During a live episode of Monday Night Raw on September 10th 2012, Jerry “The King”
Lawler suffered a legitimate heart attack causing him to collapse at the announcers
table.
Paramedics quickly rushed to the scene and performed CPR on Lawler before he was moved
backstage to be resuscitated.
According to some backstage reports, Lawler was clinically dead for around 20 minutes
before being brought back to life by a defibrillator.
Thanks to the efforts of doctors and medical staff present on that day, Lawler’s life
was saved and he underwent an angioplasty in order to improve blood flow to his heart.
2 months following this, Lawler made his return to the WWE, however, was interrupted by CM
Punk and Paul Heyman, who made a mockery of his heart attack.
Goldust, who is still going strong in the WWE to this day, hit his all-time low back
in 2004 which saw him at death’s door.
In his book, “Cross Rhodes: Goldust, Out of The Darkness”, Goldust opened up about
spending his money on “coke, pills and booze”.
Day in and day out, he drank half a gallon of vodka, ingested around 60 pills and even
took cocaine if that wasn’t enough.
Things got so bad that he even started buying more pills from drug dealers whenever he would
run out and went as far as taking a little cocaine before his matches.
After a three-day-binge, Goldust finally realised that enough was enough and sought help from
his father, the late Dusty Rhodes.
After spending some time rehabilitating, Goldust is now drug and alcohol free as of May 2008
and is looking better than ever.
In June of 2002, we could have lost one the greatest professional wrestlers of all time,
Bret “The Hit Man” Hart.
Hart was riding at a high speed on his bike when he hit a pothole, causing him to fly
over his handlebars and land hard on the back of his head.
Hart was left completely paralysed on his left side and suffered a stroke as a result
of the accident.
Fortunately, Hart was able to recover after months of physical therapy, however, he does
suffer from emotional imbalances.
This was not the only instance where Bret Hart escaped death as he was a victim of prostate
cancer back in early 2016.
Thankfully, after a successful surgery Bret Hart appeared to have beaten the disease as
it did not spread to other areas of his body.
The Heart Break Kid, Shawn Michaels nearly lost his life in a struggle with drug abuse
during the late 90s and early 2000s.
We would never have seen some of his greatest matches with the likes of Ric Flair, Chris
Jericho and The Undertaker.
Imagine that!
Actually, we wouldn’t want to.
During these dark times, Michaels would often get drunk and take drugs on a regular basis
but things got worse when he started to have suicidal thoughts.
In fact, in his autobiography, “Wrestling for My Life: The Legend, the Reality, and
the Faith of a WWE Superstar”, Michaels stated, “I was doing everything I could
to kill myself except put a loaded weapon in my hand”.
Luckily, Michaels decided to stop before he could do any further harm to himself after
his 2-year-old son noticed him unconsciousness on the coach and asked his mother, why his
father was sleeping all the time.
The “Limousine Ridin', Jet Flyin', Kiss Stealin', Wheelin' Dealin', Son of a Gun”
and 16-time World Champion, Ric Flair escaped death back in 1975 when he was involved in
a deadly plane crash in Wilmington, North Carolina.
The fatal crash occurred when the Cessna aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed close to a mile
from Wilmington airport claiming the life of the pilot and paralysing Johnny Valentine,
the father of Greg “The Hammer” Valentine.
Flair suffered multiple lacerations and broke his back in three places.
He was actually told by doctors that he would never wrestle again.
However, he proved them wrong as after months of physical therapy, the Nature Boy went on
to recover and returned to wrestling where he feuded with Wahoo McDaniel, although he
had to adapt his wrestling style.
Earlier in the flight, Flair and Valentine, who became paralysed as a result of the crash,
swapped seats due to Flair constantly complaining.
Had they had not switched seats, Flair’s career, legacy and even the whole of the professional
wrestling industry may have been entirely different to the one we all know of today.