Wrestler dies in similar fashion to WWE incident

There has been a lot of mainstream press in Japan regarding the death of independent pro wrestler Daisuke Yuri, who passed away on October 24th, 2008 at the age of 25 after taking a bad bump in training. He began training in April of 2008 with a small independent group and had two pro matches before a training session on October 18th where he was on the receiving end of the Doomsday Device, a move made famous by The Road Warriors. Yuri didn’t take the flat back bump right, or flip all the way over, the two correct ways to take the move. Instead, he did a flip and came straight down on his head, breaking his neck in multiple places. He died six days later. Police in Tokyo are reporting the death as an accidental homicide.

A similar incident occurred with WWF back in 1997 when Mark Canterbury, better known as Henry Godwinn, took a botched Doomsday Device from The Road Warriors and suffered a cracked vertebrae. Godwinn returned to action weeks earlier than doctors had advised him and the end result of the injury was him retiring from WWF. Canterbury has worked tryout matches and indy bookings over the past few years.