Injuries are a fact of life in professional wrestling. While it’s always devastating to see a wrestler get hurt, sometimes the injuries are so severe that they end a wrestler’s career prematurely.
That was the case with Tyson Kidd, who suffered a serious injury at the hands of Samoa Joe that forced him to retire from the ring.
The injury was so severe that Kidd was forced to undergo neck surgery, and he was never able to return to the ring.
It was a tragic end to a promising career, and many fans and wrestlers were left wondering how such a devastating injury could happen.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the incident that ended Tyson Kidd’s career, and examine the impact it had on both wrestlers and the wrestling industry as a whole.
Samoa Joe Injured Tyson Kidd And Forced Him To Retire
During a dark match before WWE Superstars on the 1st June, 2015, Tyson Kidd took on NXT’s Samoa Joe in a match.
The match was likely for Vince McMahon to see Joe work, with a view to bring him up to the main roster in the near future.
Kidd had also spent time in NXT in the years prior, but had soon become part of one of the top teams in the WWE, winning the WWE Tag Team Championships, alongside his partner Cesaro.
However, it would all come crashing down during his match with Samoa Joe. The former TNA World Heavyweight Champion hit his famous Muscle Buster finisher on Kidd, and attempted the pin fall to win the match.
However, Kidd was in bad shape. Upon impact, Tyson Kidd broke his neck and suffered from a spinal concussion, with his vision going bright white and losing all movement in his body.
He was temporarily paralysed, and could not move a muscle in the ring. This was his last match ever, as Tyson Kidd was forced to retire immediately, or else risk total paralysis, or even death.
It has been said that only 5% of people who suffer the type of neck break that he has even survive, let alone walk out of it without any permanent paralysis.
Tyson Kidd was asked about what happened in the ring with Samoa Joe, during an interview with Chris Van Vliet.
The former WWE wrestler revealed that he lost feeling throughout his entire body, and was no longer in control of his own body.
“I remember everything very vividly, yeah. Yeah, I lost feeling for about five seconds. Every head-to-toe scary time, stand still. Dude, you just sit there like in no control whatsoever. It’s not it wasn’t in my control, I was at a higher power, I was at somebody’s mercy just sitting there.
You can’t move anything, also your body feels like it weighs like two million pounds. But in there was some weird voice telling me, ‘This isn’t permanent.’ Now in that five-second span, you’re doing a lot of thinking like this little voice is telling me that. Doesn’t mean this voice is right, though. But luckily, thankfully, it was.”
Tyson Kidd and Samoa Joe
In the same interview, Tyson Kidd revealed that he bears no ill-will toward Samoa Joe.
The Canadian revealed that Joe was incredibly apologetic after the event, visiting Kidd in the hospital that night.
They also met up backstage in the WWE once Kidd returned to work as a producer. Kidd retired from wrestling immediately after the injury, and begun working as a backstage producer for the WWE.
“He came to the hospital that first night when I got hurt, and then we would exchange texts all the time. And then he was one of the first guys I found when I came back in Los Angeles last June.
As a producer, he was. I like sought him out. That, I mean, wasn’t hard to find him, but I found him, and we had a very good talk. And we get along well. There’s no animosity with me and Joe. It’s just a perfect storm of whatever it was.
And then when we hit, just everything went. It’s the whitest light I’ve ever seen in my life. But yeah, we have no, there’s zero bad feelings. That’s mean Joe. Yeah, is it? He didn’t do it with some type of malice and intent at all. So, and he came to the hospital that night, and we’re good.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Chris Van Vliet with a H/T to Atletifo for the transcription.
Hamish is a writer and podcaster and wrestling fan who is a key part of the Atletifo team.
After playing countless hours of WrestleMania X8 on the Gamecube, he discovered Rey Mysterio getting his head crushed by The Great Khali, and thus a love for professional wrestling was born.
He is also a Media Graduate, as well as writing for multiple sites about Premier League football and the culture of Wales – his home country.
