Injuries continue to mount for WWE

The Undertaker is one of the biggest names to hit the injury list, dropping his title last week to Edge (who retained against Batista Sunday night at Judgment Day) to undergo surgery on a torn biceps which will keep him out six to eight months. He was joined by Mister Kennedy who had first feared a long departure with a triceps injury only to find out he will likely be back in six to eight weeks.

Gregory Helms (formerly the Hurricane and former Cruiserweight champ) is not so lucky as he is out at least a year with a neck injury. Same with Super Crazy, out with a torn ACL in his knee while Hardcore Holly of ECW nurses an elbow and is expected out about three more months.

Now we have the possibility of the Heart Break Kid Shawn Michaels being added to the list with another knee injury as he worked the PPV Sunday night selling the concussion he allegedly suffered by Khali when he was, in fact, being hampered by a real knee injury, the severity of which is unclear right now. However, if it is serious, there goes the reunion of D-Generation X here in a few weeks as Triple H is set to return after missing six months with a torn quadriceps.

Actually, like I said before, it seems we have a the new pack of injured leaving out the exit door as our last pack of injured prepare to return.

Along with Triple H?s expected to return in the near future, Rey Mysterio has a projected return of this summer after missing several months with a knee injury. Booker T., also out with a knee, will be returning in a month or so as well the aforementioned Mister Kennedy. Meanwhile Mark Henry has already made his return to Smackdown, playing heavily in the Undertaker losing his belt to Edge.

While injuries are a part sports entertainment when it comes to wrestling, the injury bug can actually have a major impact on the business if a federation allows itself to be caught flat-footed. You need look no further than the old WCW.

While stale storylines and lack of originality had something to do with the demise of WCW, much of it can be traced directly to injuries. Shortly before the end, WCW actually had Sid Vicious as their top face due to the numerous injuries which were keeping out names like Sting, Lex Luger, Goldberg and even the likes of Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash.

Of course, back then WCW always tried to cover injuries with a story instead of doing like any other sport and reporting the injury and how long the athlete would be out. And, given the fact the Internet wasn?t as big as now, fans had no real way to figure out what was really causing the disappearance of wrestlers. All we knew was that WCW was beginning to put a very bad product on the air.

And, another mistake was that WCW hadn?t taken time to elevate midcarders to the main event level so there could be someone there to step up and fill the gaps. As a matter of fact, WCW rarely created any wrestlers on its own. Instead, they simply used Ted Turner?s money and bought them away from the WWE after the wrestler was established.

Just look at the WCW?s greatest offering to the history of wrestling, the creation of the NWO. The New World Order was built with Hulk Hogan, signed away from Vince McMahon by the lure of big money. He was then joined by Kevin Nash (Big Daddy Diesel) and Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) who were also bought away from WCW.

But, then you can see what happened later on, when injuries came, even the once great NWO crumbled as WCW did not have the creative juices to build characters on its own or the foresight to develop new main eventers to fill in the holes left by injuries and departures.

In the end, injuries contributed to the demise of WCW, something I believe Vince McMahon understands full well as the WWE faces the attack of the injury bug.