"It opened up so clean" - When legendary wrestler legitimately stabbed a man in a botched wrestling angle multiple times, leading to 58 stitches

Wrestling is not always for the faint of heart. There are several times that wrestling has gone too far and due to mistakes on either part, caused real-life injuries.

That's exactly what happened with legendary wrestlers Kevin Sullivan and Kouhiro Kanemura back during a match in March 1993 at Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling promotion.

In an angle that has since become infamous for its brutality, an angle was booked where Kevin Sullivan would attack Kanemura with a spike. In the angle, Sullivan would use the spike on Kanemura's arm, stabbing him with it multiple times, causing an incredible amount of blood to spill out on the TV show, leading to the show being censored.

After the match at Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Kanemura had to go to a hospital, where he got 58 stitches on his arm. He also needed 10 stitches on his head for a separate injury. As it turns out, the major part of the cut was not from being stabbed (although that certainly didn't help), but from the botched blading job that Kanemura did to his own arm. Instead of using a blade, he used a surgical knife in the moment.

Sullivan detailed the moment in an interview with WSI. He spoke about how Kanemura approached him first with the idea for the spot.

"He comes to me, Kanemura, and says, 'Sullivan-san, you spike on my arm.' I said, 'Spike your arm? Why not head?' 'No no no, my arm. Everybody bleed head.' I said, 'Okay.' I'm not gonna say no." (00:58 - 1:17)

He went on to talk about how Kanemura botched the spot and used a surgical knife to cut open a much larger part of his shoulder than was the plan. Having already stabbed him once before, Sullivan decided to use the spot in the best way possible and stab him multiple times.

"I stab him in the arm. He has a surgical knife. He cut his shoulder from the lower shoulder almost down to his elbow. It opened up so clean. It was hardly bleeding. It was about that much open. So people were starting to scream. The camera threw a big x on him. So I said, well the bad news is the bad news right now. So I took the spike and stuck it in there. I could see the tendons and bones." (1:27 - 2:10)

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Smoky Mountain Wrestling censored the moment on TV

In the moment, since an X was thrown up on screen censoring the wrestling match, it made the moment look even worse, with a lot of blood spilling and Sullivan apparently repeatedly stabbing Kanemura.

Cornette spoke about it, saying he approved the spot about having the arm stabbed because Kanemura was adamant that it would help him in Japan. The wrestler would even thank Sullivan after that, and how he had to be taken to the hospital.

"Kevin's f**king flipping out, and we have to take him to a hospital." (4:29 - 4:33)

The moment became infamous as quite a few fans were not ready to see that on TV.

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