I thought this was important enough to warrant its own topic but Meltzer is reporting that Steamboat suffered an aneurysm and is currently in the hospital.

 

This sucks.

 

http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/13934/

Sounds like he should be OK, though.

Newest update:

 

Ricky Steamboat's condition has been upgraded to stable, but he is likely to be hospitalized for some time after suffering a brain aneurysm last night in Tampa.

Crazy how the world works with his DVD just being released.

 

I hope he makes a full recovery.

First thing that came to mind was that my mother had a ruptured aneurysm in 2008, and never recovered. She is in a permanent vegetative state.

Second thing that came to mind is that it was a work. It says in that link that he was banged up from Monday...which I find odd. I hadn't heard that he was injured from the angle.

WWE's been distancing themselves from this by stating that the Nexus angle had nothing to do with this and did not cause it. I'd imagine they're trying to downplay it because if they didn't, then the wrestling media and the general news media would accuse WWE of capitalizing on it by NOT denying the link (or worse, it could be another situation where everyone thinks that it's a work and therefore a tasteless angle).

Update from Dave Meltzer:

 

Doctors in Tampa after results came in from his angiogram have determined the issues of Ricky Steamboat (Richard Blood, 57), came from a capillary burst that caused bleeding on the brain.

 

The original diagnosis was a brain aneuyrsm.

 

As of yesterday he remained hospitalized and was in stable condition and fully responsive. He will be most likely be hospitalized for another five days and given another angiogram to determine how he is healing up. The brain bleed is considered the serious issue, as capillary bursts usually heal themselves.

 

Capillary bursts most frequently come from blunt force.

Looks like this is yet another case of WWE instinctively lying to cover their backs again, only for the doctors to expose them at a later date.

I know wrestling is a unique business but I feel for Ricky if he was injured this way on the job recourse wise.

Blaming WWE for this would be just ridiculous. Vince took the same beating a week earlier and it looked more vicious on him (especially Barrett's slam). It could very likely have been the cause, but there's a difference between that and it being the company's fault. There was nothing excessively dangerous, nothing went wrong in execution... some things just happen a certain way where nobody's to blame and I'd put this in that category although that'd hardly stop media or whomever should they want to. But I do hate the way that the company feel they have to distance themselves from it. "We are all concerned for Ricky, unfortunately this things can happen" is hardly a hard nor uncompassionate statement to make. It's the "Don't Try This At Home" shit that drives me crazy... just call them idiots and be done with it. Hopefully Steamboat is OK, though.

I know it's a different ballgame with WWE now, and I know that Steamboat's health is more important than the angle, but it's so against what wrestling is to NOT exploit a real injury when it happens. It's so funny to me that this is a company that scripted Randy Orton to tell Vicki Guerrero that Eddy is rotting in hell, yet they are worried about exploiting this being in poor taste.

This could make Steamboat's kid too... done well.

Brain aneurysm just freak me out. Hopefully Steamboat recovers well and quickly.