Bianca Belair shed light on the horrific injury that has kept her away from the squared circle in WWE.
The EST of WWE has been out of in-ring action since WrestleMania 41, where she competed in a Triple Threat Match for the Women’s World Championship against IYO SKY and Rhea Ripley.
It appears that Bianca Belair suffered a painful injury during the bout and has not been medically cleared for in-ring action, although she made an appearance at the Evolution PLE, where she was the special guest referee for the Naomi vs. Jade Cargill No Holds Barred Match.
The former WWE Women’s Champion recently opened up about breaking her ring finger during the aforementioned bout in an interview on Insight with Chris Van Vliet. When asked for an update, she said that while her finger appears to be healed, she couldn’t straighten it anymore, because of which she had to wear her ring on her other hand.
She added that she broke her finger in two or three different places, including the middle and up to the joint:
It looks more like a real finger now. So I have to wear my ring on my right hand now because my ring doesn’t fit. It’s healed, it won’t fully straighten. I broke it in two or three different spots. I broke it up here in the middle and then down in the joint.”
Bianca Belair Shares How She Got Injured And How She Completed Her Match At WWE WrestleMania.
Speaking further, Belair said that the injury occurred when she went to do the Triple German Suplex spot. While the EST thought Rhea Ripley would go over her, she ended up landing on her hand, which caused her finger to break.
Bianca Belair added that she felt that she had broken all her fingers and even told the referee the same when he came to check in on her. She said that it hurt so much at the time that she became unaware of her immediate surroundings for a brief moment, and it took Ripley to snap her out of it to get her back in action:
So it was when we were doing the Triple German spot, when IYO [SKY] was on the top rope, and then it was Rhea [Ripley], then it was me, and I came in German suplexed both of them off, and my hand got stuck underneath Rhea. Also I went to the wrong side of Rhea, but my hand, I thought she was gonna go further over me, we kind of just collapsed together. So when my hand went back, it got stuck under her, and she literally crashed on my hand. I knew immediately it was broken, because usually in a match, something happens, and you don’t feel it until after the match, [when] your adrenaline wears off, and you’re like, ‘Ow, my finger.’
But in the moment I thought I broke all my fingers. So the ref, you can see the ref if you watch back, the ref comes to me. He’s like, ‘Are you okay?’ I’m like, ‘I just broke all of my fingers!’ You just see me rolling around on the ground, and it took Rhea to snap me out of the moment, because I was just rolling around on the ground. And she’s like, ‘Bianca, Bianca!’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ ‘Oh, we have to finish this match.’”
Upon being asked how she ended up finishing the match despite the horrific injury, Bianca Belair stated that once she got back into the groove of things, she forgot about her injury and didn’t think of it till the match was over. She even added that after the bout, she thought the injury was not too serious:
Honestly, after she [Rhea Ripley] snapped me back into I didn’t feel it at all for the rest of the match. I didn’t feel it until I got to the back, and I was like, ‘Oh, I broke my finger,’ and I didn’t think it was that serious.”
You can hear Bianca Belair talking about her injury in the video below, beginning at the 4:26 mark:
Stories like these make fans realise the amount of professionalism that talents like Bianca Belair possess, who ensured that, despite her injury, the match wasn’t affected in any way, as it got rave reviews from across the table afterwards.