared Owen, who explained his first thoughts after hearing Austin couldn’t move his fingers, “All of a sudden my first concern became ‘Is he paralyzed?’ That twenty seconds…it felt like forever. Slow motion, you know? What do you do? Do I look at the promoter and tell him this isn’t part of the match? There’s a point where you’ve gotta say, ‘What’s more important?’ – The guy’s health, or satisfying this crowd and the cameraman and everybody else…”
Austin eventually realized he could crawl on his forearms, and rolled Owen up for a weak pin that Hart said his two-year-old daughter could have done better; not as a knock on Austin, but a true sign of how damaged he was. Austin admitted “There was no way I was gonna lay there and let some ambulance or bunch of paramedics carry me out of that ring.”
The injury crippled the relationship between Austin and Owen, largely in part due to Owen’s attitude to Austin after the injury. Austin expressed his frustrations saying “Owen almost paralyzed me. He called me only once to apologize while I was in the hospital. If I almost break someone’s neck, I’m calling them 25 times to apologize…”
Austin also opened up about how he used to watch the video 20 to 30 times a day, and even now, still watches it once in a while to keep things in perspective.
If you want a twist of irony, it was back on September 23rd, 1992 that Austin ended up breaking the neck of Masahiro Chono during a battle for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
As a result, Chono ended up having to switch up his wrestling style and was never as effective. I wonder how many times Austin called Chono!
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