WWE World Tag Team Champion Ivar recently appeared on “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet” where he discussed his recent neck injury, his road to recovery, and his current quality of life.
Ivar and his tag team partner, Erik, won the World Tag Team Titles on the December 16th episode of WWE Raw. This victory came after Ivar’s return from a neck injury that nearly ended his career.
“So it started in Brooklyn before WrestleMania,” Ivar said. “Me and Ricochet had a match. I took a European uppercut and I was like, whoa. Did a system check. I’m like, I’m okay. I’m alright. Then after that, I was doing Main Event, Raw, NXT, NXT Coconut shows. I was doing some SmackDown, Dark stuff. I was just on everything. Then 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.”
Ivar went on to say that he knew something was wrong after the match and that he needed a break. He went to Discovery Cove with his wife, but his arm was still bothering him. He had an MRI and the results were not good.
“They read the results, and 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 I had two levels, C5, 6, and 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. So yeah, they were there preparing me for the worst when I went to see my surgeon.”
Ivar’s surgeon initially felt the same way, but after reading the MRI himself, he said that they could work with it.
“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’m thinking this is it. It’s over with. I flew close to the sun and the wings melted. When I saw him in Birmingham five days later, and he actually had the disc for the MRI, he read the results for the MRI himself. He’s like, ‘Okay, we can work with this.’”
Ivar was able to rehab his neck without surgery and has since returned to the ring. He is now a WWE World Tag Team Champion once again.
“So I’m pretty good now,” Ivar said. “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 a very good range of motion. I credit that to yoga, pretty much. All my strength has 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. I have good days and bad days. Some days I can really feel it. It goes down my arm a little bit, and some days I can’t feel it. It all kind of all depends, but quality of life, I feel pretty good.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
