Injury
Drozdov's active wrestling career ended suddenly when he suffered a severe neck injury during a match with D'Lo Brown during a WWF SmackDown! taping on October 5, 1999 at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Drozdov, in an interview, states he was wearing a loose shirt during the match. When Brown went for his signature running powerbomb, he wasn't able to gain a proper grip on Droz while Droz wasn't able to execute a proper jump to aid in the lifting of the powerbomb. Additionally, a fan-thrown drink in the ring caused Brown to slip slightly, and as a result, the move was botched. However, during a 'Title Match Wrestling' shoot interview, D'Lo Brown gave a conflicting view, stating...
"Droz and I have talked about it on several occasions...we don't know what went wrong. Out of respect, we don't watch the tape. I can clear up a few misnomers; it wasn't a fan throwing ice in the ring or throwing garbage in the ring, or I didn't slip. It was just...and it could have been anybody in the ring with him that night, it just happened to be me. It happened to be my sad misfortune to be in the ring with him, and because of that, you know, a man is paralyzed."
Drozdov landed on his head, and fractured two disks in his neck. He was immediately rushed to Nassau County Medical Center where he underwent hours of surgery to reduce and stabilize the pressure on his injured neck. Because the match was pre-taped, it was not aired to fans during the October 7 broadcast and has never been shown to the public. However, the footage of him being taken out on a stretcher has been seen in WWE's "Don't Try This at Home" public service announcements.
Even with intensive medical care, his injury initially left him a quadriplegic with essentially no movement below the neck. Droz has since regained movement in his upper body and arms, as can be seen in a shoot interview online (he holds his right arm up to the camera at one point). (The medical definition of quadriplegia requires only that some impairment exist in all four limbs; many quadriplegics with injuries to one or more lower cervical vertebrae have fully functioning arms but impairment of the fingers.)
Fellow wrestler Mick Foley recounts in his 2001 book Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker than Wrestling, that he was at the hospital with D'Lo Brown after the match. Brown was extremely upset at what had happened. Foley tells how Drozdov (on a stretcher) told Brown not to blame himself and that it was an accident.
Read more about this topic: Darren Drozdov
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