Ex-WWE Champion Recalls Injury That Led To Serious Pain Followed By Laughter
A former WWE champion recalled a match that caused a lot of pain but soon turned into laughter.
Ken Kennedy was a former United States Champion in WWE and a Money in the Bank winner who nearly became a World Champion, but injuries and outside-the-ring incidents derailed those plans.
When Kennedy was fired by WWE, he had a lot of heat with big names like Randy Orton and John Cena, and he never returned to the company after being fired in May 2009.
Although Kennedy didn’t become a World Champion in WWE, he was a 2-time World Champion in TNA under his real name, Ken Anderson.
At 49, the former Mr. Kennedy has trained wrestlers, including WWE’s Tiffany Stratton, in recent years and enjoys telling stories about his wrestling career.
In a new interview with Pro Wrestling Culture, Anderson recalled one of the worst injuries he sustained as a wrestler.
“The actual worst thing that ever happened to me was I dislocated my shoulder. I ended up- Shelton Benjamin gave me, we had a miscommunication and Shelton Benjamin gave me his finishing move, which is called Pay Dirt, where he jumps up and he pulls you down and I wasn’t expecting it, and my arm got trapped this way. So I went from standing position to laying on the mat, and it just dislocated my shoulder, popped it out, and it slid up.
So my arm was like that (gestures), and it was literally the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. I had to get out of the ring. First, he had to pin me, which hurt, and then I had to lay there going like.. I had to roll out of the ring somehow and then get to the back.”
Mr. Kennedy’s Pain At WWE Event Became Laughter
Shoulder injuries are serious, but they can be treated quickly if the shoulder can be popped back into the socket. As former Mr. Kennedy continued his shoulder injury story, he described being in so much pain, then suddenly feeling none, and he laughed about it.
“I’m laying on this table in the back and the doctor’s working on me and he’s trying to like pull it and reset it and it wouldn’t go, and he goes, ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to get you- we’re going to have to get you into the ambulance and take you to the hospital and then we’ll reset it at that, and I was just like doing the quick math in my head.
I was like, ‘it’s going to be like an hour before I get seen, before this gets fixed, there’s no way, and I just, I grabbed him by the shirt and I was like, ‘Please just do it now.’ He went, ‘okay, somebody grab his legs, somebody grab his head,’ and then somebody held on to me, grabbed my feet and somebody grabbed my shoulders, my head. He just grabbed my wrist and my arm and he sort of started key locking me and just turned it and turned it and it just popped, and I started laughing.
I literally, like the pain went from astronomical, I can’t believe anything could hurt worse than this, to no pain at all. I could not stop myself from laughing. I laughed so hard.”
As the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine.