Finn Balor says he suffered a rib injury weeks before this year’s WrestleMania and raced to be ready for the show.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Balor said the injury happened during a Judgment Day angle on Raw, when Dominik Mysterio was facing Penta and Balor hit a dive over the top rope in street clothes. Worried his shirt would snag on the rope, he adjusted mid-move. “I said, I gotta jump extra high, and I gotta tuck faster than I normally tuck,” Balor said. “As I tucked, I popped the rib right in the air, not on the landing or when they caught me. In the air, I popped the rib.”
Balor said he stood up and fired up for the camera while realizing what had happened. “I stood up, I fired up, and I said, F—, I popped the rib,” he said. “Then it was again a race against time. The problem with rib recovery is you can’t do anything.”
He compared the situation to a previous SummerSlam, when he wrestled Edge in a cage match with his foot strapped so tightly he could barely flex it. Balor made it to WrestleMania as planned and said stories like these come with the territory of a career now in its fourth decade.
Watch the full interview with Chris Van Vliet below.
