Candice Michelle is a former WWE Women’s Champion and was a very popular female wrestler in the mid and late 2000s. She had to end her career prematurely when she cracked her collarbone during a match with Beth Phoenix. She botched her landing from the top of the turnbuckle, and landed face and shoulder first on the mat really hard.
At a recent TEDx event, Michelle talked about her injury and the fact that wrestlers do get hurt in the ring.
"They think it's fake because wrestlers don't get hurt,” She stated. “The truth is we learned a bump. A bump is when you attack the mat, you land flat on your back, and smack on the back of both of your arms simultaneously. Don't forget to tuck your neck. Scientific studies have proven that every single bump a professional takes it's equivalent to getting into a car accident at 30 miles per hour. Can you just imagine how we feel after one match?
"I was making history in the women's division, I went from doing pudding and lingerie matches to a semi-main event. I was trying everything in my repertoire to keep her down (Beth Phoenix), clotheslines, dropkicks, and spinning heel kicks. I climbed up on the second rope but nothing would keep her down for a three count. She was a bigger, stronger opponent over me and I knew I needed to go to the top. I sauntered so tiredly to that turnbuckle. I remember putting my first boot on the second rope and I swung my other leg over. My legs felt like cement and my arms started to shake but I pushed right through it up to the top. Next thing I remember is barely being able to see Stephanie McMahon leaning over me saying, 'Don't worry your husband is being flown in.' I knew this was real because they never fly your husband in. The diagnosis that night was a concussion and I shattered my collarbone and it shattered my dreams of every wrestling again."