A current champion in WWE has addressed their time away recovering from injury and how they are still feeling the aftereffects.
When his tag team partner Erik suffered an injury in late 2023, Ivar was still featured prominently on TV as a singles star. With standout matches against Kofi Kingston and Ricochet, Ivar was able to show the fans what he could do on his own as opposed to having to wait on the sidelines for his partner to recover.
Unfortunately, Ivar also suffered a serious injury in May, meaning that both The Viking Raiders were out with injuries. According to Ivar, his injury could have put him out of action indefinitely.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, the World Tag Team Champion first recalled that he knew something was wrong while facing off against Oba Femi in NXT:
“It got to that match with Oba Femi for the North American Championship in NXT. We got to the second half of that match, and I just lost all strength in my right arm. I couldn’t pick him up, so I just started calling audibles in the ring where I wasn’t going to pick him up. We made it through the match, and that was that. The whole time we were checking on medical to see how I was doing. And then after that match I was like, okay, that’s no good.
Then I went to Discovery Cove that week with my wife, just to be like, Okay, I need a break, like a reset. Usually, when we do vacation things, it’s go, go, go. I’m like, I know I need something where I can just relax and just see how I’m doing. We did an animal trek thing where you interact with a parrot. I held my arm up for the parrot to come over, and I couldn’t hold my arm up. So that was immediately MRI, we’re getting an MRI right away.”
Continuing, Ivar added that at this point it appeared that his in-ring career would be over due to the surgery required:
“Then we got the results back and that was it, read the results. They’re like, Okay, this is probably the end of your career, to the point where they handed me mental health paperwork to kind of get that rolling, because I already had the double fusion of my neck. So if we’re talking about another level fusion, because the MRI showed I had another herniated disc in my neck the level above. So two levels, C5,6,7, they’re all fused together. This was C4 and 5, so the one directly above, another fusion would probably be the end of my career.”
In more positive news, Ivar stated that he was able to get a reassessment and was informed that he was able to avoid the surgery, meaning that the WWE star “dodged a very big bullet” in the process:
“So yeah, they were there preparing me for the worst for when I went to see my surgeon. My surgeon had read the result in the MRI, and he pretty much felt the same way that this was it. So for five days, I think this is it. It’s over with. I flew close to the sun and the wings melted.
But when I saw him in Birmingham five days later, and he actually had the disc for the MRI, and he read the results for the MRI himself, he’s like, okay, we can work with this. So with my original injury, I did the suicide dive, and my head got pushed back into my disc, exploded into my spinal cord, which caused the temporary paralysis and then pretty much emergency fusion surgery after that.
This one, the herniation happened, instead of shooting in towards the cervical cord, it went out away from it. So he was pretty sure, because my symptoms weren’t too bad, we could probably rehab it without having to do surgery. And if we did have to do surgery, he knew a different surgeon who would go in through the back and just shave the herniation down arthroscopically, which wouldn’t require fusion. So he said on multiple occasions that I dodged a very big bullet.”
WWE Star Ivar Is “Pretty Good” But Does Have Permanent Nerve Damage
When asked about his current quality of life, Ivar stated that there are good days and bad days, adding that there is nerve pain that will always be there:
“So I’m pretty good now. To be fair, I do have permanent nerve damage and nerve pain in my hands, and that will never go away. That’s something I live with. But as far as everything else, I got most of my mobility back to my neck. It’s a little stiff now because I have another herniation, but I still have very good range of motion. I credit that to yoga, pretty much.
Then all my strength is returned to my arm, so I have no problems there, so it’s really just the nerve pain right now from the original injury that I have that’s permanent. But I have good days and bad days. Some days I can really feel it goes down my arm a little bit, and some days I can’t feel it all, kind of all depends. But quality of life, I feel pretty good.”
In other WWE news, Triple H looked back on his time in Evolution.
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