I Legit Thought Kevin Owens Was Seriously Hurt During His Ladder Match With Cody Rhodes, And I Wasn’t The Only One

We all knew last night’s ladder match between Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes was going to be brutal. Ladder matches are always a violent and bruising affair with a high risk of injury, but throw in the fact that it was for The WWE Championship at Royal Rumble and it was pretty clear everyone involved was going to put their bodies on the line. They did. The two former WrestleMania main eventers gave us an all-time classic match, and at the end, Owens was left so bloody and battered that I kept questioning whether he was actually hurt. Turns out I wasn’t the only one.

There were a couple of absolutely vicious bumps during the main stretch of the match, most prominently a Fisherman Buster KO delivered to Cody off the ropes and onto the ladder, but it was in the closing moments where things got really ugly. Rhodes gave Owens an Alabama Slam onto a ladder that was positioned between the ring and the announcer’s table. For those of you who aren’t wrestling experts or big Bob Holly fans, the Alabama Slam is a deep cut move where you pick your opponent up by their legs so their body is over your head and then you fling them forward so their back lands squarely on the mat, though in this case, Owens’ back landed directly on the ladder. The move elicited an audible gasp from fans. You can watch it below…

Now, I’ve watched a lot of wrestling over the last 35 years. I knew as soon as they set that ladder up that someone was going to get slammed through it. I was, of course, concerned when I saw they used the Alabama Slam and how aggressive the whole thing was, but it didn’t really set off any alarm bells until afterwards when the match kinda just ended. Normally, big wrestling matches are filled with desperate and chaotic final moments, but Rhodes just walked into the ring and casually made his way up the ladder while Sami Zayn and various ring personnel attended to Owens. There wasn’t a single second where it seemed like KO might get up and contest the finish. He just laid there, lifeless and bloody while a paramedic in white gloves checked on him.

Even after the match, Owens just continued to lay there while Cody Rhodes celebrated his win. For awhile, he seemed to literally be folded into the ladder, which led to an army of tweets from fans like this…

Even after they got him out of the ladder, however, he did not break character. He just laid there looking near death while the paramedics worked on him and transported him out of the arena. It got to be so bad that Rhodes, despite being the biggest fan favorite on the roster, started to get serious pushback from fans on social media about celebrating with his titles while KO was in such a scary state. Some fans were comparing him to Homelander from The Boys, and others talked about how much of a heel he looked like, especially when he raised his championship belts over Owens.

The fact that WWE was so intentional with its camera shots was what eventually clued me into this almost certainly being planned from the beginning. It’s not natural to shoot someone’s lifeless body from an upward angle while someone else is celebrating just in frame in the background. Throw in the fact that we didn’t get any scary real life injury updates about Kevin Owens in the press conference afterwards, and I’m pretty positive there aren’t going to be any long-term issues. There should, however, be plenty of storylines to come out of this, starting with the fact that this may be the moment good guy Cody Rhodes finally turns to the dark side, which some fans have been clamoring for including me.

Regardless, I want to shout out Kevin Owens real quick. He’s been putting his body on the line and delivering great stories for WWE fans for years. During that time, he’s very rarely held championships or been at the top of the card. Instead, he’s been a workhorse that’s improved every single thing he’s done, whether it’s been in a ladder match like this, a main event 'Mania spot with an aging Stone Cold Steve Austin that way overdelivered or it’s been in a hilarious mid-card plot where he’s trying to figure out if two different wrestlers are brothers or the same guy. He’s one of the most important guys on the entire roster, and I hope WWE finally pulls the trigger on him someday and gives him a lengthy title run. He deserves it.