Carl Frampton may have thought he was ready for anything after his training camp in Philadelphia for the fight against Emmanuel Dominguez, but it turned out his hours of drills hadn’t prepared him for the threat of a large stone ornament in his hotel lobby.
The Belfast fighter was left to sheepishly tweet (presumably with his undamaged hand): “Today a freak accident occurred. A large ornament, in the hotel lobby, was knocked over accidentally and hit me on the left hand, fracturing the fifth metacarpal.”
— Carl Frampton MBE (@RealCFrampton) August 5, 2019
While Frampton’s TKO and the inevitable rematch with Hotel Ornament next year certainly won’t be forgotten fast by boxing fans. it’s not the first bizarre injury excuse to derail a sporting star.
1. David James and the TV remote
Nobody could question Calamity James’s commitment to comedy whether on or off the field.
The former England ‘keeper managed not one but two freak injuries during his career – putting his shoulder out while fishing and then tweaking his back while reaching for the TV remote.
Funnily enough, many England fans suffered injuries desperately trying to get to the remote to turn the TV off when David James was playing for England.
2. Santiago Canizares drops a bottle of perfume on his foot
For sheer bad luck, it takes a lot to beat Santiago Canizares’s freak injury that ruled him out of the 2002 World Cup.
The Spanish star dropped a bottle of aftershave on his foot and a shard of glass went through his foot, severing a tendon.
And aftershave isn’t cheap either…
3. Ever Banega ran himself over
The Argentine midfielder joined East 17’s Brian Harvey in the illustrious club of ‘people who have managed to run themselves over with their car’.
While playing for Valencia, Banega got out to fill up with petrol and forgot to put on the handbrake. The result was a broken ankle, tibia and fibula, half a season on the sidelines and a lifetime supply of chants from opposition fans.
4. Kirk Broadfoot and the egg explosion
If you’ve ever wondered why footballers need an entourage including a nutritionist and a personal chef, Scottish defender Kirk Broadfoot provided the answer when he quite literally was left with egg on his face.
While at Rangers, Broadfoot prepared a gourmet treat of two eggs poached in his microwave but came a cropper when he leaned in to inspect the eggs and received a squirt of boiling egg juice for his troubles.
5. Jason Pierre Paul’s fireworks
As Mario Balotelli will attest, American football star Jason Pierre Paul isn’t the first athlete to mess around with fireworks. But, for want of a better expression, it blew up in his face quite spectacularly.
The New York Giants man ended up having his right index finger amputated, but amazingly continued to play and signed a $62 million contract with the team in 2017. We can presume he didn’t celebrate with an indoor fireworks show.
6. David Batty’s tricycle trouble
Anyone who watched Batty play knows he didn’t often come out on the wrong end of a challenge. In fact, he once managed to start a fight with the entire Sampdoria team and win it – in a pre-season friendly.
But Batty was no match for his three-year-old son who managed to deck him while riding a tricycle, damaging his Achilles tendon.
7. Liam Lawrence’s 50-50 tackle with his dog
The Stoke midfielder came off worse in a tangle with his dog after nipping out to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Lawrence ran into the dog on the stairs and in attempting to avoid a collision managed to turn over on his ankle.
He’s not the first footballer to be injured as a result of man’s best friend – Bristol City legend Darren Barnard once slipped in a pool of puppy urine and tore his knee ligaments.
8. Dustin Johnson fails to Master the stairs
In 2017, the World No. 1 golfer at the time Dustin Johnson was forced to withdraw from The Masters after falling down the stairs. Talk about falling at the first hurdle.
Somewhat spookily, two years later, Johnson’s brother and caddie, Austin, fell down the stairs after The Players Championship and broke a bone in his left hand.
“He had a bit of a run-in with a pair of stairs, kind of like I did,” Johnson said. “Those stairs, man. They’ll get you.”
9. Glenallen Hill’s nightmare injury
Take one arachnophobic baseball star who happens to also be a sleepwalker and you have the recipe for a weird injury – or a very good Limerick.
Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Glenallen Hill had a vivid dream in which he was being chased by spiders and hurled himself through a glass table, ruling him out of action for 20 days.
10. Rio Ferdinand’s Playstation problems
When you’re an elite footballer it’s crucial that you make the most of your limited recovery time, but Rio managed to take that too far and actually relax himself into injury.
The ex-England captain strained the tendons in his knee by playing on his Playstation with his knees up on a table for so long that his body basically gave up.
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