Chris Van Vliet’s wrestling career nearly ended before it even really started.
The four-time Emmy Award winning host recently spoke with Shakiel Mahjouri of Cageside Seats and described the time he nearly broke his neck taking a bump from former WWF/WWE star Gangrel.
“I jumped a little too much and spiked myself right on my head. It should be more of a front bump. You know that RVD bump where he takes it on his head and somehow his neck is a spring? That’s how I accidentally took it. Knocked the wind out of me. I swear to you, Shak, I had this moment after I hit the mat where I’m thinking, ‘Can I feel my extremities. Okay, I can! We’re good, I’m not paralyzed. None of this was his fault. I took it incorrectly. I would probably not take it again unless it was on a crash mat or something.”
Van Vliet would then describe the incident as a ‘lesson’ learned.
“Oh my gosh, the lesson is don’t do it. If we take it back here, I trained to be a pro-wrestler. It was my dream and my goal to be a pro-wrestler. When I was 20-years-old, I went to wrestling school in Toronto. I went to the Squared Circle, trained for a few months and then kind of had this fork in the road where I’m like, ‘Am I going to focus on wrestling school or am I going to focus on school school? Fast-forward almost 20 years and I’m doing a TV segment at Gangrel’s wrestling school in Dania Beach, Florida. We’re locking up, we’re taking some bumps and I said, ‘Gangrel, it would be such an honour to take your finishing move, The Impaler DDT.’ And he’s like, ‘Sure.’ I’m thinking, ‘I’ve taken DDTs before.’”
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