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Freak Injury Friday: Susie Spirit

Was watching some ancient Simpsons when I saw Homer watching a video called "Football's Greatest Injuries" and wondered, "Why hasn't anybody ever tried to make a wrestling column out of that?"  How about we all find out the answer together?


We kick things off with what was perhaps the most horrific Diva injury of all time, and possibly the most celebrated.

Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) was a national cutural juggernaunt in the 80's, a gritty low-budget, exploitative, decidedly non-PC all-ladies wrestling show that might be considered the ECW of its time.  It would take an entire documentary to talk about the impact GLOW had on wrestling, so if you're so inclined I suggest that you watch this one.

By far the most famous match in GLOW history was this tag team match between Susie Spirit and Debbie Debutante va Meena and Mika, aka The Headhunters.  The following match contains some very graphic footage;  parental discretion is advised.



The injury in question occurs at around the 3:15 mark.  Spirit attempts to do a Sunset Flip on Mika, when things go horribly, horribly wrong.  In fact, they go so wrong that GLOW shows this same footage again and again and again, from as many different angles as possible for many months to come.

Far from killing the promotion, this injury seemed to make GLOW and its clumsy wrestlers even more popular.  Sadly, like ECW, management blunders ultimately led to the demise of GLOW at the height of its popularity...yet somehow, David Mclane is never thought of in the same vein as Paul Heyman.

P.S. Susie Spirit would go on to recover, but as The Headhunters were no longer with the company upon her return, they had to create a new one to allow Susie to get her revenge.

Comments

  1. I think my only limitation for this topic is that the injured wrestler goes on to wrestle again.

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  2. Are you saying Owen Hart isn't have ***** matches with Eddie in heaven?

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  3. YankeesHoganTripleHFanNovember 14, 2014 at 4:03 PM

    Ohh they were about to show Joe Theisman!

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  4. YankeesHoganTripleHFanNovember 14, 2014 at 4:05 PM

    I don't know... That hot sauce in the chili was a pretty mean rib. He might be having five star matches with Chris.

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  5. Are you saying Owen is in hell?

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  6. If Owen is in heaven, then I want to go to hell.

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  7. Can we veto this feature?

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  8. YankeesHoganTripleHFanNovember 14, 2014 at 4:10 PM

    Or Chris is in Heaven and it was just a mean rib.

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  9. CruelConnectionNumber2November 14, 2014 at 4:13 PM

    Holy shit, what fucking animals would show that on a taped show.

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  10. Considering Zana's other "project", at least this one has a "happy" ending.


    (By "happy ending", I mean no one dies. Unlike SSW, which will soon be nothing more than a poor quality nightmare.)

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  11. Oh my. (although not worse than that NCAA kid who broke his leg with the bone sticking out on national tv)

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  12. Without going into gory detail, what was the injury? I have no interest in actually seeing it.

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  13. That traumatized me as a kid.. I had to stop jerking off to GLOW for at least a week,.

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  14. I'm going off a pair of responses below, and think it's a broken leg.

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  15. It's actually the arm/elbow, pretty gruesome (although unfortunately I've seen worse freak injuries on live tv)

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  16. TJ: It's annoying that people give all WWE writer's a bad rep. I read that Stephen Guerrieri is the new NXT head writer. He was a former writer for food shows, such as Rachel Ray, so of course the commentators jumped all over that. However, people don't understand that, as a writer, you'll take any job you can find. So, who is to say that this guy isn't a huge wrestling fan or, at the very least, a great writer? I mean, I'm sure his dream job wasn't writing for a cook job. He's just trying to climb up the ladder.

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  17. Cultural juggernaut?

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  18. Ah. I was going off the Theismann joke, and your Ware post below.

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  19. Dislocated elbow. I remember it from when it originally aired. I loved GLOW back in the day.

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  20. I think it's one of those things where we when we see stupid stuff on tv, how much of that do we attribute to writer's who have little to no experience in THIS BUSINESS and not understanding what's good "wresting" tv, and Vince/Steph (to a lesser extent HHH) changing stuff at the last minute all the time and exerting their influence. If the various accounts I've read of how Vince constantly changes stuff at the last minute is true, it would be very difficult to do a good job in that environment.

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  21. Gruesome injuries are not my scene. I don't have the stomach for it.

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  22. "Yep Mode" Abeyance Brown ©November 14, 2014 at 5:04 PM

    Well, I just ate a full meal, let's see if I can muster this.

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  23. Wait, where the Friday night thread at? We can discuss ass-eating, Paige's ass, eating Paige's ass, balloon knots...

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  24. "Yep Mode" Abeyance Brown ©November 14, 2014 at 5:05 PM

    Can I re welcome you to the BoD?

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  25. "Yep Mode" Abeyance Brown ©November 14, 2014 at 5:06 PM

    Half an hour early?

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  26. Just got discussion sake, the GLOW documentary shows this in all its gory detail. That documentary, BTW ,is pretty awesome.

    In conclusion, I wanted to say I like the GLOW documentary.

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  27. You were watching Hell On Wheels. Cha Cha's injury is WAY more gruesome than Susie Spirit's

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  28. Well, Sid and Austin for sure, but that's too easy.

    Definitely hayabusa, and probably sabu cracking his jaw. Sasuke busting his head open is way up there.

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  29. Probably the kind that thought up GLOW.

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  30. Sad to see what's become of Mt. Fuji.

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  31. I'm surprised Big Bad Mama died and Fiji is still alive, as i never would've guessed that from watching the doc.

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  32. Wow... never actually heard of this one.

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  33. UGH GLOW replayed this injury roughly 4,000 times.


    Hayabusa's injury is easily the worst I've seen. I saw it once and can't bring myself to watch it again.

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  34. That doc was surprisingly awesome.

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  35. For some reason, I watched the Hayabusa one once. It haunts my dreams.

    That guy had all the potential in the world and wasted it on stupid deathmatches and spot fests. I don't understand....

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  36. I dunno...like chicagodem79 said, I think the writers are in an impossible spot. They're basically writing for a kinda crazy, out of touch old man and hoping he doesn't chew them out. I don't think anyone's doing their best work in that environment. But you're right in that the writers don't deserve all the flack they get. I can't imagine working in that environment.

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  37. Yep, the same lowlife animal that made some of the women sleep with him in order to get hired.

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  38. Adam "Colorado" CurryNovember 14, 2014 at 10:21 PM

    That's one of those things where I've seen it once and will never watch it again. Crazy how it happened on a pretty routine spot too.

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  39. Nothing will top seeing Sid's leg snap in two. Just painful to watch.


    Vader's eye popping out during his match with Stan Hansen has to be mentioned. The best part about it was how he just took off the mask, popped his eye back in place, and they continued the match stiffing the fuck out of eachother for the next 15 minutes.


    HHH's quad tear wasn't a visible injury, but I still wonder just how much pain he was in when he let Jericho lock in the liontamer on him. Same with HBK taking hard turnbuckle and back bumps in his WM14 match.

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  40. Not according to Randy Orton.

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  41. I almost vomited when I saw the Sid injury. Some fool I was watching with said "what's wrong? It's just proof wrestlers wear platform boots".

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  42. I never had a problem watching injuries until I snapped my own leg 13 years ago. In my head, it sounded like a shotgun going off. Since then, I can't bring myself to watch bones snapping, and limbs bending in the wrong direction.

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  43. I've pulled my quad playing kickball and it hurt like hell to put any weight on it let alone walk on it. HHH has to be a freak to be able to walk and do what he did with a torn one.

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