Chris Bey made an appearance on the latest episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet to discuss a wide range of topics, including his scary injury that paralyzed him at one point.
During the October 27th tapings of Impact, Bey sustained a serious injury in a match against The Hardys alongside his partner, Austin. Bey was stretchered out and taken to a hospital for surgery.
In January, Rob Van Dam revealed that Bey had suffered a broken neck but was no longer paralyzed. Last month, Bey shared a video of himself walking and provided further details about his injury. He revealed that he underwent a C6-C7 neck fusion and a C6-C11 spinal cord fusion and was initially given only a 10%-25% chance of regaining his ability to walk.
During the interview on Insight, he was asked whether he thinks he will ever wrestle again. Bey stated,
“Never say never, right? The day after day one, the day after the surgery, I was very content and understanding that my career was over. I didn’t see a world where I came back to wrestling. I was laying there, couldn’t move anything from the neck down. It felt like I had passed away, because there’s all this love for me online, they say you get your flowers when you’re gone. There’s all this love for me online that everyone’s telling me about and everyone’s calling me and having people reach out to me who I’ve never my wildest dreams imagined reach out to me. They’re making video packages about me. It was like I was watching and spectating my life and my life is now over, and wrestling is my life. It was my life. It is my life. It still consumes me. In that moment I was like okay, wrestling is over. I want to one day have a family. I want to be able to one day stand and run and play with my kids one day. Family was something I never thought about in my early 20s, but in my later 20s now being 29 is very important to me. It’s something that I want so badly, not now, but one day, and the the thought of never being able to achieve that broke me. That broke me, and that drove me more than anything because I had a great eight years in wrestling. Eight years, that was it, but I did so much in eight years that lived my wildest dreams. I feel like I made an impact on the world. I was able to help train, coach and motivate people who are in the game today. It’s a dream career, if it had to end, if it’s over now, cool. I want to walk, I want to stand, I want to be able to function. And then maybe a couple weeks ago now I’m walking again and I’m back in the gym. I told my girl, I was like, what if I do wrestle again one day? I’m still young. What if I took five years off, if I took four years off and came back in my mid-30s? It’s possible. It’s been done before. Nothing’s impossible, and that’s where the greatest story ever told is born.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Insight With Chris Van Vliet with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
