A couple weeks ago, I posted a column about the luckiest people and moments in the history of pro wrestling. It was posted on the day before St. Patrick’s Day, so writing about luck only seemed to make sense.
Unfortunately, luck isn’t always good, is it?
In fact, sometimes luck is downright atrocious, and the saddest part about it is the fact that far more people can understand and relate to bad luck than good luck.
If I’m going to write about the pro wrestling’s luckiest, it seems only right to also discuss pro wrestling’s unluckiest.
In doing my research for the column, and in whittling down a list of things to talk about, I had to make an important decision to stay away from career-ending injuries suffered in the middle of the ring. Otherwise the entire list would just be “this guy died during a match” and “that guy got paralyzed during a match,” and so on. There will be one very important exception to that rule, though, and that one particular moment will be included because it’s a special case that has to be brought up.
I’m also not looking to include a lot of things that people have brought upon themselves. When you see other posts/columns/tweets on this topic, you’ll often see the same series of names and moments again and again. If you’re someone whose luck has largely been tied to your own substance abuse or legal issues, I’m not going to consider that being your “bad luck,” but more like your bad decision making. Rob Van Dam being forced to lose the WWE and ECW Titles because he was arrested for drug possession isn’t bad luck. Jeff Hardy being arrested several times for DUI and public intoxication isn’t bad luck. Guys like RVD and especially Jeff Hardy would be the first to tell you that they screwed things up for themselves.
Otherwise, everything is fair game here. It’s time to journey through the ranks of the unlucky.
Mr. Kennedy: Man, the hype surrounding Mr. Kennedy between 2005 and 2009 was insane. Simply based on his charisma and character work alone, people were screaming from the mountaintops that he should be a World Champion.
He just kept finding stretches of bad luck, and it hurt him time and time again.
Three months after he made his main roster debut, he faced Eddie Guerrero in a match on Smackdown. Eddie would use his “Lie, Cheat, Steal” schtick to con the Referee into disqualifying Kennedy, giving Kennedy his first loss. After the match, he would attack Eddie with a steel chair shot to the head. Two days later, Eddie would tragically pass away, causing a lot of people to incorrectly attribute the chair shot to being at least somewhat responsible for Eddie’s death. Ken Anderson would receive a ton of hate for a long time because of it.
A month later, he suffered a back injury at a house show, and it kept him out of action for six months. Six weeks after returning to the ring, he took a head-first shot into the ring steps, suffering an “exposed cranium laceration” that would require nearly two dozen stitches to close.
Things finally seemed to be on track for him from there, and he went on to win the Money In The Bank Ladder Match at WrestleMania 23. Five weeks later, he would lose a match to Edge that saw Edge become the new briefcase holder. We would find out that the reason he lost the briefcase is because he had suffered a torn triceps and would need to be out of action for at least six months.
So we thought, anyway.
After he lost the briefcase, it was then discovered that his injury was not, in fact, a torn triceps. Instead, it was a hematoma, and he would only need to miss a month or so of action to let it heal.
Whoops.
Three months after returning from the hematoma, Kennedy would be suspended in storyline by Vince McMahon. In reality, it was done because Ken Anderson had violated the WWE Wellness Policy after being named in a steroid scandal.
In 2008, he missed more action after dislocating his shoulder at a house show, being away from the ring for almost ten months. He returned to the ring on the May 25th, 2009 episode of Raw… and would be released from his contract four days later. According to Anderson himself, his release came after Randy Orton, who was one of his opponents in that May 25th match, complained to Vince McMahon about how reckless Anderson was in the ring. Anderson also said that Orton went to John Cena and was able to convince Cena to join him in complaining about Anderson to Vince.
While he would eventually go on to TNA and win their World Championship twice, that certainly isn’t quite the same as being a WWE Champion and main eventing WrestleMania shows, now is it?
Injuries, a medical misdiagnosis, and making the wrong backstage enemies… it all added up to some terrible luck for the man.
Chelsea Green: Do you remember back in 2018, when Chelsea signed with WWE after some entertaining runs with TNA and Lucha Underground? In her very first televised match after signing, she wrestled on NXT and suffered a broken wrist, putting her on the shelf for three-and-a-half months.
After a relatively brief stint in NXT, she would get called up to Smackdown in November 2020. On her first night there, she wrestled in a Fatal Four-Way to compete for a spot on Team Smackdown at the upcoming Survivor Series pay-per-view. During the Fatal Four-Way, she broke the same wrist once again. To make it even worse, she was scheduled to win the match before the injury occurred. While she was out of action with the second break, she would be released from her contract.
After being released, she began working for Ring Of Honor. She was scheduled to participate in the RoH Women’s World Title Tournament, but would you care to guess what happened? If you guessed that she broke her wrist AGAIN, you would be correct.
On one hand, her latest WWE run has been a lot better for her. She has seen a lot of success, winning the WWE Women’s Tag Team Title once and the WWE Women’s United States Title twice. On the other hand, however, she has missed more time due to injuries, ranging from a broken nose (an injury Chelsea says she has suffered multiple times in the past) to a broken ankle that she is currently out of action with.
You can make an argument that she’s “injury prone,” but I’m not sure how much it has truly “hurt” her career, especially during this run with WWE. Even while she’s unable to wrestle, the company keeps finding ways to get her on television, and giving her things to do. It certainly doesn’t appear that they’ve given up on her just yet. Crowd reactions continue to grow for her, and fans are appreciating her work more and more, even as a heel. It’s difficult not to take notice of the start-stop-start-stop aspect of her career, though, with all of those injuries.
Batista In 2014: To be fair, you can argue whether or not this is truly “unlucky,” but because this is my column, I’m including it.
At the start of 2014, word leaked that Batista would be returning to WWE for the upcoming Royal Rumble pay-per-view. He ended up returning on the episode of Raw before the Rumble, marking his first time back with WWE since May 2010. I remember being excited to see him. He was incredibly entertaining at the peak of his career, so seeing him return seemed like a great idea on the Road To WrestleMania.
Like many others, my Rumble prediction was that Daniel Bryan was going to win, finally capping the “Yes! Movement” storyline and giving him the “WrestleMania Moment” that everyone felt he deserved. The addition of Batista to the match didn’t change my pick. I felt that Batista would do well in the match, but that he would probably get eliminated by nefarious means, and that he would have a Mania match with the man who eliminated him.
I’m old enough to say that I have watched every Royal Rumble match live as it happened. I can also say that watching the 2014 Rumble was unlike any other Rumble experience that I’ve ever had. I was SO emotionally invested in the Daniel Bryan stuff. With each passing entrant that wasn’t Daniel Bryan, I became more and more nervous. As we got to the halfway point of the match, my brain told me that DB was going to end up being the 30th entrant, in an attempt to make it extra dramatic and to get people thinking the company was screwing with us.
One after another, more people entered the match. Oh, hey, there’s Sheamus. Now, it’s The Miz. Here comes Fandango. They found a spot for El Torito? Okay. Here’s Antonio Cesaro. Luke Harper is out next. Hmm… running out of spots. Jey Uso is next. JBL went from being a color commentator for the match to being in the match. Cool beans. Erick Rowan is out now. There’s only five spots left, so it’s gotta be coming soon. Here comes Ryback. Alberto Del Rio is next. Oh, there’s Batista at 28, so Daniel Bryan is DEFINITELY coming in at 30, just to make us all nervous. Big E Langston is in the next-to-last spot. Okay, here we go… the 30th, and FINAL, entrant in the 2014 Royal Rumble is…
Rey Mysterio.
Rey Mysterio?
REY MYSTERIO?!?
Even watching from my couch at home, I could FEEL the mood in the Consol Energy Center change when Rey made his entrance. That motherfucking Vince McMahon really did it. Not only is Daniel Bryan not winning the Rumble, but he isn’t even in the match. Incredible.
Immediately, fans all over the world turned their backs on Batista. They booed him when he won the Rumble, and they continued to boo him over the next few weeks, forcing WWE’s hand and having him officially turn heel at the end of February. Fans treated that man like garbage, and for what? Because he wasn’t Daniel Bryan. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but it isn’t his fault that he’s not Daniel Bryan. It’s not his fault that he won the Royal Rumble.
He didn’t deserve the way he was treated. The man was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. According to Big Dave himself, he tried to tell WWE that it wasn’t a good idea to have him win because of the fan attachment to Daniel Bryan, but as always, Vince does what Vince wants. Even after Bryan was added to the WrestleMania 30 main event… and even after he won the match to become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion… fans were still mad at Batista.
I’m sorry, Dave. You didn’t deserve the vitriol that was sent your way. We should’ve known better.
Sin Cara: When news broke that Mistico had signed a WWE contract, it was a HUGE deal. For years, WWE had been looking for the “next Rey Mysterio” that could help expand their market share in Spanish-speaking countries, with Mexico being the obvious key direction. In Mistico, the company was signing Lucha Libre’s biggest box office draw over the previous several years, and someone who was an absolute megastar in the Lucha world. It made perfect sense that he was going to become an even bigger worldwide star under the WWE umbrella.
Unfortunately, that never happened, and he was basically doomed from the start. He had a knee injury in the early days of his WWE run that led to him receiving an injection for it, and that injection led to him testing positive for something that caused him to fail WWE’s Wellness Policy, giving him a 30-day suspension. Before he had even completed his first year with WWE, he would rupture his patellar tendon, forcing him to miss six months of action. Seven months after returning from the patellar injury, he would injure his knee once again, putting him on the shelf for a month. About seven months after returning from that injury, he dislocated a finger during a match, and would be gone from the company soon thereafter.
Injuries not enough of a sign of bad luck for you?
If there’s one thing that people remember the most about the Sin Cara run in WWE, it would be botches. Botch after botch after botch after botch after botch. He ended up using a mask that made it difficult for him to see during his entrances and his matches, and this would be made even worse by the fact that he wrestled while that stupid bluish, orangey light was in the arena. If you’re having trouble seeing out of your mask to begin with, I can’t even imagine how bad it would be for the arena lights to be dimmed and weird “mood lighting” to be added.
He had a three-year run with WWE, and his entire time there is widely remembered for being nothing more than a huge joke.
The Shockmaster: Look… we don’t know what the long-term plans were for Fred Ottman as The Shockmaster. We know he was in WCW to be the mystery partner for Sting, Davey Boy Smith, and Dustin Rhodes at Fall Brawl 1993, as the quartet battled Sid Vicious, Big Van Vader, and Harlem Heat inside of the War Games double cage, but what about after Fall Brawl? Was it going to be a one-off? Would The Shockmaster be booked to become the WCW World Champion? Only a handful of people know the answer to those questions, and they’re either dead today or they aren’t speaking up.
No matter what the long-term plans were, though, they went up in smoke at the Clash Of The Champions 24 event on August 18th, 1993. In the most infamous debut in wrestling history, The Shockmaster arrived, crashing through a sheetrock wall, tripping over a beam and falling flat on his face on live television. His hilariously spray painted and glittery Stormtrooper helmet fell off, and you could hear Sid and Davey in the background, completely shitting all over the entire thing as he stood there, scrambling to get his helmet back on and to look as tough as he could. His entire WCW run was dead on arrival, but whose fault was it?
Unbeknownst to Fred Ottman, a support beam was placed at the bottom of the debut setup, put in place at the last minute after his walkthrough before the show. Rumor has it that Sid noticed the support beam and tried to notify production members that it was going to lead to disaster during the live run. That’s why you can clearly hear Sid say “I TOLD YOU! OH, GOD!” as soon as Shockmaster tripped and fell. I don’t know what smooth brained moron thought it would be a good idea to make that type of production change without telling the person who would be using it on live television, but that goofy bastard is to blame here, 10,000,000,000,000%.
Tegan Nox: At the age of 13, Steffanie Newell… the woman who would eventually go on to become known as Tegan Nox in NXT and WWE… suffered a knee injury that cost her a spot on the Welsh Under 16 football team.
Her knees would continue to haunt her as the years would go on.
After approximately four years of wrestling throughout the United Kingdom and for American independent promotions like SHIMMER, she would sign with WWE. A couple months after signing, she would be named as one of the competitors in the inaugural Mae Young Classic tournament, but would be replaced before the tournament began after tearing her ACL.
After missing nearly a year, she returned just in time to be announced for the second Mae Young Classic tournament. While she actually made it to this tournament, she would suffer another serious injury during her Quarterfinal match against Rhea Ripley. She tore numerous ligaments and dislocated her patellar tendon.
Those injuries caused her to miss nearly another full year. She returned to the ring at the end of June 2019, but would you like to guess what happened to her in September 2020? If you guessed that she tore her ACL again, you would be correct.
Once again, she missed nine months of action. While she didn’t suffer another serious injury after that return, she did receive two different releases. WWE released her from her contract in November 2021, but she returned to the company in December 2022… only to be released again in November 2024.
I’m not going to count her essentially being blacklisted from AEW because she did that to herself, so it isn’t a case of any sort of “luck.” That string of knee injuries is one of the absolute wildest stretches I’ve ever seen for any athlete, in any sport, in any era, during all my years of being alive. The woman’s knees just would not cooperate with her, and that’s a shame.
Magnum TA: There truly is no telling how big Magnum TA would’ve been if his career didn’t come to an end in a 1986 car accident.
He was already becoming one of the top young talents for Jim Crockett Promotions, winning the NWA United States Title twice, and was viewed as the company’s next huge babyface that would battle the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Ric Flair, sooner than later. At the time of his crash, he was scheduled to win the United States Title for a third time, and his 1987 and 1988 probably would’ve seen him go on to finally reach main event status.
For everything to be taken away from him in an instant is a true shame. He wasn’t speeding, nor was he driving under the influence. His “crime” was choosing to drive in heavy rain, and that decision cost him his livelihood.
Muhammad Hassan: “Hey, we need you to portray an Arab American character that can draw big heat in this post-9/11 country.”
“But I’m Italian.”
“Don’t worry about that. You look close enough to fit. Besides, pro wrestling fans are stupid. Nobody will know the difference.”
“Okay, boss.”
*fast forward a bit*
“Hey, you’re doing great out there. You hear those crowd reactions? That’s some real old school heat. Let’s keep building on that.”
“Thank you. Sure thing, boss.”
*fast forward a bit more*
“Jesus Christ, pal. You’re on your way to becoming a World Champion. This is such good shit.”
“Thanks, boss.”
*fast forward a bit more*
“Hey… so… I think it might be time to pull the plug on this character, pal.”
“Why, boss? What did I do?”
“You’re getting too much heat now. We’re all over the news now, and people are not happy.”
“But… but I thought that was the point? I’m supposed to be a heel, getting as much heel heat as I can get.”
“Yeah… but, like… not… this much heat, pal.”
…aaaaand scene.
Marc Copani was given one job, seen by some as an incredibly difficult one to pull off, and he did just that. He was able to add depth and layers to the old “bad guy foreigner” trope, while still remaining a heel, excelling in front of a country that was still viewing its relationship with “brown people” in a complicated and sensitive fashion.
The man did everything that was asked of him, but just when it seemed like he could be primed and ready for a main event run, the real world decided to step in and intervene. London was rattled by terrorist attacks in July 2005. That, of course, was not Marc Copani’s fault, and it also wasn’t WWE’s fault. I’m not sure whose fault it was that an on-screen angle that had even the slightest inkling of “terrorist” vibes took place, but it certainly wasn’t Marc Copani’s doing. The fact that the angle aired, completely unedited (on a taped episode of Smackdown), three days after the attacks in London, also wasn’t Marc Copani’s fault.
However, the one person to pay the price for it… you guessed it… was Marc Copani. WWE had people from all angles calling for the Muhammad Hassan character to be scrapped. Ultimately, UPN (the network that Smackdown was airing on at the time) put the full pressure on WWE to keep Hassan off of television, and the company acquiesced. A mere 17 days after the episode of Smackdown aired, Hassan lost to The Undertaker at The Great American Bash and was written off of television with an injury angle. Less than two months later, Copani was released from his contract, and he retired from the business altogether.
You do everything that your job requires you to do, but poor timing and a poor decision… neither of which was anywhere near your fault… ends up taking you down, and you have to be punished for the so-called sins of others. That’s not fair, and it’s terrible luck to have.
Nigel McGuinness: After an incredibly successful run in Ring Of Honor, including a 545-day reign as the RoH World Champion, it was reported that Nigel had signed a contract with WWE. It was supposed to be a major shift, both for RoH and WWE, because Bryan Danielson was also jumping to WWE at the same time.
A month-and-a-half after the “in principle” signing, it was then reported that Nigel failed a physical thanks to an old biceps injury that required surgery. WWE pulled their contract offer, and Nigel then signed with TNA, debuting as Desmond Wolfe right away. His time with TNA was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some really entertaining matches, of course, but ultimately, he didn’t end up achieving much. He didn’t win any titles there, and after an initial stint near the top of the card, he fell down the proverbial ladder quite a bit before his time in TNA ended. In his last three months, he only won one singles match, and that was against Stevie Richards, who wasn’t exactly World Title material.
In September 2010, less than a year after making his TNA debut, Nigel would be pulled from the road and the reason we were given was a “personal issue.” The “personal issue” would eventually become an “undisclosed medical situation.” It would mark the end of his in-ring time with TNA, although he would return for an on-screen Commissioner gig and some commentary work before being released. Nigel would eventually reveal to the world that his “undisclosed medical situation” was him testing positive for Hepatitis B.
At the end of 2011, Nigel announced his own “Retirement Tour,” because he said that signing with WWE was his dream, and with that dream off the table, he figured it was time to walk away. He self-released a documentary about his final stretch as a wrestler, and it was heartbreaking to watch him fall apart mentally and emotionally. You could tell just how much not being able to wrestle for WWE really bothered him.
Based on the time frame, and also on the signing of Bryan Danielson, there’s a popular conspiracy theory that says Nigel would’ve been in Wade Barrett’s spot on the first season of NXT if he remained under contract with WWE. The idea of The Nexus debuting with Nigel McGuinness in Wade’s spot (under a different name, as Barrett had already debuted that name a month before Nigel agreed to his WWE deal) is a lot of fun to think about. If you’re going to have a “butterfly effect” situation, does the little change of Nigel staying in WWE mean that he never gets Hepatitis and goes on to have a lengthy career with the company?
I’m so glad that Nigel has been able to have his AEW run over the last few years, including a chance to wrestle at Wembley Stadium and then at The O2 Arena in London. He seems to be in a much better place, mentally and emotionally, and seems to be genuinely happy again. For a while, it seemed like he was having one roadblock after another. There was a time, around when his documentary was released, that people were worried that Steven Haworth, the man behind the Nigel McGuinness character, might do something to harm himself.
Owen Hart: Before anyone says anything… no, I’m not including Owen here as any type of weird joke. I’ve seen discourse in the past that it’s not “fair” to label what happened to Owen as “bad luck,” but I disagree wholeheartedly.
Wrestlers get injured in the ring all the time. Unfortunately for a select few, wrestlers have also died in the ring from time-to-time. While names like Mitsuharu Misawa and Perro Aguayo Jr. would definitely be considered unlucky because of the way they passed, but Owen Hart is in an entirely different category when it comes to the way he passed.
By all accounts, Owen absolutely, positively didn’t want to do the stunt that would ultimately cost him his life, but he wasn’t the type of guy who would try to throw his weight around and decline things. If we’re being realistic, he had no business performing the stunt. It’s one thing when Shawn Michaels ziplines from the rafters before the main event of WrestleMania 12, and it’s one thing when Sting rappels during WCW programming as one of the biggest stars in the business involved in one of the biggest storylines in the history of the sport. However, it’s another thing entirely for The Blue Blazer to be doing a stunt like that on a third-tier WWF pay-per-view. I don’t care that he was rumored to be winning the Intercontinental Title that night. It wasn’t necessary.
Owen accidentally triggering an early release on his harness, falling nearly 80 feet to his death, is arguably the unluckiest thing to ever happen in pro wrestling.
There are a million other examples of piss poor luck in wrestling history. Other than the ones I’ve mentioned here, what are some of your favorite (least favorite?) examples? As always, feel free to hit me up in the comments section below, on Twitter (@HustleTheSavage), or on Bluesky (@aaronhyden.bsky.social), and let me know what’s on your mind.
Now, let’s switch things over to my Weekly Power Rankings (with no write-ups this week due to a lack of time), before closing things out with the list of songs I was listening to as I put this week’s column together.
Weekly Power Rankings
Kenny Omega vs Swerve Strickland
Kazuchika Okada vs Kevin Knight
TNA Referee Alice Lane
Carmelo Hayes vs Sami Zayn
John Cena As WrestleMania 42 Host
Orange Cassidy & Roderick Strong vs David Finlay & Clark Connors
Zachary Wentz & Dezmond Xavier vs Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis
Danhausen
Penta vs Dominik Mysterio
Darby Allin vs Rush
This Week’s Playlist: “Changes” by Charlie Puth… “Cry” by Charlie Puth & Kenny G… “New Jersey” by Charlie Puth & Ravyn Lenae… “Love In Exile” by Charlie Puth, Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins… “Lenny Kravitz” by Juvenile & Mannie Fresh… “Ensenada” by Sublime… “Until The Sun Explodes” by Sublime… “Minks In Miami” by Rick Ross, French Montana & Max B… “Pal Agua” by J Balvin & Ryan Castro… “Ozzy’s Song” by Black Label Society… “The Nameless” by August Burns Red… “Villainous” by Eva Under Fire & Maria Brink… “FAST LANE” by SCATTERBRAIN… “The Art Of Love” by Of Virtue… “85” by Youngbloodz & Big Boi… “City 2 City” by B-Legit… “Check It Out” by B-Legit, E-40 & Kurupt… “Gotta Buy Your Dope From Us” by B-Legit, C-Bo & Little Bruce… “Ghetto Smile” by B-Legit & Daryl Hall… “Paid In Full” by Eric B & Rakim… “Stick Em Up” by Ludacris & UGK… “Phat Rabbit” by Ludacris & Timbaland… “Go 2 Sleep” by Ludacris, Three 6 Mafia, I-20 & Fate Wilson… “Area Codes” by Ludacris & Nate Dogg… “Growing Pains” by Ludacris, Fate Wilson & Keon Bryce… “Block Lockdown” by Ludacris & I-20… “Slow Down” by Bobby Valentino… “Sound Off” by Slaughterhouse… “Lyrical Murderers” by Slaughterhouse & Kay Young… “Microphone” by Slaughterhouse
