Wrestler Chris Bey Sustained a Serious Neck Injury, but How Did The Injury Occur?

Wrestling is a sport that comes with major risks, and no one knows that better than the athletes who put their bodies on the line. Daquan Johnson-Bey, whose better known to the public as Chris Bey, sustained a serious neck injury after challenging Matt and Jeff Hardy to a tag team match alongside Ace Austin in 2024.

The match was part of the TNA Tag Team Championships, but Chris was injured mid-match. Here's what we know about his injury.

Chris injured himself on a wrestling move called a neckbreaker. The injury was so serious that Chris was paralyzed in the ring and had to be rushed to a Detroit hospital. In an interview on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Chris discussed the moments leading up to and following the neck injury. “First time [we wrestled The Hardys], we didn’t have a lot of time. This time we had more time, so we were all confident and comfortable with what we were doing," he explained.

"I’m in there with my best friend and two of my idols, it’s a night off essentially, and then a spot that you’ve done a million times up until this point goes wrong,” he continued. “As soon as it goes wrong, you don’t notice what’s wrong, you just know something isn’t right. I felt a jolt. It was a neckbreaker. We missed each other, Matt and I, by an inch. I felt a jolt, and I felt a little bit of discomfort."

Chris added that he thought it might have just been a stinger but eventually realized that the injury was much more serious. He said that even as he felt numbness moving through his body, his chief desire was to finish the match. He even encouraged Jeff Hardy to do a planned Swanton Bomb before eventually bailing out by signaling to Jeff that he couldn't take the brunt of the impact.

It was only after the match that Chris recognized the full extent of the injury he had suffered. He couldn't grab the doctor's hand who was examining him, and he couldn't wiggle his toes either.

“I can’t move. I can’t look left or right other than with my eyeballs. They put me in a neck brace and they put me on the stretcher,” he recalled.

Doctors ultimately fused the C6 and C7 vertebrae in Bey’s neck and later performed a spinal cord fusion between his C6 and T1 vertebrae. Now, Chris can move much more normally than he could in the immediate aftermath of the injury, although recovery is still a work in progress.

What's clear is that Chris came incredibly close to never walking again, and all because a move he'd done a million times landed a little differently on his body. Now, as he tells his story, it's clear that Chris knows just how lucky he is to be where he is.