Samoa Joe has spoken out on the match he had with Tyson Kidd’s [TJ Wilson] that ended the former WWE star’s in-ring career.
During a dark match at a WWE Superstars taping in June 2015, Joe defeated Kidd with his Muscle Buster finisher. After taking the move, Wilson suffered a serious neck injury which required the C1 and C2 neck vertebrae to be fused together. Faced with a serious risk of paralysis with only a 5% chance of surviving the injury, Kidd was able to make a full recovery and has maintained a high quality of life. However, the former Tag Team Champion will never wrestle again.
Still with WWE, TJ Wilson works as a producer and has produced many major matches in the women’s division. In a 2023 interview, Wilson’s wife and WWE star Natalya spoke about his injury and why it would be dangerous to take a bump:
“He’s just so gifted, and he’s so good, but he just can’t bump. And that’s the thing when you have an injury, like what TJ had, where it’s a C1 injury, and not everybody’s familiar with what a C1 injury is.
But it is where TJ broke his neck was at the base of his brain. So it’s where like the brain and the spinal cord meet. So it’s a very, very vulnerable area. And the actual medical term for that injury is called The Hangman fracture. So when people say, Oh, TJ, you know, we want to see you get back in the ring. And they see that he is very healthy, and he is in very great shape.
Because he had a C1 injury with a C1 C2 fusion, he just can’t take a bump. And he has to be very careful. So he can’t ever come back to wrestling. I mean, he can do stuff, you know, he can do stuff, but he can’t take a bump. It would be really dangerous.”
“That Remains The Largest Regret Of My Career”: Samoa Joe On Tyson Kidd Match
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Samoa Joe was asked if he ever thought he would perform the Muscle Buster again after what happened with Tyson Kidd:
“No, and to this day that probably remains the largest regret of my career that that happened.”
When it was brought up that there was nothing he could have done about it, the former World Champion noted that Tyson Kidd still can’t wrestle as a result:
“But that doesn’t change things for Tyson. Doesn’t change things for a guy who is probably one of the most passionate people in the world of professional wrestling. For a guy who has an amazing mind for it. WWE is fortunate to have him. Because even though he’s not in a physical role within the company, the finishes, his ability to put together matches and be a producer and agent are unparalleled.”
When asked if he knew if anything had gone wrong at that point, Joe responded he only knew when he saw the concern on Cesaro’s face:
“No, not at all. No, didn’t feel any different. It’s just when I turned around and went for the pin and got back up. The only thing that even hinted that there’s something wrong is when Cesaro looked back up at me. I know when Cesaro is concerned and then I was like, oh my God, I hope everything is okay. Then we got in the back and he went to hospital and everything got checked out.
But I mean, the whole circumstances regarding that and everything, it just makes me sick to this day that that guy is not out there being the Tyson Kidd that I know that he is. He’s an amazing human being. He has a great understanding of a greater picture and when you talk about guys who are great finish men, guys who can produce, he’s going to be heralded as one of those dudes there if he isn’t already.”
When asked about performing the move again and any concerns, Joe admitted that he didn’t want to use it on the main roster out of respect for Tyson Kidd:
“Well, I didn’t want to. It was kind of like when I got back into things in NXT. In NXT I used it. When I got to the main roster I didn’t. But it was mainly that I tried to avoid doing a bunch or making it a thing. If he’s having a bad day, he looks over and he sees that, I didn’t want to replay the car crash in front of somebody. So I did my best to distance myself from it as much as possible. But that’s why just because this guy’s my co-worker, this guy I respect and I care about. I’m not trying to make him have a sh*tty day over it.”
In other news, Shelton Benjamin elaborated on his AEW Dynamite absence.
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