Kemo
05-22-2023, 06:28 PM
Many wrestlers have attempted to incorporate fire into their entrances, but few have made it a signature part of their presentation. Gangrel, the leader of The Brood, is one of the few. With the help of a lifting platform, Gangrel rose up through the stage as he was surrounded by flames. This routine, of course, was rehearsed hundreds of times. Despite the extra precautions taken, the risk of physical damage was always there. Luckily for Gangrel, he only ever got burnt once.
During a recent interview with WrestlingNewsCo, Gangrel recalled getting caught on fire ahead of a two-on-one handicap match against The Undertaker. In September 2004, Gangrel was scheduled to team with Viscera to take on The Undertaker two-on-one on an episode of SmackDown. Before they even stepped into the ring, though, Gangrel describes a scary scene that unfolded during his entrance.
"When I came back and tagged with Viscera, when JBL and Orlando Jordan, they kind of brung us in. He brung all these people in to take on The Undertaker. They wanted me to come up, do the entrance. We did a rehearsal right before the show was supposed to start, did a dry run with the fire, but they wanted to use -- they made the elevator really small because Rey Mysterio was popping up out of the elevator now. So, they did a slow hand-crank elevator thing and it was smaller, so they didn't anticipate for the backdraft of the flames coming in."
"So, when they lit the flames instead of -- the other one was like three foot by four foot or something. It was a pretty big lift. It was a big scissor lift, so the flames would burn up. [But] this one, it was so small of an area, that the flames sucked down and in and they sucked down in on me. And I had burnt all the skin off my arm."
"I remember, like just sitting there going, 'Man, this is really hot.' The flames are coming in, like, 'What's going on?' I did a Rey Mysterio and got really athletic for an old man and jumped up out of the elevator. I was holding all my skin, here at the end of my wrist. I had the trainer snip it off. He cut it off, cleaned it up and put some dressing on it and I threw the white puffy shirt on and went to work and then went home. [I] got home the next day and saw a specialist and started getting skin grafts and stuff like that."
After the trainer covered his burn with a dressing, Gangrel quickly recomposed himself. He and Viscera went on to lose in less than three minutes to The Undertaker.
During a recent interview with WrestlingNewsCo, Gangrel recalled getting caught on fire ahead of a two-on-one handicap match against The Undertaker. In September 2004, Gangrel was scheduled to team with Viscera to take on The Undertaker two-on-one on an episode of SmackDown. Before they even stepped into the ring, though, Gangrel describes a scary scene that unfolded during his entrance.
"When I came back and tagged with Viscera, when JBL and Orlando Jordan, they kind of brung us in. He brung all these people in to take on The Undertaker. They wanted me to come up, do the entrance. We did a rehearsal right before the show was supposed to start, did a dry run with the fire, but they wanted to use -- they made the elevator really small because Rey Mysterio was popping up out of the elevator now. So, they did a slow hand-crank elevator thing and it was smaller, so they didn't anticipate for the backdraft of the flames coming in."
"So, when they lit the flames instead of -- the other one was like three foot by four foot or something. It was a pretty big lift. It was a big scissor lift, so the flames would burn up. [But] this one, it was so small of an area, that the flames sucked down and in and they sucked down in on me. And I had burnt all the skin off my arm."
"I remember, like just sitting there going, 'Man, this is really hot.' The flames are coming in, like, 'What's going on?' I did a Rey Mysterio and got really athletic for an old man and jumped up out of the elevator. I was holding all my skin, here at the end of my wrist. I had the trainer snip it off. He cut it off, cleaned it up and put some dressing on it and I threw the white puffy shirt on and went to work and then went home. [I] got home the next day and saw a specialist and started getting skin grafts and stuff like that."
After the trainer covered his burn with a dressing, Gangrel quickly recomposed himself. He and Viscera went on to lose in less than three minutes to The Undertaker.