For many years, WWE has famously advertised that fans should not try what they see on their screens at home. Pro wrestlers at the WWE level have undergone training to safely give and take the moves at hand, and even relatively basic, safe looking moves can cause a serious injury if executed irresponsibly. That’s not to mention flashier moves, including big-time finishers, that young fans in particular may be all the more tempted to try out for themselves.
The real dangers of getting in the ring were on harsh display in an infamous incident between WWE’s D’Lo Brown and Droz. While neither man did anything overtly wrong, a mix of happenstance and bad luck resulted in disaster. The two men have remained linked both in the mind’s of fans and in their personal lives ever since.
How Droz Got Catastrophically Injured Wrestling D’Lo Brown
In an October 1999 match at a WWE SmackDown taping, D’Lo Brown went for one of his signature moves, a running powerbomb, against his opponent, Droz. There was no sense going into the match that this might be Droz’s last bout, but errant delivery of the powerbomb brought his career to an abrupt close.
Each man has subsequently discussed the accident. It seemed Brown couldn’t get a good grip on Droz, in part due to him wearing a loose-fitting shirt, and Droz couldn’t get himself up into proper position. The result was Droz getting dropped on his head and fracturing two vertebrae in his neck on impact. The acident rendered him a quadriplegic, though he has reportedly since regained some mobility in his upper body.
There Has Been No Heat Between D’Lo Brown And Darren Drozdov
It would only be natural for Droz to have had some ill will based on how an accident involving D’Lo Brown changed his entire life. Indeed, their coworker from that era, Ahmed Johnson, went so far as to indicate an interview with Monte & The Pharaoh (h/t Wrestling Inc) that he thought Brown was stiff and not remorseful enough about what he’d done to Droz.
Despite sharing an incident that forever changed both men’s lives and careers in negative ways, D’Lo Brown discussed on the Pancakes and Powerslams show (h/t Bleacher Report) that there were no hard feelings between them. "There's no hatred from Droz toward me,” Brown explained. “We both understand the risks we take when we go in the ring, and it's dangerous in there.”
It was interesting, if not all that surprising, to see that the events of that fateful night had an adverse effect on Brown individually as well. Brown said, "As a performer, I was never the same. There was a time after that when I quit wrestling. Luckily, Jim Ross called me and talked me out of that.” Brown would go on to have four more years on that WWE run, and several years more with Impact Wrestling, in Japan, working the indies, and even staging a brief WWE return in the late 2000s.
Droz And D’Lo Brown Today
D’Lo Brown not only continued to ply his trade as a wrestler long after the nightmarish scenario he fell into in 1999, but took on other roles in the business. 2019 saw him announce he’d signed a new deal as a producer with Impact Wrestling, which gave way to him working in commentary, having a one-off return to the ring, and eventually a Talent Relations role before word came out in September 2022 that he was leaving the company.
As for Droz, after a promising start to his career that included being one of the better “replacement Road Warriors” in the Legion of Doom, he remained employed with WWE for some time after his debilitating injury. He wrote content for WWE.com and WWE Magazine, in addition to contributing to the off beat Byte This show. Most recently, fans have seen him as an expert commentator on Dark Side of the Ring episodes dedicated to Brawl For All and to The Road Warriors.
In the end, D’Lo Brown and Droz were a pair of promising young talents back in the late 1990s. While neither were necessarily going to be world champions, it was a loss to not only the men themselves, but the wrestling world on the whole when Droz had to retire so prematurely and Brown had his confidence irrevocably shaken by their accident.