In professional wrestling, from WWE all the way down to your local indie fed, the safety of one move has become an increasingly hot-button topic over the past few months: the German Suplex.
To some, the move is an offensive staple of everyone from high-flyers to collegiate stars and looks incredibly cool to the fans in the audience, whereas others feel taking a performer and snapping them back on the stem of their neck with no way of seeing how it will land is the easiest way to end up with a broken neck and a potentially altered future.
Discussing the move on his new podcast, One of a Kind, Rob Van Dam noted that in his experience, the move itself is great but it can be misused by performers who either want to be violent or simply have little regard for their fellow performers.
“I like the German Suplex,” said Van Dam via Wrestling Inc. “It's actually a go-to that I would do in a real-life situation, more so than a match, you know what I mean?”
“It's a great move and it's pretty when someone does a bridge and holds it… It's not – to me – one of the most dangerous moves. Some people do look like they ‘Wham' don't take care of their opponents and really throw them hard and fast on their head, and of course, that would be a different situation than just asking about a move. German Suplex is awesome but I could take any move and put a lot into it.”
Asked which move he does not like to take, the ECW legend identified the Alabama Slam, a move that, in his humble opinion, “sucks.”
“I don't mind telling you, my whole career, I never learned how to not get killed by [the Alabama Slam]. I just never wanted to tell the guys that did it to me but it always sucks. Del Wilkes used to do that in All Japan, The Patriot, and when ‘Wham!' It's so stiff, you're falling backwards onto your head so there's not much you can do to break the momentum.”
In professional wrestling, any move can be done unsafely, with performers suffering incredible injuries from something as simple as a leapfrog – Shane McMahon at WrestleMania 39 – and others leaving a vicious move like the Tiger Driver 91 Will Ospreay hit on Kenny Omega at Forbidden Door II unscathed. Still, like the Alabama Slam, the German Suplex requires a performer to take a ton of pressure on or near their neck, depending on where it lands, and could lead to a serious injury if executed incorrectly.
Kevin Nash disagrees with his fellow WWE Hall of Famer's opinion.
While Rob Van Dam may not have an issue with taking or giving German Suplexes, one person who decidedly does is fellow WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash, who believes the move is a big reason why more wrestlers are suffering broken necks and, ultimately, the onset of CTE.
“Show me the numbers of broken necks before the German Suplex became a f***ing staple in professional wrestling… I don't remember any,” Nash said on Kliq This via Wrestling Inc. “Because it's not necessarily the one, it's like f**king CTE. It's the onslaught. It's the f**king 10 years … And then finally, you bend over to pick up a lightbulb, and you're paralyzed.”
Expanding on how his own wrestling career has impacted his healthy, Nash provided a warning of sorts to current wrestlers that the day may come when you can't even go to the gym without random debilitating pain.
“It's like me, like f***. I go in the gym, there are days, man, it's just like, ‘Okay, I can't … I did that movement two workouts ago, but for some reason, that motherf***er's killing me today,' so I can't do that.”
Despite having an all-time great professional wrestling career for over 30 years, Nash is currently paying for everything he did to his body over the years, with surgery and stemcell treatments needed to help with his ailing neck. While one German Suplex has the potential to change a performer's life forever, a career of “successful” ones can still leave a negative long-term impact, too, and considering even the top performers in WWE are independent contractors who could theoretically be forced to pay for a life of medical bills themselves – not to mention the indie guys who often get paid significantly less for their efforts – one as to wonder if some moves are just too dangerous to be taken regularly.
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