At AEW Full Gear 2022 Saraya will wrestle her first match since appearing at a WWE live event in Uniondale, New York on December 27th 2017. During the match the star was involved in an incident which damaged her already surgically repaired neck, and caused her to retire from in-ring competition.
However, following years of performing a variety of roles with WWE, the British star left the company in July 2022 and debuted with AEW at Dynamite Grand Slam in September. This led to a feud with former AEW Women’s Champion Britt Baker. Although fans were left with more questions than answers as it was still unclear as to whether Saraya could actually wrestle. Fast forward to November 9th and the star made the news official, she’s medically cleared and coming for Baker at Full Gear.
Saraya Was Scared She Could Be Paralysed If She Wrestled Again
During an appearance on The Sessions with Renee Paquette, Saraya opened up about getting cleared to return. She broke down the process involved, and revealed that she feared she would be paralysed if she ever wrestled again.
I came to terms with not being able to wrestle anymore, and that’s fine, but a couple years ago I did do some x-rays and they were looking great. I didn’t do the full MRI, just the x-rays. It’s not like a perfect read on the neck with the whole fluid thing. X-Ray is just the bones and MRI, you can see everything, the inner workings of the neck, the important part like how much fluid is around there, it’s crazy.
I was nervous about doing the MRI a couple years ago, but [the x-ray] was looking good, ‘maybe in a couple years it’ll start looking better.’ I wasn’t going to rush it because Edge was out for nine years, Stone Cold (Steve Austin) had the match with Kevin Owens but he didn’t bump very much. It was limited, but it was still an amazing match. I thought, ‘I could probably pull off doing a Stone Cold match.’
I’m throwing that idea at Tony (Khan) and he’s like, ‘With Sting coming in, we did tag matches. Maybe we could do tag matches.’ I was like, ‘Hmmmm.’ If I were to come back, I would want it to be a singles match. I remember talking to the doctors and they were like, ‘you can do this, but we’re not going to clear you to take a bump.’
That’s the whole misconception with how the internet works. ‘She talked to 25 doctors and AEW doctor, Doc Sampson cleared her.’ He didn’t clear me for anything. I went out there with Britt and we did our own thing, I didn’t ask for clearance from the doctor there, I’m going to be honest. He was cool with it, ‘just please don’t take a bump.’ It was, ‘if you want to actually have matches, we have to get you completely cleared. That means MRI, CT scan, everything.’
I don’t want to go to a doctor that is associated with wrestling because I feel there is bias there. I don’t want to make the same mistake where I came back and I’m wrestling every day. I want to be aware and careful of my neck this time. I want to get to the nitty gritty of what it looks like and how much I can do and if I’m going to be paralyzed. That was the biggest scare. If I did wrestle, I could potentially get paralysed,”
The former WWE Superstar added that she got officially cleared on Halloween after visiting a doctor in California. Furthermore, she’ll be wrestling only once a month for the time being.
Halloween, I went to the doctor in California, one of the best around,” she said, noting that he works with athletes across all sports and entertainers.
“If anyone is going to tell me no, this guy is going to tell me no because his job is on the line. I got the x-rays done. ‘These are great, but we have to triple check with CT scans and MRI.’ I did the CT Scan and MRI within the same hour. It was very quick. He sat there, we went through them all, and he went, ‘You’re cleared.’ I burst into tears. ‘Are you serious?’ I was still asking questions like about the fluid around my neck. It was just the fluid was back.
The fusion was perfect, there were no fractures above or below. ‘Let’s talk about paralysis.’ ‘It’s rare. If you get kicked there, you have a cushion now. If you ever feel that you’re not feeling too well, take some time off. You know you’re body. I will clear you to get back in the ring.’ ‘How many matches can I have?’ ‘Take it easy, do one match a month and gradually start building it up.’ Long story short, Halloween is when I got the full clearance.”
You can find all the information you need about AEW Full Gear, including a full run down of the updated card here.
H/t to Fightful