Anything can happen during a live professional wrestling show which unfortunately means that sometimes moves just don’t work out as planned. During the January 12 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, Austin Theory faced off against Carmelo Hayes in a singles match, but the referee called the match off after both men landed awkwardly Theory hit the seated Spanish Fly.
Recently Austin Theory spoke to The West Sport about what went wrong when he hit the move, and he also confirmed that he will no longer be using the seated Spanish Fly as he has retired the move.
“Well, all jokes aside, when it comes to inside that ring and what we do, the risk level is extremely high. It doesn’t matter how many times you wanna practice or go through the routine of a move, it’s real life, there’s danger with that. It’s two human bodies doing superhuman-like things. In this scenario with Carmelo Hayes, I’m going for a move I’ve did plenty of times, it just so happens as we’re going through the rotation, the back of his foot hits the top rope. So, all of the momentum of us rotating, when his foot hits, it takes us straight down. Just based off of the video, it looks insane.
To be honest, after that, I seriously could’ve been paralyzed or my career could’ve been done. I could have been seriously hurt, broke my neck, there’s so many factors, but luckily as we came down, I let go to catch myself and I turn my head all the way to the left and when we landed, the back of his head hit my face pretty hard. But when we were laying there, I was fine, I didn’t feel rocked or lost or that feeling of, oh, what’s going on? I felt fine. But at the same time too, that’s such a scary moment, especially when you’re out there and something goes wrong and doesn’t feel right. Seeing the video footage back of myself upside down literally on the top of my head, wow. Very grateful for that and that move is retired for Austin Theory.”
Austin Theory speaks about how his seated Spanish Fly is officially retired after the “botch” with Melo back in January
(The West Australian) pic.twitter.com/6tte6NImIz
— BetterThanYou #ThankYouBray (@MrAllDay_) February 22, 2024
H/T Fightful