A Parasailing Trip Gone Wrong Nearly Ended Brutus Beefcake's Life
For a large part of the '80s, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake was known to WWE fans as a man who walked around with scissors — completely different from the scissoring craze that has taken over AEW. Beefcake regularly looked to cut his opponent's hair, snipping off a lock as a trophy of sorts for his victories. With this gimmick, Beefcake became a regular on WWF television, as his popularity among fans increased.
Beefcake had the honor of competing on each of the first six WrestleManias, with his biggest victory coming at WrestleMania VI in 1990 when he defeated Mr. Perfect in the fourth match of the night. With such a huge singles win, one would think Beefcake was set to hit the next level within the promotion. However, just months later, Beefcake's life would take a turn that no one could have ever predicted. He was involved in a parasailing accident while he was with the Killer Bees' Brian Blair on the Fourth of July at his friend's lakehouse. His career and almost his life were in jeopardy.
Beefcake was told he would never be able to wrestle again following the accident.
While on "THE HANNIBAL TV," Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake provided the details of the accident. "[I] was struck in the face by a girl being pulled in a parachute harness. Her knees struck me ... right here in the teeth and one in the cheekbone," Beefcake explained, "because her legs were, her legs together and, at 35 miles it hit me so hard, it disintegrated my face." Beefcake knew he was in serious trouble but he was luckily on the receiving end of exceptional medical attention that wound up saving him on a few fronts.
"By the grace of God, the best pallet reconstructive surgeon in the world — guy from Armenia — just happened to be working and living locally, in the area," Beefcake said. "[He] took over and basically saved my life and was able to do a surgery." Beefcake also revealed that the length of the surgery reached about 18 hours, and they had multiple different teams work on him throughout. Following the operations, he was told that he probably would never be able to step foot inside the squared circle to wrestle again.
That wound up not being the case, however, as Beefcake would again take part in in-ring competition, even headlining a WCW pay-per-view against Hulk Hogan in 1994 under the name The Butcher. Beefcake would go on to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019 by none other than Hogan.