A new report has indicated that both Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar lobbied to have a move that caused a recent serious injury unbanned in the past.
On the March 11th edition of SmackDown, former WWE Champion Big E suffered an unfortunate injury during a tag team match against Sheamus & Ridge Holland. Shortly after, Big E confirmed on social media that he had suffered a broken neck, but wouldn’t require surgery.
The nasty injury came when Ridge Holland attempted an overhead belly-to-belly suplex on Big E and The New Day star sadly crashed down to the floor on top of his head.
At SummerSlam, those watching held their breath as during the wild main event Brock Lesnar performed the same move on both of The Usos outside of the ring.
An interesting note on the move was provided by Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, who says that it was Lesnar and Kurt Angle that pushed to be allowed to do the overhead belly-to-belly throw back in the early 2000s when the move was actually banned in WWE:
“There was a scary situation late in the Reigns-Lesnar match where Lesnar did overhead throws on both Usos. Both nearly landed on their heads from the throw and one looked scary bad. This is the same move that could have paralyzed Big E and broke his neck in two places. They had banned the move in the early 00s but Lesnar and Kurt Angle really pushed to allow it again.”