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Injuries are an unfortunate part of pro wrestling. Most wrestlers work hurt most of the time due to the inherently-painful nature of wrestling, and likely all of them hope to never suffer a serious injury that would prevent them from wrestling.
Sadly, such injuries do occur more often than not, and when they happen they have serious consequences on any promotion’s long-term booking and creative directions. WWE is no stranger to these problems, as they’ve struggled many times with having to change their directions completely due to wrestlers getting injured.
As much as wrestlers themselves might try to work through the pain and continue working, there are some types of injuries whereby doing this is simply impossible. And when these wrestlers do end up on the shelf, their absence has serious and long-term effects on WWE’s booking.
Here are eight injuries that effectively changed the face of WWE.
#8 Triple H's first quad injury
In 2001, Triple H was one of WWE’s biggest stars, and was pushed prominently as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin’s tag team partner. However, all of this came to a sudden end when Triple H suffered a devastating quadriceps tear in May 2001.
That injury put him on the shelf for about eight months, which caused The Cerebral Assassin to miss the entire Invasion storyline. Without Triple H representing WWE in that storyline, it meant that there were fewer top stars representing Vince’s promotion in the WWE vs. WCW storyline.
Had he been healthy and capable of wrestling, there could’ve been more big matches and the Invasion storyline could’ve had more depth with Triple H possibly playing the role of a WWE wrestler that suffered when he performed in WCW.
#7 Daniel Bryan's injuries as champion
WWE spent months building up Daniel Bryan as a top babyface of the company. He suffered immensely as a babyface, and experienced a lot of adversity as a wrestler, only for him to keep defying the Authority, no matter what kinds of torture they threw his way.
This culminated in Bryan winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXX in one of the most satisfying moments in WWE history. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be, as Bryan suffered a major injury that cut his WWE Championship reign short.
Bryan’s first WWE title run – the one that was built up so much and had so much investment behind it – lasted a mere 64 days before Bryan was forced to surrender the title before undergoing neck surgery.
This caused WWE to change their plans for the WWE Championship, and thus prevented them from booking several potential dream matches with Daniel Bryan as champion that could’ve brought WWE a ton of money in the form of ticket sales and more widespread popularity and critical acclaim.
#6 Edge's career-ending injuries
Between the late 2000s and early 2000s, SmackDown was something of a barren place. Few stars managed to really shine on the blue brand during that era, as most of WWE’s creative focus shifted back to RAW.
However, one of the biggest stars to benefit from the brand extension was Edge, who transitioned from a ‘glorified tag team wrestler’ to one of the best and most decorated wrestlers in WWE history. Sadly, his main run between 2003 and 2011 was, in his own words, on borrowed time, and that time ran out after WrestleMania XXVII.
Edge’s neck injuries and the gradual deterioration of his body forced him to retire and vacate the World Heavyweight Championship. This had serious ramifications for SmackDown at the time, as Edge was undoubtedly the brand’s biggest star at the time.
Edge’s retirement caused WWE to redo all of their plans for the World title picture, and had to completely change which stars would carry that brand forward in the coming years until the world titles were unified at the end of 2013.
#5 Finn Balor's title-vacating injury
Finn Balor currently holds the record for shortest time period for a wrestler to go from debuting on WWE’s main roster to becoming a world champion. It took Balor only 27 days to win the WWE Universal Championship, which was a sign that WWE’s higher-ups had big plans for the newly-created Universal Championship with Balor as its inaugural holder.
Sadly, those plans never materialized as Balor was injured in the opening moments of the match in which he won the Universal Championship itself. This caused WWE to completely scuttle all plans they had with Balor as champion and instead forced them to go with Kevin Owens as a heel champion instead.
To be quite honest, that title reign wasn’t that good; Owens looked weak more often than not, as WWE has a tendency to book heel champions as weak and underhanded instead of being dominant (with few exceptions).
If Balor was champion, the RAW world title picture would’ve looked completely different from how it actually was with Kevin Owens as champion.
#4 Seth Rollins' knee injury in 2015
In 2015, Seth Rollins was in the middle of a monster push as WWE Champion. He had defeated numerous opponents as the Authority’s top heel, and was enjoying immense success as a result.
However, Seth suffered a debilitating knee injury that completely changed RAW’s world title scene. Seth was forced to vacate the WWE Championship shortly thereafter, and was also forced to miss WrestleMania 32 due to this same injury.
This caused WWE to completely change their plans for the title, which led to the feud between Roman Reigns and The Authority & the League of Nations.
This feud did little to elevate Reigns and did a lot of damage to the members of the League of Nations, and also deprived the WWE fans of the potential of seeing a main-event feud between then-heel champion Seth Rollins and an up-and-coming babyface in Roman Reigns.
#3 Kurt Angle
Kurt Angle has long been known as a ‘wrestling machine’ due to his incredible wrestling ability in spite of his myriad of injuries. These problems, especially his neck injuries, caused him to undergo multiple surgeries that would gradually cause him to wrestle less and less.
These problems reached a peak in 2004 when Angle was no longer able to wrestle on a full-time schedule, which is why Angle assumed the role of SmackDown General Manager for a time during that year.
However, the reason this injury changed the face of WWE is because Angle was sidelined and couldn’t wrestle at a time when SmackDown didn’t have any top heels. Brock Lesnar had left WWE, and Angle himself was capable of playing a heel as well as he could a babyface.
Because of the lack of top-level heels, WWE was forced to rethink all of their plans and push Bradshaw, previously known mainly as a mid-carder, to become the JBL character and become a main-event-level heel.
Had Angle never been injured, he could’ve been SmackDown’s top heel and would’ve been much more successful than he was as SmackDown’s on-screen authority figure.
#2 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin
‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin is without a doubt the biggest Superstar WWE has ever produced. He was such a megastar that he was able to enjoy a lengthy run at the top of the company thanks to the success of his lengthy feud with evil boss Mr. McMahon.
However, Austin was on borrowed time from the very beginning, given his serious neck injury from SummerSlam 1997. By the end of 1999, the cumulative stress this and his other injures were putting on Austin’s body forced him to get surgery and stop performing for months.
This caused WWE to completely re-think and change their creative direction with Austin on the shelf. Austin’s injury allowed for The Rock to fill Austin’s role as top babyface in WWE, which also allowed for his feud with Austin to grow even further.
Had Austin never suffered that injury, it would’ve led to a completely different main event picture in WWE.
#1 Shawn Michaels
At the 1998 Royal Rumble, Shawn Michaels suffered a debilitating back injury that would keep him retired from in-ring competition until 2002. At the time, Michaels was the WWE World Champion, and was arguably the company’s top heel in the aftermath of the Montreal Screwjob.
While HBK did wrestle against Austin at WrestleMania XIV as he was supposed to, he left the company immediately afterwards, and didn’t actually wrestle in any major capacity for four years. This changed the landscape of WWE for that time period as HBK wasn’t able to enter into feuds with wrestlers properly because he wasn’t an active performer at the time.
While this did allow for other wrestlers to rise up and fill the role of WWE’s top heel that Shawn once held, WWE was still forced to completely change many of their plans and book entirely different people because Michaels was too hurt to wrestle for an incredibly long time.
