Christian Watson went to the hospital during Thursday Night Football, then made a Stone Cold-style return.
There is a saying around these SB Nation parts, as well as in the wider sports media space, that holds the following:
Everything is pro wrestling.
Say what you want about the WWE, the AEW, and pro wrestling at any level, but you can draw comparisons between what happens in the squared circle and almost every aspect of public life. I mean, the current President of the United States is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame, but that is a discussion best left to another time.
But Thursday night’s game between the Green Bay Packers and the Carolina Panthers gave us perhaps the best WWE-NFL comparison yet.
Packers wide receiver Christian Watson left the game — and the stadium — following a catch on a deep ball in the first half. Watson was described as having a chest injury, and not only was he checked out in the blue medical tent, but he departed Lambeau Field via an ambulance for further evaluation.
Shortly after halftime, however, Watson was back at Lambeau Field, having been cleared by the medical staff at a nearby hospital. He returned in the same ambulance, this time riding up front, and jogged back onto the field to a loud “pop” from the Packers faithful:
The comparisons to pro wrestling were immediate:
That prompted some to overlay the video with audio from WWE matches, like this video here:
Or this video:
It is worth mentioning that Watson was diagnosed with a broken rib and was coughing up blood, but he indeed returned to the game and caught two more passes as the Packers defeated the Panthers. The wide receiver finished the game with a career-high eight catches for 113 yards, the highest receiving yardage total from a Packers player this year.
But just how close of a comparison was this, really, to the WWE?
Watson drew the comparison in his post-game comments:
“It was super dramatic,” said Watson after the game as quoted by the Packers website. “I used to watch WWE as a kid. I felt like I was watching WWE Smackdown vs. Raw or something, seeing the cameras on me when I was coming out of the ambulance. That was a little crazy.”
And so close that another member of the WWE Hall of Fame made the comparison himself:
Complete with a show plug and more.
Everything is pro wrestling, indeed.