The Most Injured Wrestlers Of All Time

Injuries come with the territory in professional wrestling. While there is a distinction to be made between being "hurt" or "injured," chances are, wrestlers who stay involved in the profession long enough will get injured at some point. The demanding schedule of some promotions, namely WWE, combined with the fear of "losing their spot" can push wrestlers toward the realm of performance-enhancing drugs and pain relievers to help them recover faster. Needless to say, the culture of pro wrestling does not exactly lend itself to wrestlers always making good choices on the road to recovery, sometimes causing seemingly minor injuries to evolve into bigger ones with lasting ramifications on one's career. 

One of the most appealing parts of pro wrestling to many fans is the quantity and diversity of styles they get to see clash on any given night. Some styles take more of a physical toll than others and lead to shorter careers, such as strong-style wrestlers working stiff and accruing "receipts" or hardcore wrestlers putting their bodies through unnecessary trauma.

The debate over career longevity versus match quality served as the catalyst for The Miz's famous "Talking Smack" promo on Daniel Bryan, one of the greatest of his career. After Bryan claimed The Miz "wrestles like a coward," Miz unleashed on his former onscreen protege, proclaiming the reason he wrestles the way he does is because he can do it "day in and day out all the time for 10-plus years" and that he has never been injured. Sure enough, Miz is among the most durable superstars in WWE history, but his career is more exception than rule as many "safe" wrestlers become injury prone for reasons beyond their control. Here are 15 of the most frequently injured wrestlers of all time.

Injuries forced Mick Foley into retirement before he could even turn 40, but unlike many of the names on this list, his decisions in the ring led to many of the physical woes he sustained over the years. On the back of his first autobiography, "Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks," there is a picture of Foley dressed as Mankind with a litany of arrows pointing at different parts of his body where he sustained varying degrees of injuries throughout his career.

The arrows pointed out 21 injuries in all, and included "two herniated disks," "eight concussions," "two-thirds of ear ripped off" and "over 325 stitches" just to name a few. However, the book came out in 1999 and merely chronicles Foley's career leading up to Mankind's WWE World Championship victory. Foley is also notable for landing face-first in a bed of thumbtacks during his match with Triple H at the Royal Rumble in 2000.

Today, Foley continues to feel the effects of his hardcore wrestling style, and admits it has taken a toll on his way of life. "The Hardcore Legend" broke down his 2012 visit to the doctor in an episode of his podcast, "Foley is Pod." "[The doctor] said, 'We've been looking over your MRIs and your X-rays,'" Foley explained. "'You've got too many issues. You got muscular, neurological, skeletal, and even if we are able to help from a neurological standpoint, there's nothing we can do with those other things.' I'm looking at all these things I did during the course of my career and I mean, I'm paying a steeper price than I thought imaginable."

Ken Anderson, who wrestled under the name Mr. Kennedy for nearly five years in WWE, was once thought to be a future megastar in the company. Unfortunately, injuries began to mount for the seeming blue-chipper, and after earning the label of being "injury prone," he abruptly left the company under controversial circumstances. His departure stemmed from an argument Anderson had with Randy Orton about the way he slammed Orton in a match on "WWE Raw."

While in WWE, Anderson sustained a latissimus dorsi tear in the midst of his first big push, returning six months later. He would be injured again later in 2006 after suffering an exposed cranium laceration that took twenty stitches to close. Injuries continued to follow Anderson in his ascent up the card, and an initially diagnosed tricep tear cost him his Money in the Bank briefcase to Edge. Upon getting a second opinion, the tricep tear turned out to be a large hematoma.

In his older age, Anderson has maintained a largely clean bill of health, and while he may not be main-eventing WrestleMania, he is still active in wrestling, training aspiring in-ring performers at his wrestling school alongside business partner and fellow ex-WWE superstar Shawn Daivari. In 2015, Anderson gave an interview with Wrestling Inc. and was asked what it took for him to shed the injury-prone label. "Not working with people that injure me," Anderson said while laughing. "That was the one thing that fired me up about the injuries. I can't help it if someone walks up and smashes you in the knee with a baseball bat. That doesn't make you injury prone."

A prized pupil of one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Shawn Michaels, Bryan Danielson developed a believable, physically taxing style of wrestling that has won fans around the world. Some even consider Danielson to be one of the best wrestlers of his generation.

However, Danielson's intense style has led him to be labeled as "injury prone" at different stages of his career, and his history with injuries could conceivably be holding him back from a more prominent onscreen role in AEW. He does, after all, share the commonality with wrestlers such as Edge, Christian, and Saraya (Paige) of having been forced into early injury retirement only to make their return years down the road.

Concussions have particularly slowed Danielson's career down. He is known to have sustained concussions on several different occasions in WWE, all of which came at inopportune times. Danielson also suffered a major neck injury in 2014, which required surgery and led to a long layoff not long after he won the WWE World Championship at WrestleMania 30. Two years after delivering a heartfelt retirement speech on "WWE Raw" in Seattle, Danielson received clearance to return to the ring, and went on to wrestle in WWE for approximately three more years before heading to AEW. Since arriving in Tony Khan's promotion, the injury bug bit Danielson ahead of "Forbidden Door," nixing plans for a match between himself and Zack Sabre Jr.

Much like his mentor Triple H, Batista has dealt with a similar rap sheet of injuries despite working an in-ring style mostly predicated on taking little damage. Unlike "The Game," however, Batista got into wrestling at an older age. He signed with WWE at 31 years old, debuting on the main roster in 2002 and later joining Triple H in Evolution. He famously turned on Triple H and proceeded to become, along with John Cena, one of the biggest WWE babyfaces of the mid-2000s. 

However, Batista's run at the top felt constantly hampered by injury setbacks. During the beginning of his run with Evolution, Batista tore his right triceps muscle, then tore it again while rehabbing the injury. After he became World Heavyweight Champion, a Double Chokeslam from Kane and The Big Show caused "The Animal" to tear a muscle in his back and vacate the belt. Shortly after returning, Batista tore his right triceps for a third time in a match against Mark Henry in January 2006, causing him to miss WrestleMania 22. Upon returning, Batista's health held to form for two years before succumbing to a hamstring tear in his match with John Cena at SummerSlam in 2008.

A 2009 bicep tear marked the last of Batista's in-ring injuries. Now 53, Batista has since gone on to have a successful movie career. He is perhaps best known for his role as Drax the Destroyer in Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" series, and has starred opposite comedians such as Kevin Hart and Kumail Nanjiani. However, "The Animal" did manage to have one last match against Triple H at WrestleMania 35, his retirement match. Despite Triple H not being fully recovered from a torn pec he suffered at "Crown Jewel" in 2018, Batista made it through the match unscathed.

Sami Zayn is currently one of the most over wrestlers on the planet, and that's in large part due to his character work as opposed to his work inside the ring. Prior to his heel run on "WWE SmackDown" or becoming The Bloodline's "Honorary Uce," Zayn relied heavily on his wrestling to accrue favor with the fans. He wrestled for several years on the independent scene as masked luchador El Generico, but dropped the mask in signing with WWE, thereby becoming Sami Zayn, "The Underdog from the Underground." Zayn initially caught fire due to his physical and dramatic matches, and even became the "WWE NXT" Champion for a spell.

Zayn made his surprise main roster debut in his hometown of Montreal, Quebec, Canada as John Cena's opponent for his weekly United States Championship Open Challenge. However, the Canadian sustained an unorthodox injury to his arm after whipping it around during his entrance. He can even be seen immediately favoring the arm after the injury occurred. Zayn underwent an MRI, and ended up missing seven months to rehab the injury.

Zayn's faulty shoulders came back into focus in 2018, when he received double shoulder surgery to repair torn rotator cuffs on both shoulders. He spoke to WWE.com between surgeries and remarked about his evolution as a performer. "There's never a good time to get hurt or get surgeries, but I do feel like I was starting to hit my stride and find my voice and find myself as a performer," Zayn said. "Which is funny, because 16 years in, it's like I'm rediscovering the art of it in a sense, because I'm doing something I've never really done before."

KENTA's disappointing run in "WWE NXT" certainly wasn't for a lack of trying on the part of the creative team. The Japanese superstar burst on the scene at a young age due to the highly physical nature of his matches. As a result, injuries came with the territory for the 5-foot-9, sub-200 pound KENTA. He sustained three different knee injuries and had to vacate championship belts on two different occasions while employed by Pro Wrestling NOAH. He signed with WWE in the summer of 2014 and would be rechristened Hideo Itami, which appropriately translates to "Hero of Pain."

Itami's first hit of bad luck in "NXT" was a shoulder injury in May 2015 that was projected to sideline him until the end of the year. However, Itami had complications while recovering and would miss even more time. After over a year of inactivity, Itami returned on June 30, 2016, but would return to the sidelines three months later when he injured his neck on a botched powerslam from Riddick Moss.

The former Hideo Itami has since left WWE and gone on to become a featured player for New Japan Pro Wrestling, competing under his old name, KENTA. He is a member of the Bullet Club, and has won both the NEVER Openweight Championship and the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. While he has largely managed to keep healthy during his second run in his native Japan, KENTA will need to continue to do so if he is to ever become one of Japan's most bankable stars.

Kurt Angle came to WWE from an Olympic-caliber amateur wrestling background. A protege of the late, great Dave Schultz, Angle put his body through some of the most intense and rigorous training an athlete can do, and the sport of amateur wrestling carries a similar injury risk to that of pro wrestling. Prior to his gold medal match at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, Angle famously fractured two vertebrae, herniated two discs and pulled four muscles in his neck during trials.

However, Angle still planned to wrestle — if he could somehow obtain clearance from a doctor. "There were a lot of things that were going on," Angle told ESPN. "No doctor would clear me — that was the most important thing, getting cleared. Back then I was young and dumb, 26 years old, I didn't care about my health. I just wanted to get back into the game. Fortunately, I found a doctor either smart enough or stupid enough to allow me to wrestle."

Fast-forwarding to his career in WWE, Angle's injuries began to mount, namely in his neck. Angle's neck began to flare up ahead of his WrestleMania 19 match with Brock Lesnar, and similarly to his experience competing in the Olympics, doctors hesitated to clear him. However, Angle wrestled the match anyway, opting to have surgery less than two weeks later. The surgery, performed by Dr. Hae-Dong Jho, repaired nerve and spinal damage, calcium buildup, bone spurs, and intervertebral disc problems. Angle's neck flared up again after WrestleMania 20, and led to him developing a dependence on pain medication that contributed to his departure from WWE and led to a host of other minor injuries while wrestling in TNA. Today, Angle lives a relatively normal life, though his arms have since atrophied as a result of neck fusion surgery.