Injuries happen in pro-wrestling. They aren’t just unavoidable; they’re expected. It’s the nature of the beast; no matter how much promotions and officials might try to have the action toned down or simplified, there’s still a high likelihood of wrestlers getting hurt.
But there are injuries and there are injures. Some things like a bloody nose, a fractured finger, or the odd bruised rib can be brushed off or left to heal on its own. What happened to a wrestler on a recent episode of NXT is a different matter.
Joe Spivak is one of WWE’s newest signees under their NIL program. A former football player, Spivak began wrestling under the name Tank Ledger and had his first match on the May 9th episode of NXT.
However, something went awry and Tank took a big boot to the face. That kick caused him to fall to the mat and when the camera zoomed in on him, he could be seen moving his mouth as several teeth looked to have been either loosened or lost.
NXT wrestler Tank Ledger literally gets his teeth kicked out of his mouth
Although the video released by WWE’s official Twitter doesn’t show the actual kick, it does show Ledger’s response to it. Instead of calling for the match to be stopped or panicking over having lost at least one tooth, Ledger fired up and started fighting back.
"Did he just spit out a tooth?!"
You are a madman @TankLedgerWWE 🤯#WWENXTpic.twitter.com/RkZtUcozg8
— WWE (@WWE) May 10, 2023
This isn’t the only time a WWE wrestler suffered a tooth-related injury. Chris Jericho lost either part or all of a tooth when he got his in the face with a ladder in his ladder match with Shawn Michaels at No Mercy 2008.
Additionally, there was the Cesaro incident, in which he got catapulted too forcefully into a corner and hit caused his front teeth to be pushed 3-4 millimeters up into his jaw.
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