Former WWE superstar Nathan Jones shared a wild story this week about almost dying in a crazy car crash with fellow wrestlers Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle while on a road trip between shows.
Nathan Jones recalled the story while posting an old photo of himself and Kurt Angle on Instagram. In the story, the former WWE star explained that life on the road can sometimes be riskier than anything that happens inside a wrestling ring.
He said he, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar often traveled hundreds of miles through the night with very little sleep. And when three such strong personalities are stuck in rental cars for so long, some strange things can happen.
“Kurt always liked to drive,” Nathan Jones wrote. “On this particular run, Brock decided he was sitting in the middle, so you had three heavyweights squeezed across one front bench. Zero room to move. Brock was a wall between me and the dashboard, pinning me hard against the passenger door.
“A few miles down the road, Kurt and Brock got locked into an intense conversation. They were happy, enjoying themselves, completely wrapped up in their debate, and the highway just vanished from their radar. That’s when I saw the concrete bypass wall ahead. Lined up dead with my corner, rushing straight at us.
“Brock had me completely boxed out from the wheel, and both of them were still deep in it,” Jones continued. “I turned to warn them, and Brock saw it at the same split second and screamed. In that moment his eyes hit the concrete and he let out a frantic, high-pitched yell. That alerted Kurt, who looked up and started yelling right along with him.”
“Brock instinctively threw his weight sideways, practically pinning Kurt against the driver’s door,” Nathan Jones recalled. “Kurt was screaming, fighting the wheel with Brock crushing him, tires broke loose, and the car whipped sideways in a cloud of smoke. By the skin of our teeth, we missed it. Then silence.”
According to Jones, the smell of burning rubber filled the car’s cab as they all gasped for air. He said Lesnar glanced over his shoulder at Jones, who remained motionless, frozen against the door.
“Did you see that?! Nathan no-sold it! He completely no-sold dying!” Jones said Lesnar shouted.
“They laughed about it for the next ten miles,” Jones continued. “I didn’t see what was funny at the time. There was simply nothing I could do – trapped against the door, cut off from the wheel. I had just quietly accepted my fate: This is it. When you’re out of moves, panic doesn’t help anyway.”
Luckily for all three wrestlers, everything worked out. While Nathan Jones only wrestled with WWE for a couple of years, he would go on to have an interesting acting career, including playing Rictus Erectus in the film Mad Max: Fury Road and in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Lesnar and Angle, as has been well-documented, went on to Hall of Fame careers in the ring.