Teddy Long Recalls Being In The Ring When Droz Suffered In-Ring Accident

In an interview with Chris Van Vliet for Insight (via Wrestling Inc), Teddy Long spoke about the in-ring accident that paralyzed Droz (Darren Drozdov) from the neck down. It happened during a Smackdown taping on October 5, 1999. Long was the referee for Droz’s match against D’Lo Brown. Droz passed away last year.

He said: “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. 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.“