If there’s one thing WWE has taught us over the years, it’s that anything can happen inside the ring. One moment, you’re watching a perfectly scripted showdown, and the next, chaos is unfolding in ways no one saw coming. Fans love the unexpected, but sometimes, even the superstars don’t know what’s about to hit them, literally.
Now, let’s take a time machine back to 1998, a golden era of wrestling where Stone Cold Steve Austin was about to reach the peak of his career, and The Undertaker was busy making souls rest in peace.
SummerSlam 1998 was shaping up to be an epic clash between these two icons, but what happened that night was straight out of a blooper reel. When Stone Cold got knocked loopy for the first time in WWE, things spiraled quickly, but it was all part of a preplanned moment between him and The Undertaker.
Stone Cold gets knocked out at SummerSlam 1998
SummerSlam 1998 had all the makings of an instant classic. Stone Cold Steve Austin, the reigning WWF Champion, was defending his title against The Undertaker in a match hyped to the heavens. The crowd was electric, and everything was going according to plan, including the moment when Stone Cold took a hit that knocked him out for real.
Austin and The Undertaker are friends, rivals, and legends in WWE. Hence, the moment was all preplanned between them, a scripted moment designed to add drama to the match. Although it was all thought out, both Austin and The Undertaker felt fear.
What The Undertaker thought would be an easy jump off the rope, realized it was not when he climbed on the turnbuckle. Austin on the other hand hoped The Undertaker wouldn’t go through with this plan but the second he gained consciousness and looked up, he thought to himself, “Yup, he is coming to drop that leg.”
This was long before the days of overly scripted backup plans for every possible scenario. In the late ‘90s, wrestlers still had to rely on in-ring improvisation to make things look real. And that’s exactly what The Undertaker did, leading the match forward in a way that felt spontaneous but was actually well thought out.
The Undertaker sacrificed his tailbone to entertain the crowd
As part of their planned sequence, The Undertaker also made a decision that cost him dearly. To keep the match exciting, he did something incredibly rare for a man of his size, he climbed to the top rope and went for a flying leg drop onto the announcer’s table outside the ring.
Sounds cool, right? Well, it was, until gravity decided to be a jerk. Instead of executing a clean break through the table, The Undertaker landed tailbone-first on the hardest part, essentially turning his lower back into a WWE crash-test dummy. While this wasn’t his worst injury it sure would’ve have hurt.
Despite the risks, the match followed its intended script, with Stone Cold retaining his title. But if you ask The Undertaker, he probably would’ve preferred a slightly less painful way to keep the match going.
And that, folks, is how a carefully planned knockout turned a legendary match into an impromptu survival game where one guy acted dazed, and the other guy sacrificed his tailbone for the sake of entertainment. WWE, you never fail to deliver.
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