The ending of the 2005 Royal Rumble couldn't have been weirder. WWE Chairman Vince McMahon had just come barreling down to the ring, clearly furious and waving his arms like a lunatic.

The match had ended abruptly. Superstars John Cena and Batista had managed to eliminate each other at the same time to close out the iconic battle royale, with both men slamming into the floor simultaneously. It looked like it was just part of the match, but no one realized that Vince McMahon was about to suffer one of WWE's craziest injuries. 

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The finish was completely by accident, and someone had to save face. Both of WWE's brands at the time, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown, had their own respective leaders: Eric Bischoff and Teddy Long. But plans for both General Managers to come out and call an audible fell through when neither could be found, both having decided to leave the arena early.

The dual nature of WWE's booking at the time made a quick fix difficult. SmackDown and Raw were completely separate and embroiled in a fierce rivalry. Batista, a Raw superstar, had been slated to win the match by last eliminating Cena, a SmackDown superstar, but the double-elimination complicated things. He and Cena each acted as if they had won, and the refs of their respective brands went along with it as they waited for direction from the back.

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And so Vince had to come out. McMahon, who was 59 at the time, stormed down to the squared circle and was obviously furious. He tried to stay in character though, and when he got to the ring attempted to slide inside headfirst. But when he tried to stand inside the ring, a confused and obviously hurting McMahon just dropped to a sitting position instead. McMahon had slammed both of his knees on the edge of the ring, tearing his quadriceps. Despite many fan's beliefs that the ring is safe and comfortable, the ring is mostly unforgiving steel and plywood, and Vince had collided with it at full speed. 

“We didn’t know what was wrong,” recalled Korderas, then one of WWE's most senior referees. “Obviously, we just went, ‘Okay, that didn’t look good,’ and then he just sat there.”

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But McMahon, ever the showman, didn’t skip a beat. Despite immediately dropping to a sitting position when he tried to stand up, he remained in character the entire time as he issued instructions on what to do. Still not aware he had torn his quads, McMahon managed to roll himself out of the ring and then — without help — walked to the back and to his limo.

Tearing a quadriceps muscle is one of the most devastating injuries an athlete can suffer, so many people in the wrestling business have applauded Vince for being able to stay in character and walk to the back. McMahon would later fly to Birmingham, Alabama, for surgery to repair the torn quads. His wife, Linda, updated the WWE roster in an email the following day, stating McMahon was fine “Other than being totally annoyed at himself.”

“I severed both of my quadriceps tendons doing a stunt in the ring,” McMahon later said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I wasn’t warmed up, I didn’t stretch and that, unfortunately, is major surgery. My character, his time has come and gone. I’ll be 60 in August. I’m better utilized from a resource standpoint not being a performer.”

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It ultimately took about three months for McMahon to recover from his injuries before he was back on WWE television, and McMahon continued to perform for years in the ring despite those claims. He wrestled two no hold barred matches against Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart at WrestleMania 22 and 26, respectively, and even competed in a Hell in a Cell match in 2006. The match against Michaels went down just over a year after the Rumble incident.

More recently, Vince used his own pending hip surgery to get Brock Lesnar's destructive nature over with the fans, taking an F5 from The Beast and claiming the surgery as a result of damage from the maneuver.  Today, Vince is largely off television, the Mr. McMahon character retired and the baton passed on to his children, Shane and Stephanie McMahon. But Vince has always remained a showman, and it's only a matter of time before he returns with some outlandish stunt to try to boost ratings.

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