WWE Hall Of Famer Teddy Long Recalls Tragic Botch That Paralyzed Darren Drozdov

Former WWE general manager and referee Teddy Long has recalled the accident that resulted in Darren Drozdov being paralyzed having witnessed it firsthand.

Before he became the "WWE SmackDown" General Manager, Long was a referee, and officiated the match between D'Lo Brown and Darren Drozdov, aka Droz, which resulted in the latter suffering a neck injury. Long, during his recent interaction with Chris Van Vliet on "Insight," said that the accident happened after Droz slipped out of Brown's hands.

"D'Lo, I think, he had — this was a pure accident — D'Lo, I think, he had oiled up or something, he put a little bit too much oil on that night 'cause a lot of guys did that. Tony Atlas, a lot of guys did always oil up," said Long. "As I can remember, I think D'Lo went to pick Droz up for something, like a piledriver, but some kind of way, Droz slipped right out of his hands. Like I said, I don't know how it happened, I just look, next thing I knew, Droz was down. I never forget, I walked over, 'cause this is my first time witnessing this, you know, an accident really, actually happening. So I look over at Droz, Droz looks up at me and he says, 'Teddy, Teddy, I'm dying, I'm dying.' I remember those words out of his mouth, I'm really scared now 'cause I don't know what to do. They're on headsets, they're talking to me and I give them the [X] signal to let them know that this was real. Just like I said, that was the first time I experienced that too. That was pretty shocking."

The Hall of Famer reiterated how it was an accident and Brown shouldn't be blamed for what had happened. Droz sadly passed away at the age of 54 in 2023, 24 years after his nasty injury that resulted in him being paralyzed neck down.