By ROBERT RAMOS
Staff Writer
When you ask someone to explain what professional wrestling is, they most likely say it is a bunch of sweaty dudes pretending to hit each other. While that may be true to some extent, there are cases in which these wrestlers endanger themselves for the sake of entertaining the beloved fans. On September 5th, All Elite Wrestling held their yearly big time pay per view. A show of culminating rivalries, high stakes action, and a lot of danger. In the months leading up to this major event, wrestlers Sammy Guevara and Matt Hardy were set to compete in what was referred to as a “Broken Rules Match”. In simpler terms, anything goes. No holds barred. The match had even higher stakes where if Hardy lost, he would have to leave the company. The show was filmed in an area adjacent to a football field where the match would begin at. The two men would brawl in the stadium, eventually beating each other over to a scissor lift conveniently placed next to a couple of tables. Hardy would raise the scissor lift and would seek to slam Guevara off the lift and onto the tables. Guevara would weasel out of Hardy’s grasp. The following was difficult to watch. Guevara would spear Hardy off the scissor lift and onto the tables as planned. However, Hardy’s head would visibly hit the cement and it bounced. A sickening bump sound was audible as well. The spot was botched. After the fact, referee Aubrey Edwards would throw up the dreaded “X” arm signal, warning people that Hardy was seriously injured. People thought this was just a work, or not real. Hardy was in no shape to continue as he could barely stand up. He was shaken up and taken to the medical room where supposedly the doctors cleared him to continue. They continued to brawl over to some scaffolding where Hardy would push Guevara off, causing him to be out for the ten count, giving Hardy the win. The company caught some heat when they allowed Hardy to climb a dangerously high ladder while potentially being concussed or worse. Occurrences like this are not uncommon but are certainly terrifying. The extent these people go to purely for the audience is admirable, yet kind of stupid. Maybe don’t go around throwing yourself off of scissor lifts but at least understand that while maybe scripted, these people go through a lot of pain each night.