• Old School WWF Veteran Would Have Celebrated His Birthday
Today would have been the 71st birthday of Old School WWF Veteran “Canada’s Strongest Man” Dino Bravo (Real name: Adolfo Bresciano).
Dino wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation during the 70s and then again from 1985 until 1992, but is most likely never going to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame because of the circumstances of his death.
In 1978, he won the WWWF Tag Team Titles with his tag partner Dominic DeNucci, when they defeated the team of Mr. Fuji & Professor Toru Tanaka.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY & R.I.P.!
• Jim Ross On Backstage Reaction After Steve Austin’s Neck Injury At SummerSlam 1997, How Angry Austin Was
During a recent edition of “Grilling JR”, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross discussed “Stone Cold” Steve Austin getting injured at SummerSlam 1997 due to a botched piledriver from Owen Hart, backstage reaction after Austin’s injury & more.
Below are the highlights:
On the reaction backstage after Austin’s injury:
“Very tense. Very tense, Conrad. A lot of concern. And it’s gonna sound bad if I don’t say this the right way, but you’ve gotta be first and foremost concerned about a man’s health.
But at the same time, you’re looking at the guy that you see is going to be, unless injuries bite him in the a$$, is going to be the biggest we’ve ever had. And now that may be over just as he got started. Took him seven years to get to WWF. Territories, missed booking, underutilized in WCW. We all remember all those stories. But you know, you just thought, ‘Well, this poor son of a b***h is not gonna live his dream.’”
On Austin’s recovery:
“We’re all learning new things about neck injuries, and different kinds of surgeries and all these things. So he had a great surgeon luckily in San Antonio, a fellow by the name of Lloyd Youngblood. Good dude. I met him, I was down there several times. He’s a hell of a doctor, and he took care of Steve, and got Steve believing he could be healthy again. And he did. But boy, we didn’t know.”
On Owen Hart’s reaction:
“During Steve’s time off, I was in and out of San Antonio a few times. I’d see Owen at TV, he’s always pull me off to the side, didn’t fail, to ask about Steve. Because he knew I’d be talking to him. Not just because of my job, but also because of our friendship.
And so I’d tell him how Steve was doing, but he never said to me, ‘Well, if you think about it tell him I said hello, or tell him whatever.’ He would never have got there. ’cause that’s kind of awkward. I know that Owen had been kind of reluctant about contacting Steve on the injury. And I don’t think it was anything mean-spirited.
I think it was strictly a matter of, he was embarrassed. He was a Hart. And to many people, wrestling equals the Hart Family. And Owen, unlike Bret — Bret would tell you he’d never hurt anybody in his life in a match he had. That’s a great thing to say. And he meant it, and it’s true. Owen could never say that now. Because he’d not only hurt somebody, he may have ended the career of the biggest star we looked like we were ever gonna have.”
On how angry Austin was backstage:
“So it was tense moments there, ’cause Owen had his friends and Steve had his friends. But the old veterans knew that if Austin got hot and could stay healthy, they were gonna make a lot of money off the houses he drew. And that came to fruition. But boy, it was touch and go there for a while.
I know Steve was very, very angry that night. I mean, almost to the point of ‘couldn’t be consoled.’ Because he, apparently his body was telling him, ‘This is over. I can’t do this anymore.’ Luckily, he got over the shock and the trauma of that, got his surgery. And got great care from Dr. Youngblood, and came back and was able to squeeze a few more years out of it.”
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