Injury Update On Natalya After She Was Helped Backstage On RAW
On the July 26th episode of Monday Night RAW Natalya appeared to suffer an ankle injury during a routine tag team match.
In the bout which saw Natalya and her partner Tamina taking on Eva Marie and Doudrop, the self-proclaimed ‘Best Of All Time’ appeared to succumb to the injury while tangling with Doudrop. After kicking out of a cradle, Natalya immediately favoured her ankle before quickly tagging out.
As the match continued, the Canadian Superstar was seen being tended to by a trainer outside the ring, before being helped to the back as the match came to an end.
Speaking on the most recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that the veteran Superstar had undergone an MRI scan but the results were as yet unknown. Meltzer added that the current prognosis “doesn’t look good.”
Meltzer later recalled Natalya suffering a broken ankle a couple of years ago, and initially working through the injury for four weeks, surmising that the injury must be relatively severe for her to limp out a match.
“I remember… that a couple years ago, she had a broken ankle. And she worked on it for four weeks. She just thought it was a little sprain that you could work through. So she’s tough. So for her not to be able to put any weight on the foot. It’s probably pretty damaged. And from what I gather, it wasn’t any better. You know how those injuries go the next day, more times than not they’re going to be worse the next day than better the next day. When it comes to that type of an injury… because usually when you’re in a match and everything, the adrenaline kind of takes over and you could see that whatever it was was pretty significant because she couldn’t she couldn’t walk she can just get out of the ring. And it’s gonna take a lot for someone like her to to not finish a match and not be able to walk out of the ring.”
Natalya later took to social media to thank her fans for their well wishes.
“Thank you to everyone for the kind words about what happened on #WWERaw. There are the beatings you can plan for, and the ones you can’t. That’s the job. But I’m willing to give whatever bones, muscles and tendons I have to continue doing what I love. Good thing I’m UNBREAKABLE.”
It was also announced that Nikki A.S.H will defend her RAW Women’s Championship against Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley at SummerSlam.
After winning the RAW Women’s Title as RAW went off the air the previous week, Nikki A.S.H opened the July 26th episode of the show. The new champion saluted the fans before being joined in the ring by her two rivals. After some verbal sparring, Sonya Deville and Adam Pearce announced that the three would meet in Las Vegas on August 21st.