A couple of weeks ago, Samoa Joe hit Tyson Kidd with his finisher, the Muscle Buster, during a WWE dark match. In what’s being described as “a freak accident,” Kidd was seriously hurt, and his career is in jeopardy. Bret Hart, though, doesn’t see it as a “freak accident” and took Samoa Joe to task for his finisher in an interview with Extra Mustard:
“I only know that he’s hurt pretty bad and they’re crossing their fingers,” said Hart. “I’m not sure if he’s going to need surgery, but it seems to me there was a lot of poor planning involved in that injury. I don’t know whose fault it is or why an injury like that happened, but someone is accountable. The WWE has done a lot in the last few years to improve conditions for wrestlers. They have doctors there and they give wrestlers adequate time to prepare, but in looking at what happened with Tyson Kidd, clearly there is still a lot of room for improvement.”
Kidd was injured when Joe performed his “Muscle Buster” maneuver.
“It’s extremely dangerous,” said Hart. “The move that Samoa Joe did was reckless, and the way they rushed that match beforehand in the back without giving Tyson time to prepare was mistake. Tyson is, pound for pound, one of the best wrestlers in the world. And that includes his mind. If you went behind the scenes at WWE, Tyson is an intricate piece of so many other matches. It’s a shame that a guy who is that talented and given so much to the company is hurt, but I just hope it’s not so serious that his career is over.”
He went on to compare the move to Owen Hart breaking Stone Cold Steve Austin’s neck at SummerSlam ’97:
“When Owen dropped Steve Austin on his head, Owen was totally negligent,” said Hart. “He was wrong to do that move to Steve the way he did and he was wrong to not believe Steve that he was hurt. Owen was skeptical about Steve’s injury, and I told Owen that Steve was in a pretty dangerous spot. I know that wrestling is a tough job, and I know Samoa Joe is a good guy and was probably just trying too hard that day, but you never want to injure one wrestler or stop someone from feeding their family.”
I get that Hart is angry, but if everyone else is calling the injury simply unlucky, and Joe has been using it for years without injuries… I’m not sure if I’m going to side with his argument. This is, after all, the guy who argued against knife-edge chops due to the unnecessary pain it causes.
I really wish that people would focus on the real problem with Joe, like the fact that his theme music sounds like the main menu to NBA Street.
