Darren Adrian Drozdov, popularly known as Droz is an American essayist, a former football player as well as a professional wrestler.
From 1998-99, he competed in the battle World Wrestling Federation under the ring names Puke and Droz. The mighty man was born on 7th April 1969 in New Jersey in the United States. Unfortunately, his career ended when he was paralyzed on the 5th of October 1999, during a match.
Quick Factoid:
- Famous for: his wrestling tournaments
- Known as: Droz, the wrestler
- Date of birth: Olaf and Cynthia Drozdov
- Parents: N/A
- Debut: November 1997
- Wife or girlfriends: Julie Youngberg
- Nationality: American
- Net worth: $52 million
How did Droz’s career start from a footballer, wrestler to essayist?
He was famously known as a wrestler rather than a footballer.earlier, he was an all-state in football at Oakcrest High School in South Jersey. Before starting his wrestling career, Droz was a professional American football player, for straight three seasons with the NFL, National Football League’s New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, and Denver Broncos.
He earned his nickname Puke in his football career, after the incident when he puked on live television telecast during a Monday Night Football game. Meanwhile, one of the sports illustrated in 1993’s articles stated that he had vomited at almost every game that season and would repeatedly see a doctor for his chronic vomiting issue.
As a strong wrestler, he made a debut at the World Wrestling Federation in 1998. Initially, he wrestled in dark matches and on WWF Shotgun Saturday Night, then he first appeared on the 25th May 1998 episode of Raw is War, as an associate of Legion of Doom. named as Puke, he became the unofficial third member of the group,
Around 1998, he competed in the WWF Brawl for All tournament and made it till the semifinals before being defeated by Bradshaw. After L.O.D member Hawk’s alcoholism issue, Droz was put into the position of Hawk in the tag name.
After an arrogant duel between Droz and L.O.D members, continuous efforts were made to rebrand Droz’s persona, including a series of skits named Droz’s World, where Droz was the protagonist and would speak about his life as a professional wrestler.
After so many struggles and hard work, Droz started his fresh life as a wrestler, and in 1999, the Pro Wrestling Illustrated ranked him as the 142nd position out of 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500.
A terrible accident which ended Droz’s wrestling career
A year later, everything was changed in Droz’s life. On 5th October 1999, Druz appeared on SmackDown, battling against D- Lo Brown. The accident took place when he landed on Droz;’s head, thereby fracturing his two disks. Eventually, Droz has completely paralyzed as well his career came to an end after the terrible duel. Though having a lifetime contract with WWE, he regained the upper half of his body’s mobility.
Despite his suffering, Droz has overcome his negative outlook on life and feels no ill towards D’Lo, calling it a one in a million accident.
The net worth of Droz
Droz’s career as a professional wrestler ended after a terrible accident which led him to paralyzed. As per the sources, the net worth of Droz is due to the tournaments he had competed, and as an essayist.
As of 2020, it was estimated that Droz’s net worth is around fifty-two million dollars.