LAS VEGAS -- It is a routine wrestling move Chris Bey has done a thousand times. A two-person maneuver he and his TNA Wrestling tag-team partner, Ace Austin, call the "1, 2, Sweet."
Bey places his foot in Austin's hands and launches backward, catching and trapping his opponent's neck in the crook of his upturned arm and driving them face-first to the canvas.
But this time, something went wrong. He knew it the moment he hit the canvas. He was unable to move his body or feel anything from the waist down. His arms were stuck to his side and radiating with unbearable heat. He prided himself on always being able to finish what he started, but this time he couldn't. He was ashamed he was letting down the fans in attendance by not continuing the match, but he had no idea how bad it was.
"It's never what you think it's going to be [that injures you]," Bey told ESPN in May at a Las Vegas restaurant. "I've seen enough wrestling to know that the crazy thing isn't the one that will get you. ... It seems routine, but the risk we take in every single move is one inch away from being fatal."
For eight years, Bey had been working to be one of the best professional wrestlers in the world. At 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, he had put his body through an arduous ringer of bumps and bruises without ever breaking a bone. He had been spiked on his head numerous times, had jumped off a balcony in Texas and had fallen on his neck when a wrestling ring's top rope snapped underneath his feet as he leapt backward out of the corner.
What Bey experienced on Oct. 27, 2024, during a television taping of "TNA Impact!" at Wayne State Fieldhouse in Detroit, was far different and far worse than any of that.
A routine move led to a trip to the ICU at DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital, where he underwent emergency spinal cord fusion surgery. When he woke up, he learned he had broken his C4 vertebrae and suffered temporary paralysis from the neck down. He was given a 15% chance to walk or use his hands again, and his wrestling career, he was told by doctors, was over.
For the first time since he was 8 years old, wrestling wasn't the only thing on his mind. "Once I woke up [from surgery] and I realized that I couldn't feel anything, I no longer cared about wrestling," Bey said. "Wrestling was no longer my life. It was no longer my job. I just cared about being alive."
Bey's long-distance girlfriend since 2023, fellow pro wrestler Brittnie Brooks, was one of the first visitors to see Bey after surgery.
"It was the scariest thing to see," Brooks told ESPN. "It was just so brutal. Never in my life did I stay up for 24-plus hours because I wasn't sure what I was walking into. He couldn't feel anything. I remember I went to hold his hand, and he couldn't even hold my hand back. That just broke my heart." For the next two months, Bey stayed in a rehabilitation center thousands of miles from home and went through hundreds of grueling therapy sessions.
"Seeing him in that hospital bed really broke me," Bey's mother, who arrived at the hospital two days after the injury, told ESPN. "I had never thought about him getting hurt, even though I have heard about wrestlers who had life-changing incidents in the ring. But while he was in the hospital, a few wrestlers told me they had broken their necks before, so that gave me some kind of hope."
In the months that followed that initial prognosis, hope turned to determination. When ESPN met with Bey in that Las Vegas restaurant in May, he not only walked in, but he also drove himself there and used his hands to eat.
But those who know "The Ultimate Finesser" know that if anyone could do the improbable, it's Daquan Christopher Johnson-Bey.
"He's always been able to defy the odds," Brooks said. "I remember telling him that I know [walking again] sounds unrealistic, but your whole life has been unrealistic. You have to know that you can do this."
A PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER was the only thing Bey ever aspired to be. Two days after his eighth birthday, Bey watched 5-foot-8, 200-pound Eddie Guerrero defeat 6-foot-3, 300-pound Brock Lesnar to win the WWE championship at 2004's No Way Out pay-per-view in what was the pro wrestling equivalent of David slaying Goliath. Bey was hooked.
"It was always wrestling," Bey said. "I didn't know how, I didn't know why or what or when. But I knew it had to be wrestling. There was nothing else I could think of that I wanted to do."
Born in Maryland and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, Bey would tie socks around his elbows and knees to create makeshift pads and put on matches with his friends. His father fed his obsession by buying his youngest of six children anything associated with pro wrestling: video games, pay-per-views, championship belts and DVDs. In a bit of foreshadowing, a 13-year-old Bey posted a video of himself unboxing a replica TNA World Championship belt, a title he would compete for a decade later.
"My older siblings didn't have a 'thing,'" Bey said. "Wrestling was my thing ... that kept me out of trouble; my parents were happy with it."
He spent his high school years navigating between his dream and what he thought others expected of him. In computer graphics class, he sent emails to wrestling schools in between classwork.
"I thought I had to go to college until my senior year when I realized my family couldn't afford it," Bey said. "My grades weren't good enough and it would have been a waste of time because wrestling was the only thing I wanted to do."
Bey's father passed away from colon cancer in 2016, the same week as WrestleMania 32. The day after the funeral, Bey watched perennial underdog Zach Ryder celebrate in the ring with his own father after an improbable Intercontinental championship. Bey took it as a sign.
"I was so mad because I realized I would never experience that moment with my father," Bey said. "My whole relationship with my dad growing up was built on my obsession with wrestling. Our last conversation was while I was visiting Las Vegas, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I needed to make the move there."
Bey chased his wrestling dream to Las Vegas, signed up to train at the Future Stars of Wrestling facility and spent his early 20s living with roommates and barely scraping by financially. He quickly became well-known in the independent wrestling scene before he made his WWE debut on an episode of "WWE 205 Live" in October 2019. The appearance didn't land him a WWE contract, but it did get him noticed by TNA Wrestling, which signed him the next day. His dream of becoming a full-time wrestler had finally come true.
The accolades quickly followed. Bey won the X-Division Championship at Slammiversary in July 2020 and challenged for the Impact World Championship. However, his best run may have been his most unexpected.
He joined Austin to form the tag team ABC in 2023 as part of the lauded Bullet Club stable out of Japan. In less than two years, they had become three-time Impact World Tag Team champions.
"We had our dreams as singles wrestlers but had a heart-to-heart in 2022 and decided to lock in as a tag team together," Austin told ESPN. "We took it seriously because we were two incredibly gifted and talented performers who had huge futures ahead of us. Instead of trying to push against each other and make it on our own, the opportunity was placed for us to come together, and we did. That's my brother now."
Their exceptional run led to a main-event match against a tag team they idolized, the high-flying, innovative brothers known as The Hardy Boyz.
ON OCT. 26, 2024, Bey and Austin headlined TNA's Bound for Glory pay-per-view against The System and The Hardy Boyz in an extremely violent and physically taxing Full Metal Mayhem match that involved tables, ladders and chairs.
"That was a really special night for me," Jeff Hardy told ESPN. "I had spent all that time painting up the canvas, those chairs, the ladders and all the tables, so I was super excited. It was an idea I had [to recreate Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2 from WrestleMania X-Seven in 2001], and a dream come true to see that match come to life again after 23 years. But working with [Bey and Austin] was really great for us because they helped us get used to this new-school style of wrestling."
Jeff and his brother, Matt, are 30-year veterans of the industry known for their death-defying and high-flying moves, but Jeff found himself in awe of what "The Ultimate Finesser" could do in the ring.
"He's not even real, like a video-game character or something when you watch him out there live," Jeff said. "He's just so superhuman-looking and always in good shape. The way he moves, man, it's just so inspirational for me, being older [47 years old], to watch a guy like Chris work in the ring."
Although ABC didn't win the match, it was a career-defining moment for Bey. At the TV tapings the next day, Bey and Austin were booked for another match with The Hardy Boyz for the TNA World Tag Team Championship.
"What was so crazy is that [Bey] went through the war the night before," Jeff recalled. "And then the next day he couldn't feel his body from the neck down."
FOR MUCH OF his career, Bey had wrestled at one speed: overdrive.
Aside from degenerative hip disease that had been nagging him for years, Bey was never slowed down by the high-velocity style of his matches. Bey's small, yet muscular frame allowed him to pull off remarkable feats of athleticism. Although Bey was a little banged up from the previous evening's match, he and Austin were comfortable delivering a toned-down match against The Hardy Boyz.
"We're at the highest of highs, and then the next day we thought that we were going to have something lighter to do because of the match we had just done the night before, but that wasn't the case," Austin said. "It was a 'go hard' match again, but we didn't do anything overly crazy or dangerous in the match."
The performance was going smoothly until Bey and Austin went for their finishing move.
"[Bey] steps into my hands, and I launch him back toward Matt. And Matt reversed it into, ironically, a neckbreaker," Austin recalled. "The timing on the landing wasn't perfect, but it didn't look dangerous or out of the ordinary to me. I watched them hit the ground and it looked very normal."
But it wasn't normal.
"We missed each other by an inch, and Matt leans a little bit on top of me," Bey said. "My neck twists to the right, inverted, and it just snaps my neck."
"In my mind I was like, 'Wow, Chris didn't get as much air as he usually does,'" Matt told ESPN. "He was a little lower than I expected, and I tried to jump underneath him, but I didn't think I made contact with him. When I get up, we go to the combination with Austin, and I see Chris laying in the same spot. I thought to myself that it was strange that he hadn't moved at all."
Motionless on the canvas, Bey could only watch the match out of his peripheral vision and hope that nobody landed on him, potentially causing further harm. Referee Daniel Spencer noticed something was wrong and communicated with the wrestlers to rush to a finish so paramedics could get into the ring.
"I still wasn't sure what was going on, but Jeff changed from doing his signature Swanton Bomb dive off the top rope to the lightest leg drop he could possibly do," Matt said. "Thank God Chris had spoken up, because that Swanton could have made things brutally worse. I was hoping that it was just a stinger that he could shake off and get up from.
"This was the scariest injury I've ever been a part of," Matt added.
The ringside doctor asked Bey to squeeze his hand, but Bey couldn't make his fingers close around the doctor's. He asked Bey to wiggle his toes, but Bey said he couldn't feel them.
Bey was loaded onto a stretcher and rushed to the hospital. He was concerned that the emergency responders transporting him would have to ruin the wrestling boots he had recently purchased in order to treat him. Still unsure of the severity of his injury, he managed to calmly direct the medics how to properly remove them.
"I knew that cutting those boots would've meant that it's truly over," Bey said. "The fact that we didn't have to cut those boots gave me -- at that moment at least -- some sort of a feeling that this isn't as bad as they're making it out to be."
Austin met Bey at the hospital, where everyone was beginning to fully understand just how bad the injury was. "His X-ray came back, and there were two pieces of his neck perfectly out of alignment," Austin said. "It was almost like the letter Z."
Fortunately, his spinal cord was still intact, and a surgeon was swiftly brought in to operate.
"From the moment I was in the hospital to the moment they put me under for surgery was the worst time of my life," Bey said. "That feeling, which is weird because I couldn't feel anything but pain, heat in my arms and heat that's running down my spine. ... It was the worst feeling of my life."
When Bey woke up from surgery, he was able to lift his forearms but couldn't use his hands. Two weeks later, doctors informed Bey that it was likely -- but not certain -- he would be using a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
"When I heard that it wasn't a zero percent chance [to walk again], I knew that there was a chance," Bey said. "There was something worth fighting for."
Bey asked his friends and TNA to keep a tight lid on his injury diagnosis during his recovery until he was able to update everyone himself. Aside from a GoFundMe campaign that was launched to cover his medical expenses -- to date, it has raised over $110,000 -- few outside of his circle knew what was ahead for Bey.
For the next two months, he did rehab and physical therapy at DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan six days a week. If there was an opportunity to do additional sessions, he added those. He was determined to defy the odds. Still, wrestling was the furthest thing from his mind.
He returned home to Las Vegas on Dec. 28, 2024, using a wheelchair. In mid-January, he had committed himself to rehab with Dr. John Beedle, DC, of Genesis Integrated Medicine, a practitioner Bey had been working with to treat his hip prior to his spinal cord injury.
"I told him, 'You're going to get out of that wheelchair and wrestle again,'" Beedle recalled. "I didn't even know if what I was saying at that point was going to happen, but you just got to believe in it."
Training with Beedle pushed Bey mentally and physically beyond anything he had ever done inside the squared circle, but he remained humble and hopeful that he would make progress toward his recovery goals.
"I'm a very honest person about my life, and I'm grateful for the time that I had in wrestling because I know how hard this business is," Bey said. "I'm a first-generation wrestler who didn't know anybody in this business. No one helped me get into this business. And in eight years, I accomplished so much and lived my dream. I went out against my idols, The Hardys.
"I never thought to myself that I didn't make it. I knew I did. Now, I just wanted to be able to live and be functional."
By Jan. 21, less than three months since the injury, Bey had improved from unable to feel anything below his waist to wiggling his toes to taking assisted steps with a walker.
"I always thought he'd walk again, but I thought it would take years," Austin said. "He blew those projections out of the water."
On his birthday, Feb. 13, he posted a video to social media of him standing and walking toward the camera, unassisted.
"Nothing is impossible, you just have to believe and do the work," Bey wrote in a message posted to Instagram along with the video. "Will I ever wrestle again? Never say never. I'm just so grateful to be alive. ... It's going to be a long road, but I will never give up. This will be the Greatest Story Ever Told."
FOR YEARS, BEY said he wouldn't attend a WrestleMania until he was part of the show. But considering what he had just gone through, he was thankful to be seated in then-undisputed WWE champion Cody Rhodes' family and friends suite at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for Rhodes' main-event match against John Cena on Night 2 of WrestleMania 41 in April.
The event capped off a whirlwind week of public appearances for Bey, who had been in the public eye only once since his injury at the "Beynefit for Bey" show held by Future Stars of Wrestling in Las Vegas on March 23. He was apprehensive at first to step out in front of pro wrestling fans looking different than the man they were used to seeing fly around the ring. But he put his fears aside to take in the biggest wrestling event of the year in his adopted hometown.
"I felt like I would've been doing myself a disservice to not be there in some type of a fashion because, in my eyes, I helped build the city for wrestling," Bey said. "This was an opportunity for me to help celebrate what we've done for the city and have a chance to see all my friends, the fans and people who have supported me who may not know how much I appreciate their support."
Bey's week at WrestleMania
Thursday, April 17
10 a.m.: Bey starts his week at a TNA fundraiser breakfast called "Chris Bey, All Day," where he and Matt and Jeff Hardy speak and Bey answers questions about his injury and recovery.
2 p.m.: Bey meets with Beedle for rehab work.
10 p.m.: Bey makes his first televised appearance alongside Austin at TNA Unbreakable, where he addresses the crowd about his recovery and thanks them for their support
Friday, April 18
1 a.m.: Bey drives himself to Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist Wale's annual WrestleMania event, WaleMania, and takes photos with fans who caught him walking into the venue. He then joins the event's guest of honor, Jeff Hardy, on stage.
Saturday, April 19
3 a.m.: Bey appears at rapper Westside Gunn's "Heels Have Eyes: 4 The Culture" wrestling event and delivers a rousing speech for the fans in attendance.
9 a.m.: After a few hours' rest, he heads to the WrestleCon convention at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino to pose for pictures and sign autographs for fans.
"It was new for my hands because I had only practiced signing a handful of times at occupational therapy," Bey said. "It was very strenuous on my hands, and I left there aching a little bit."
1 p.m.: Bey makes an appearance at a pre-WrestleMania party hosted by SiriusXM's "Busted Open Radio" at Wynn Las Vegas. He participates in a panel with host Dave LaGreca and retired wrestlers Bully Ray Dudley, Mark Henry and Tommy Dreamer, where he addresses his injury and recovery.
4 p.m.: Bey meets Cody Rhodes' family and friends at a suite in Allegiant Stadium for Night 1 of WrestleMania. It's the first WrestleMania he has ever attended in person.
Sunday, April 20
3 a.m.: Bey makes yet another early-morning surprise appearance following WrestleMania. He introduces the professional debut of Brodie Lee Jr., the 13-year-old son of the late Jon Huber (also known as Luke Harper in WWE and Brodie Lee in AEW), at a Game Changer Wrestling event.
"Brodie Jr. asked me if I could be there for him that night ... I would do anything for him," Bey said. "I thought I was going to go home and get at least a nap before the next day. But it was an awesome experience to do that for him."
10 a.m.: A few hours later, Bey is at WrestleCon again. "I figured WrestleMania is not going to be back in Vegas anytime soon [WWE announced in June that WrestleMania would return to Las Vegas in 2026], so I might as well push myself to the physical limits while I can."
Wouldn't be a #WrestleMania without my #NightmareFamily pic.twitter.com/yBB8vYgauU
— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) April 20, 2025
10 p.m.: The week culminates in the Rhodes family suite, where Bey watches Cena win the WWE undisputed championship for a record 17th time. It is almost 20 years to the day since Bey's dad ordered him his first WrestleMania, WrestleMania 21, where Cena won his first world championship.
"I have no regrets about the decision to do as much as I did," Bey said. "The love I received made me happier than I could ever imagine, and it made the concept of being able to keep going and keep pushing myself that much easier."
TODAY, BEY CAN go to the gym and do several workouts that include light weightlifting, plyometrics and jumping exercises. After losing 32 pounds while in rehab, he has regained 15 over the past couple of months. He still has some trouble using his hands for basic functions, such as opening bottles and tying his shoes. He also has some mobility issues stemming from his longtime hip issues. According to Bey, he's "about 45%" of what he was before the injury, a monumental number for a man who was thought to possibly never walk again.
As for wrestling, he's not sure when, or if, he will be able to get back into the ring and is reluctant to put a timeline on making a decision.
"It's such a difficult thing to answer because I don't want anything like that to ever happen to him again," Bey's mother said of her son potentially returning to the ring. "But I know my son and I know his strengths and I always knew the day he set his mind to becoming a pro wrestler that he would make it. So, if he wants to come back to wrestling and that makes him happy, then I am happy with it too."
The boots he had medical staff carefully remove from his feet the night of his injury remain in his closet. He hopes he'll be able to put them on again.
"Never say never," he said. "Adam Copeland [aka Edge in WWE] was retired for nine years for a neck injury, and when I talked to him, he assured me that even if I could get back, it does take a lot of time. He was able to do it at his age [46 years old], and if he could do it, I could definitely do it."
Until then, Bey is interested in working in pro wrestling in a different capacity, with everything from producer to writer on the table.
"I should use my talents in any way possible to help continue and push forward the next generation," he said.
No matter what the future holds, this isn't the end of Bey's story.
"I call this 'the greatest story ever told' because I was living my dream at the highest level that people told me would be unattainable," Bey said. "I had a life-altering injury and potentially life-ending injury. But through the grace of God, with all the odds stacked against me, not only am I back on my feet, but I'm in the process of becoming an athlete again. And should that day come when we get to end it my way, when the music hits and I come back out to the ring in full wrestling gear and a pair of boots, it's just the greatest story ever told."