Athletes switching between sports is nothing new. If fact, it’s as old as sports itself. The drive for competition often drives them into developing the heart of a road warrior as they tend to move from city to city more than most. There are also some that just happen to make memorable contributions or moments before calling it a career. A full career is what every athlete wants, but not all of them achieve that goal.
Of those that made a memorable moment, few could match Darren Drozdov. Unfortunately, he did so for a reason no one wants to see.
Droz is a name that’s hardly mentioned in professional wrestling anymore. He only wrestled for a couple of years before his career and life altering accident. He was just making a name for himself when on a D’Lo Brown’s powerbomb went wrong, and Droz landed on his head and fractured two vertebrae in his neck.
Accidents happen
Accidents are a way of life in sports, but especially in wrestling where the wrestlers put their bodies on the line every night for our entertainment. It takes a level of focus that’s difficult to imagine that keeps the competitors safe. Wrestling is a dance of sort, where all parties have to rely on each other to leave the ring in one piece.
But with hundreds and thousands of holds and moves that rely on humans to pull them off, there’s always the chance something will go wrong. Owen Hart, arguably the best technical wrestler of his time, piledrove Steve Austin’s head into the mat by accident.
It wasn’t malicious, but a simple miscalculation.
The same with Droz’s accident at a 1999 taping of Smackdown. In his own words, Drozdov said he was wearing a loose shirt during the match, and when Brown went for his signature running powerbomb, he wasn’t able to get a solid grip on Droz. Droz also admitted that he wasn’t able to give a good enough jump to help Brown lift him. Afterwards, Mick Foley stated that Brown was beside himself for what had happened.
Despite being rushed into surgery at Nassau County Medical Center and hours of surgery to stabilize the pressure in his neck, he would be left paralyzed from the neck down (quadriplegic). At the time, Smackdown was pretaped, so the segment was never aired, but Drozdov being carried out on a stretcher appeared in the WWE’s “Don’t Try This at Home” public service announcements that aired before their shows and on their VHS tapes and DVDs. With him were images of Triple H and others being helped from the ring, other superstars listing their injuries like Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit.
It was at the height of the Attitude Era where physical boundaries were being pushed on a regular basis. Considering that, it’s a miracle more severe injuries didn’t occur more often.
Life goes on — Heart of a Road Warrior
Darren Drozdoz began his rise to fame as an NFL player who was better known for the time he threw up during a Monday Night Football game (Fun fact: I was watching this game and was a struck as everyone else) than his play at the time. When he entered professional wrestling, Vince McMahon dubbed him Puke, as it was only natural and logical to hear, “Hawk, Animal, and Puke!” Yeah, I never got that line of thought either.
He would eventually fill in for Hawk during the Legion of Doom’s matches while Hawk was dealing with his alcoholism. Working with possibly the greatest tag team in history helped propel him to new heights, so when he shifted into a singles career, the sky was the limit.
His true heart of a road warrior was shown when he refused to submit to being paralyzed forever, and has since regained the use of his upper body and arms, as he showed in an interview where he held his arm up and pointed at the camera.
Despite his improvement, he still needs 24 hour medical care that includes lying flat for an extended period of time and several medications. In an interview with Jim Ross in 2014, he reiterated that his injury was an accident and he holds no animosity toward Brown.
While life threw him a curveball no one could’ve foreseen, and he’s made the best of it. He’s never given up, and has even written numerous articles and essays for websites and magazines over the years.
Darren Drozdov may not have had a long career, but it was definitely a memorable one.
