She Told Me You Like Wrestling I Got Her Into Wrestling Again

Credit: WWE.com

Diamond Dallas Page crashed to the sail like he had done hundreds of times before.

A Kevin Nash powerbomb sent Page on a standoff course with the mat. When he landed, with his arms out to his sides and face pointed up at the lights, pain erupted in his back.

That bump, pro wrestling parlance for a move that requires a hard autumn, hurt normally—especially from a near seven-footer similar Nash—only this was different.

Page knew something was incorrect. He struggled to move. Desperation overwhelmed him.

"I was in excruciating hurting," Folio told Bleacher Report.

At that place was no mode he was finishing the match. He couldn't even stand up at that point. Folio gritted his teeth and moved out of harm's mode.

"I was on my dorsum, and I crawled to the corner. I didn't go back in the ring." Folio recalled. Luckily, it was a tag team bout and Page could prevarication in the corner as his partner, Kanyon, fought the residue of the boxing for him.

When doctors later examined the high-energy, loudmouth wrestler, they discovered both his L4 and L5 vertebrae had ruptured. Their prognosis was dire. Specialists told him his career was over.

"They said I was never going to become back," Paige said.

This devastating back injury wasn't the result of a sideslip-upwards. This was no failed stunt gone wrong. It was the product of a punishing, dangerous business organization.

Diamond Dallas Page takes on Undertaker on Raw. Credit: WWE.com

As Page put it: "It wasn't that motion. That motion was the harbinger that bankrupt the camel's back."

To adhere the word "fake" to pro wrestling is foolish. The stories are scripted and the results are predetermined, but what the wrestlers put themselves through is as real as it gets.

Information technology's a grind. Bump afterward bump. Slam after slam. Night afterward night.

Wrestlers tear upward their knees, need stitches to close up gashes, break bones and drive their bodies into the footing.Every bit much as opponents expect to protect each other and control the violence in the ring, the physical cost of the fine art is inescapable.

"You can't fake gravity," Page said of the medium he described as "a combination of ballet and bull riding."

Ask ACH, an independent wrestler with a dazzling aerial arsenal. He once left a match with his articulatio genus swollen to the size of a small melon.

Ask Miranda Salinas from Texas All-Star Wrestling, who competed in WWE's inaugural Mae Young Classic tournament. She hobbled around on crutches for weeks afterward an in-band injury.

Ask WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix, who one time finished a match with a broken jaw.

Ask Paul Roma, a tag squad specialist for WWE in the '80s, who still feels the effects of all the bodyslams and suplexes he took over the years.

Don't Telephone call information technology Fake

Pro wrestling is a misunderstood entity.

You will hear not-fans draw it as a soap opera for men, play fighting or the dreaded f-discussion. Faux.

ACH can't stand up when someone labels what he does dark in and nighttime out that mode. You tin't arraign him. Check out any of his matches on the indy circuit and you volition see him nifty into muscular men, diving out of the ring and careening into the canvass.

"For anyone to say it'southward not existent, information technology's such an insult because of what we put our bodies through," he said.

To assist an outsider better explicate the earth in which he operates, ACH compared wrestling to the more physical side of Hollywood.

"It's like being in a alive-action movie and y'all're doing your ain stunts," ACH said. "We're just like Jackie Chan. These are our stunts."

Phoenix noted i key difference betwixt wrestling and the movies, however. Information technology's alive.

"There are no 2nd takes. There's no, 'Hold on a second, I tweaked my human knee.' Or 'I tin can't breathe,'" she said.

The now-retired Phoenix wrestled for WWE, where she reigned equally women's champion iii times. She stood out equally one of the well-nigh powerful women ever to work for WWE.

Beth Phoenix hoists up both Michelle McCool and Layla El. Credit: WWE.com

She often tested the limits of her sculpted frame during her run, whether the audience understood that or not.

"Fans may run across us once or twice a year," Phoenix said. "They don't realize that nosotros become on these grueling tours. We're on the route 300 days a twelvemonth. At that place'south no recovery time. It's a examination of your concrete and mental endurance."

Each friction match creates achaotic, draining environment. As a result, wrestlers have to be on loftier alert during bouts,she explained.They are in the midst of a violent undertaking where a incorrect step could hateful injury for 1's cocky or 1'south foe.

"There are so many X-factors going on in the ring," Phoenix said. "Yous accept to protect your opponent. You lot take to be conscious of what your opponent is going through and make sure they're safety."

Luckily, the body arms these athletes with a drug that increases focus and numbs some of the pain that comes with colliding into some other homo—adrenaline.

"Your body enters this adrenaline zone, which gives you the ability to supersedethings that bother you," Phoenix explained.

Salinas, an contained wrestler based out of Houston, views what unfolds in the squared circle the same way.

"During the lucifer, your adrenaline is so loftier that you lot don't really feel anything unless you really go hurt," she said. "Your heart rate is up then loftier. Everything happens so quickly."

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Even and then, there's no escaping the toll of the business concern.

Danger lurks. Violence is necessary. Injuries are inevitable.

Roma knows that firsthand. He wrestled for well over a decade offset in the '80s, facing the likes of The Moondogs, Demolition and Don Muraco.

When asked most what it was similar to compete all of those times, he said, "Information technology'southward very demanding physically. You just do your best non to injure or go injured. Yous're in the ring with guys who are 200, 300 pounds. It's tough. It's something that can't exist avoided."

Folio remembers understanding that early in his wrestling training. As he began to learn how to take bumps, falling repeatedly onto the mat, he had a revelation: "This fake stuff hurts like hell."

" I felt every square every inch of thatmat. Once you acquire how to fall, you still accept to fall," he said.

DDP would go on to get a major star for World Championship Wrestling, winning that company's world title three times. At his peak, he was wrestling over 100 matches a year. In his mind, each of those was alike to experiencing multiple auto crashes.

"I used to go into four different car accidents a night," he said. "Nosotros hit each other. We're just trying not to hurt each other, only we injure each other all the fourth dimension."

That was peculiarly true when he and his opponents cracked folding chairs over each other's heads, a practice WWE has since moved away from.

"People used to say, 'Well, how exercise you fake that?'" Page recalled. "Two words—nosotros don't. When y'all got hit with the chair, you got hit with the chair."

Injuries to Endure

Phoenix had just only begun her career on WWE's main roster when an ordinary move left her face misaligned.

In a bout on Raw in 2006, Victoria smacked Phoenix beyond the mouth. The accident left the newcomer with a broken jaw. Nonetheless, Phoenix didn't realize the extent of the injury at first.

"It broke all the fashion through. The unabridged os. I could put my tongue between my teeth. So I idea, 'Oh, I lost a tooth," Phoenix said. "You don't know what a cleaved jaw feels similar until it happens."

The right side of her jaw jutted out. She couldn't close her oral cavity. She would afterwards need two plates and a whole host of screws in her face up, just Phoenix wasn't going to allow that lucifer to stop prematurely.

"It didn't matter what the injury was," Phoenix explained. "I was going to finish this. I was going to become through this because this means everything to me."

Wrestlers have an inhuman ability to power through pain, to ignore dangling limbs and torn muscles to terminate a bout. And there's a clear "the show must go on" mentality that drives them to practise things an everyday person can't imagine pulling off.

Phoenix provided a peek into that mindset.

"You lot go, 'I tore something. I broke something.' The first thought to go through your head is 'That's 6 months of rehab.' Or if it's broken, 'That's two to three months,'" Phoenix said. "That's just part of the chore. When yous sign up, you know yous're going to take to endure those things."

Beth Phoenix in action confronting Layla El. Credit: WWE.com

She experienced that fifty-fifty before her Raw debut while still role of WWE's former developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling.

In an try to turn taking a superkick off the ring apron into a standout moment, Phoenix overshot her reaction. She crashed onto her face up, tumbled to the flooring and looked up to run into trainers running toward her.

"I didn't realize how bad it was until I watched the tape," Phoenix recalled. "I could have lost my life. I just got lucky that nighttime."

It isn't just those scary moments that go out a wrestler smarting, though. It'south a regular part of the lifestyle.

Salinas has received and dished out an equal share of physicality in her immature career. Whether she'due south competing for Houston-based Texas All-Star Wrestling or elsewhere, she employs a difficult-hitting, strike-heavy way.To her, that office of the game is enough painful.

"I've taken some strong shots to the face," Salinas said. "That's something that you'll always feel."

A wrestler diving onto her and driving her to the mat has left its mark as well. She has worked to make taking the move less punishing, merely she continues to get up from it loopy.

"Every single time I have a crossbody, I bump the back of my head," Salinas explained. "It just knocks me. And I end up seeing stars every fourth dimension."

Salinas sprained her talocrural joint in April and tried to work through it at first. Merely it grew as well painful, a ball of fluid swelling at the betoken of injury.

"I found myself on crutches for three-and-a-half weeks," she said. "After that, it was still hurting when I walked. I couldn't be on information technology for a long fourth dimension."

She sounded bellyaching while recalling the injury. It was a hindrance to her working. She had to spend fourth dimension rehabbing rather than wrestling.

ACH can feel her pain. Knee joint injuries have slowed him downwards two times, keeping him away from his true honey—the ring.

The well-traveled high-flyer'due south first genu injury came after his kneepad shifted in the air during a jump from the top rope. He landed difficult on the exposed joint and suffered a Class 1 sprain.

"When I hitting the frogsplash, my knee took all the touch on," he explained.

The knee chop-chop swelled, simply ACH wasn't done for the night. He had 3 more matches alee of him. ACH gutted it out through the rest of the tournament but found himself in need of help from his peers afterwards.

"They had to literally conduct me," he said. "They carried me to the bathroom and put me in front of the stall.I couldn't bend my leg."

In addition to bare-kneed frog splashes, ACH noted the superplex takes its toll on the body. One wrestler hoists their opponent from the top rope and dives backward to slap their foe onto the canvas.

One night in Japan, a superplex left him incoherent.

"I hit so hard I did a complete back roll onto the mat," ACH said. "I could feel the air escaping out of my torso. Every bit of it."

Both ACH and Salinas have been lucky not to suffer more serious injuries thus far. Many of their fellow grapplers have taken trips to the surgeon's tabular array.

When asked most injuries he experienced throughout his career, Roma had a long list to share: "Neck. Dorsum. Elbows. Knee joint. Broken ribs, of course. Broken teeth."

Roma took his fair share of abuse, from The Nasty Boys' back-alley criminal offence to Road Warrior Hawk clotheslining him off Road Warrior Animal's shoulders. But wrestling as a whole is what led to his trips to the md.

The accumulation of high-impact moves adds up.

"The constant jerking on the arms, the arm drags, the hip tosses. It took its toll," Roma said. "The trunk'southward not built to non withstand banging around like that."

The physicality of the business organization has increased over the years. Today'due south wrestlers are better athletes. They have bigger risks on a daily basis.

There was a fourth dimension when bruisers rarely left their feet. Now the suicide dive is as commonplace as a wristlock.

Page marvels at what guys like two-fourth dimension cruiserweight champ Neville and former WWE world titleholder AJ Styles practice to each other in the ring today.

"I dare anybody to be on the other side of 1 of those kicks," DDP said of Neville's offense.

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As for Styles, Page recalled how he knocked out The Miz'due south teeth last year. On The Phenomenal One, he said, "He's stiff equally hell. When you've been in the ring with AJ, you know you've been in the ring with him."

When Folio was active, he dealt with his own punishing opponents. That included John "Bradshaw" Layfield, whose finishing move lived up to its name.

"JBL'southward clothesline. Clothesline from Hell.Yes,it was," Page said.

And whenever he had to face up the monstrous Goldberg, he made sure to be quick on his feet. He wanted to exist out of harm'southward way when Goldberg hit his signature spear. It was a movement he had seen fissure Big Evidence'southward sternum, after all.

"Whenever Goldie was coming at me, I made sure I was going the other style," he said.

At Halloween Havoc 1998, that motility actually left the wielder hurt. Goldberg pigeon at Page only to blindside his head on the mat.

"Nib'due south caput hit before my body," Folio recalled. "With the velocity that he had, he knocked himself out."

Later on recovering enough to get to his feet, Goldberg began to elevator DDP upward for a Jackhammer. The large homo paused, still reeling from driving his own head into the canvas. The audience had no idea where the acting concluded and reality began.

That was far from the first time fans didn't realize the depth of the marks wrestling left.

The Aftershocks

There is no day that Roma doesn't feel the imprint of his onetime life.

Nearly 20 years afterwards his retirement as a wrestler, Roma struggles to do the banal. Even tying his shoes is a difficult task.

"Things I could do then, I can't exercise now," he said. "Tying your shoes, walking upright every bit before long as you get out of bed in the morning, reaching for something y'all tin can't reach because your arm lost that one-and-a-half, two inches.

Hurting and inflexibility represent the aftermath of a grueling career.

Hercules (left), Slick (center) and Paul Roma (correct) Credit: WWE.com

"My knees have been replaced. They speak for themselves," Roma said. "I accept trouble from the concussion aspect. I accept trouble remembering things on a solar day-to-solar day ground."

These lingering furnishings were far from Roma'due south heed every bit a swain standing in the spotlight. Every bit half of The Young Stallions or Power and Glory, he was in peak physical condition, a statuesque figure in a larger-than-life world. His thoughts didn't linger on the future.

"Yous don't realize while it'south going on. You're young. You're all charged up. You simply don't run across the down the line. You don't think nigh it," Roma explained.

Salinas, still writing the early chapters of her ain career, seems to have come up to terms with the physical price of her chosen profession. She's a tough, defiant athlete looking to brand her mark on the business organization. That doesn't come without putting i'southward body through hell.

She'south reminded of that in the days afterwards a match.

"You're sore for three days. Your whole body," Salinas said. "Everything from my toes to my cervix around my ears is sore."

The Houston native has gotten used to information technology as best she can. She'south accepted and embraced the toil ahead of her.

"It's hardonyour torso," Salinas said of wrestling. "Information technology'due south part of the business. It's something you have to deal with."

ACH will plough xxx in December. He's in phenomenal shape. And he remains well-stocked with adrenaline.

It commonly takes hours earlier he endures the aching that comes post-match.

"Most of the time, when you lot go back to the hotel, your adrenaline is yet pumping," ACH said. "It takes a while for that to wear off. You don't usually feel information technology until the next mean solar day, when yous wake up at iv in the morning to catch your 5 a.m. flight."

"When y'all finally wear down and get that moment to yourself, it feels similar you just experienced the worst auto crash of your life."

Page didn't have the luxury of youth during his WCW ascent. The Hall of Famer entered the business late.

So while he watched a immature stud like Buff Bagwell shrug off the punishment he endured in the ring, DDP was well into his 30s once his career took off. As such, he was quicker to reach for an ice pack, quicker to groan and grimace later stepping out of the ring.

"My entire run was going to experience different than the i Bagwell had," Folio said.

"Get 30. Go forty.Soyou're in the shower saying,'Oh God, what did I do to my shoulder? Oh God, my lower back.'It starts coming," Page said.

For Page, though, the pain could have been far worse. His body could be in ruin at this signal. But afterwards trigger-happy up his back, Page establish a new means to heal himself—a yoga-inspired conditioning he created and would later on dub DDP Yoga.

"Without information technology, I never would have lasted," Page said. "I would be crippled today."

The minimal bear upon of DDP Yoga was key for him. Information technology helped break upward scar tissue. Information technology allowed him to extend his career far longer than doctors would take imagined when he came to them with ruptured vertebrae.

Shifting to DDP Yoga was a natural evolution in his mind. "Y'all tin't go back to pounding the weights. You can't work out the same. You've done too much harm," Folio said.

Phoenix has leaned on exercise to stave off the long-term effects of a life as a wrestler too.

She and her husband, swain Hall of Famer Edge, subscribe to the theory that motility is cardinal to health. Phoenix has countered wrestling'south impact with CrossFit and refusing to be stagnant in retirement.

"The worse thing y'all can do is permit pain defeat you," she said.

But she and Edge both feel the aftershocks of the business organization in which they fabricated their names."I still have nerve damage in my face. I can't feel on the right side of my face, my mentum, my gums, my lips," Phoenix said of the impact her broken jaw left her with.

As for Edge, spinal stenosis forced him into an early retirement. And he'll never be 100 percent healthy again.

"He struggles with his neck bug," Phoenix said,"He wears the bluecoat of honor from wrestling everywhere he goes every solar day."

He isn't the only wrestler to have to step away thank you to injury. Concussions wound down the career of Edge'due south friend and tag team partner, Christian. Neck and knee joint injuries pushed Stone Common cold Steve Austin out of the ring. Daniel Bryan retired at the height of his popularity at the age of 34 afterward he suffered seizures associated with a number of concussions.

Bryan was at the top of the WWE mountain, and it all gave out underneath him. Equally DDP put it, "Gravity broke him."

A Price to Pay

Regardless of how punishing and painful wrestling is, you lot often hear the warriors of the ring talk virtually how magical it was to perform in front end of their fans.

For many, being a superhero in the squared circle—to tell the kind of dramatic, trigger-happy stories that make up wrestling—is a dream come true. The bruises and getting banged effectually is just a side effect.

For everything a wrestler gives, at that place is a reward. Ane of those rewards is of the financial diversity.

Looking back at his career, Roma talked about toughing information technology out to go along working in wrestling, to continue bringing home a cheque.

"You're trying to make money," he said. "If you don't work, you don't get paid. Y'all're trying to back up your family and yourself. You simply keep going."

"I endured. I did what I had to do."

But even every bit much as Roma's torso all the same suffers the effects of his wrestling days, the business concern means enough to him to laissez passer on his knowledge to a new generation. Roma teaches at Paradise Alley Professional person Wrestling in East Haven, Connecticut.

Paul Roma @ RealPaulRoma

Watching some of my students run some practise matches at @PAPWofficial accepting new students currently https://t.co/hPARTynlhb

A fresh crop of grapplers can hear his horror stories as well as his fondest memories of the ring.

For Salinas, she has all the same to find anything that moves her like wrestling does. "The feeling I get after I have a good match is unbelievable," she explained.

Fifty-fifty while sore from her latest match, talking about wrestling brightens her voice, stokes the flames in her gut. "I love what I do. I'm at home in the ring," she beamed.

ACH can chronicle. He's willing to push button through pain to low-cal up a crowd with what he does best.

When asked what makes wrestling'south injurious side worth information technology, he said: "The passion. The love for it. I beloved what I practise for a living."

The concrete side of wrestling didn't sneak up on ACH. It's not a well-kept undercover that wrestlers go hurt and that one's body isn't the aforementioned later.

"I knew what I was getting into when I signed up," ACH said.

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When it's all said & washed. I can be completely broke & broken.. I merely hope I entertained y'all all and made a difference in the globe.

He compared a wrestling career with that of 1 in the NFL and NBA. One has a short shelf life in a profession like that. Information technology'southward spring to clothing one's torso downward. So ACH believes he must enjoy it while he tin can.

Phoenix was willing to behave the slams, strikes and scars to succeed at the highest level.

"For us, it was worth it considering we wanted to be the best in our industry," she said of herself and Edge. "We're both people with that type of mentality. At that place was a cost to pay. And nosotros were both happy to pay it."

While in the belly of the best, the future wasn't necessarily on her mind.

She wanted to print in the hither and at present. She wanted to make her mark and often wasn't mindful of what would happen post-wrestling.

"What'southward the quality of my life? Oft times, when you're in there, yous're not thinking about that. You're thinking, 'I wantthis match at WrestleMania to exist the most incredible thing anyone has e'er seen," Phoenix said.

Be it at WrestleMania or at an armory in forepart of 100 people, the electricity an audition creates makes it worth entering that fray time and again.

"We're doing it for the wrestling fan, the pop of the crowd," Page said. "That'southward how you become through."

A wrestler gets to be an histrion and an athlete. They are rock stars. They are larger-than-life figures who get an arena full of people to pull for them, to invest in their stories. It's a beautiful affair, injuries be damned.

And it isn't something Folio even thought was possible for him to achieve. Wrestlers frequently hit their primes in their early 30s. DDP didn't start his career until after that.

He defied the odds from an age standpoint and was able to compete for years after rupturing ii vertebrae. He is fully aware how unlikely it all was.

"You get to live the dream," he said. "I should take never been able to do it. That'due south why my story is so off the hook. I am the anomaly."

For every wrestler chasing that dream, there is all kinds of hurt that comes with information technology. Pro wrestling is no choreographed trip the light fantastic-fight, as some believe. Information technology'southward an ordeal besides as an effort, one where danger is e'er-present.

Phoenix said information technology perfectly: "At any moment, annihilation weird tin can happen. Something tin exist just the tiniest bit off. And your life really is on the line every time you lot step in in that location."

Special cheers to Diamond Dallas Page, Beth Phoenix, Paul Roma, Miranda Salinas and ACH for sharing their stories.

Ryan Dilbert is a Atomic number 82 WWE Writer for Bleacher Report.

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Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2610966-this-fake-stuff-hurts-like-hell-pro-wrestlings-painful-toll-on-the-body

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