Tragedy ·
The Accident That Ended Droz’s Wrestling Career
A powerbomb at a 1999 SmackDown taping left Darren Drozdov paralyzed. D’Lo Brown said he never understood what went wrong; Drozdov said he held no ill will.
On October 5, 1999, Darren “Droz” Drozdov landed on his head during an attempted powerbomb by D’Lo Brown at a SmackDown taping at Nassau Coliseum. The neck injury left him paralyzed and ended his wrestling career. Brown later said they had performed the move repeatedly during the preceding month. He could not explain what had gone wrong that night.
Drozdov was 30 and had made his World Wrestling Federation debut in 1998, after a football career that included six games with the Denver Broncos. Wrestling’s physical demands had surprised him. “My first couple of weeks, I gained the greatest respect for anyone in the business,” he told the Courier-Post while describing his training.
Teddy Long, the referee that night, recalled the injury in a 2024 interview on “Insight.” He said he walked over to Drozdov, who looked up and told him, “Teddy, Teddy, I’m dying, I’m dying.” Long remembered being frightened and unsure what to do, then making an X signal to indicate that the injury was real. His recollection did not establish exactly how it happened: “I don’t know how it happened,” he said.
The following day, Drozdov underwent three hours of surgery to relieve pressure on his damaged neck. He had suffered two dislocated and fractured discs. According to orthopedic surgeon Dr. Laurence Mermelstein, surgeons used a piece of Drozdov’s pelvis to replace the injured discs and attached a plate and screws to stabilize his neck. Mermelstein said Drozdov had arrived at the hospital in good spirits despite losing feeling in his legs. “It’s way too early to say whether or not he’ll regain use of his legs,” the surgeon said.
The match was never broadcast. Brown, speaking to WGD Weekly in June 2014, remembered standing over Drozdov and saying, “man, come on dog, just get up.” He said he stayed at the hospital all night. “My career, professionally, not winning and losing, but just me, was never the same,” he said. Brown also said he and Drozdov had discussed the accident without finding an explanation: “Still to this day, I have no clue and if I try to think about it, it will drive me crazy.”
Drozdov repeatedly described the injury as an accident and said he held no ill will toward Brown. Initially paralyzed with almost no movement below his neck, he later regained some movement in his upper body and arms, though he remained unable to walk. He became a motivational speaker and an advocate for spinal cord injury charities and research, and appeared at WWE events and programs to discuss wrestling’s risks.
In a 2014 interview with Fox Sports, Drozdov spoke about the life he had continued to build. “Just because I’m paralyzed and stuck in a wheel chair, doesn’t mean my life is over,” he said. “I’ve learned to live again and my life is far from over.”