On a recent episode of “Green with Envy,” Chelsea Green gave details on her move to Ring Of Honor, her broken arm, and her talks with WWE’s John Laurinaitis.
Here are some highlights:
On Ring of Honor and how she was able to appear on their show before her 90-day non-compete with WWE:
“I debuted on Ring of Honor on the PPV. It’s very exciting. Obviously, I spoke about how WWE released me in April. When WWE releases you from the main roster, which is RAW or SmackDown, they give you a 90-day non-compete, which means you can’t appear on any TV or Indie shows for 90 days. Before people complain, because they always do, ‘Ah, WWE sucks. They hold you hostage, blah, blah, blah.’ That’s not actually the case because they pay us our full salary for those 90 days. Whoever complains about that, you’re fu**ing nuts. I’m sorry. I myself have been enjoying getting paid for 90 days. I’ve been enjoying taking that time to mentally prepare myself for the future. I already know what being a free agent is like, of course, I was on the Indies for how many years? One week it feels like you’re in heaven, and the next you are so fu**ing stressed about your entire future. I know I needed to take these 90 days to prepare myself in every way possible, and do things a little differently this time. That’s one reason I decided to stay a free agent, and work for as many companies as possible for the next six months.
I am trying not to lock myself into one company. I want to experience all of the places that I wasn’t able to experience before I signed with WWE, which leads me to Ring of Honor. Ring of Honor was actually number one on my list. For years before WWE signed me, I tried to get on Ring of Honor, but the place, or the timing, or whatever of their shows never worked in my favor. I was never able to have my Ring of Honor debut. When I was released, Maria Kanellis from Ring of Honor was one of the first people I reached out to say, ‘Hey guys, I got fired, but I really want to work for you. I would love an opportunity there.’
After seven years of wrestling, I’m so happy. I’m finally at Ring of Honor. I’m very excited, and obviously, I was very excited for the shock value, knowing that I was debuting three days before the public thought my WWE contract was up. Key word, thought. Originally I was supposed to wrestle in the women’s tournament for the new Women of Honor title, but, I found out my arm was in fact, a little injured. I had to make the tough call to Ring of Honor and give them that news. Trust me, as hard as I tried to wrestle this week, the Maryland Athletic Commission was not letting me. I’m not joking. They were not having it. They have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to injuries in wrestling. I have to respect that, but obviously, I also wanted to cry a little bit about it. It’s not ideal, and it sucks because for the past few months, all I’ve been doing is preparing for this moment, this exact moment. Mentally and physically, I’ve been working out like crazy. I’ve been spending time coming up with new ideas, pitches, characters, and obviously spending my money on gear and new looks. When I found out my arm was injured for the third time, I was pretty heartbroken to say the least. I felt like I had 101 plans in my head for my future, and obviously in my calendar, and I had to go through that calendar, call those people, and tell them the sh*tty news. My debut back on the indie scene is going to be somewhat anticlimactic, unfortunately.
Back to the shock value, the positive of all this is that I didn’t just debut on the same date as the rest of my coworkers who were released on April 15th. I was able to swindle a little deal with WWE, and get myself on TV a week earlier, which would have, in theory, allowed me to be part of the Ring of Honor tournament and PPV. Honestly, I just need to stop there and give a huge shout out to Johnny Ace [Laurinaitis]. Johnny Ace is amazing. He’s been so helpful throughout this process of me being released. When I was first released, I actually went to him and asked him right away if I could forgo my 90 day pay, and get back onto the Indies within the next week or two. He was willing to do that for me, but unfortunately with the complications I had with my arm, I had to get the plate removed from my arm. We decided that it was not best to go ahead and break my contract. When I contacted him this time around, which was about a month ago, and asked him if I could forgo my last week of WWE pay to appear on the Ring of Honor PPV, and obviously I was thinking there was no way in hell that he would go for it, but he contacted the lawyers at WWE, and had me out of my contract on July 7th as opposed to July 14th by the end of the week. I’m so grateful to Johnny Ace, to say the least. He’s the reason I was able to surprise the fans, and show up at the PPV, well him and every single person at Ring of Honor who let me do this.”
On her broken arm:
“I’ve been lying to you guys about this broken limb of mine. If you guys remember, I put out an episode a few weeks back titled, ‘Did I break my arm again?’ I promise you, I was not lying when I recorded that. I actually found out two days after that podcast dropped that my arm was, in fact, broken. Actually, so broken, it was broken in half. Let’s take it back to the Emergency Room trip I took that I told you guys about. I was in the ER. I got my X-ray results, and they tell me, ‘It’s not broken.’ So, I went home. I did what any normal person would do. I iced it, I took some Tylenol, and I went on with my life. I did normal, everyday stuff. I didn’t think anything of it because the doctors told me it wasn’t broken. A few days went by, and I said to Matt, ‘It’s still really hurting.’ I think I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so when it was still hurting and swollen, I knew that there was a little more going on than the hospital had led me to believe.
I called WWE. I asked them if I could do some physical therapy. They were going to allow me to do a couple weeks of physical therapy. I went into the WWE Performance Center and met with some of their staff. We did some physical therapy. We stretched the wrist. We manipulated the joints to see where my range of motion is. That’s where my arm really started to hurt, obviously. I kept going, but inside I actually felt like crying. It was hurting so much. My therapist at the Performance Center said something didn’t seem right. Honestly, I knew something wasn’t right too. When she was working on my wrist, I was like, this is not normal. When I left physical therapy that day, I immediately called my surgeon, but of course because I was not being a drama queen like I usually am, I just said Oh, ‘I just want an appointment. My arm is kind of bugging me. I don’t know what is wrong’, they didn’t prioritize me like a high risk. They probably should have, knowing what we now know. I had to wait the rest of the week and weekend to see my surgeon. I picked up groceries. I worked out. I filmed a PBR commercial. Let’s just hit pause. I had a sore arm for 12 days, from the time I went to the ER to the time I saw my surgeon. 12 days. Unpause. I get to my surgeon’s office. We take an X-ray. My arm is completely broken in half, snapped in half.
He said, ‘We immediately need to cast this or we need to do surgery, and you won’t be out of your cast until the end of July.’ I was f**king fuming thinking obviously the ER told me it was not broken or fractured. I could have had this casted two weeks ago, and this would have been the last two weeks of my recovery. I still would have made it in time to debut. Nobody would have known, and I would have been in the Women’s tournament. Now, I’m only a few weeks away from my debut. I went a full 12 days with a broken arm. I’m sure that didn’t help. Now, it’s swollen, it’s sore, it’s starting to heal out of alignment. Honestly, it was a nightmare. I’m sure you guys are also confused because I post my entire life on social media, and by some miracle, I’ve been able to keep this cast off of Instagram and Twitter. I just felt I needed a little bit of privacy with this. Obviously, I’ve been wrestling for seven years, and now all of a sudden in the past two years, it seems that all of my good luck is coming to an end, and I’ve just had some real s**t luck with this arm. I think I just wanted to stay positive and heal by myself, as opposed to being told constantly that I’m injury prone, and constantly hearing negative feedback that comes along with having a Twitter account. I’m sorry I’ve withheld the truth from you this time, but I promise you I won’t do it again, unless it’s for your own good. This time though, I hope you see why I did it, and I hope you got such an amazing surprise yesterday when I debuted.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “Green with Envy with Chelsea Green” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
