JBL has been in hospital twice this year, and says neither stay had anything to do with wrestling.
He gave the update on Something To Wrestle, the show he co-hosts with Conrad Thompson, while discussing whether the back problem that ended his career might ever need surgery.
“I had some health issues this year. Probably too much information. I went to the hospital with an elbow infection, and I’ve had a lower back problem that was not related to wrestling. Something else I got where I thought I was gonna have to walk with a cane for a while. I hadn’t been able to work out for months.”
He said both were one-off events rather than accumulated damage.
“All of them seem like from silos, one-off events, not based upon a lifetime of beating up my body. Which it may have been from that. I don’t think it was. It was something different.”
He does not expect to need an operation on the original injury.
“I don’t think a surgery now would make me any better. I think I’m okay. I really do. As crazy as that is, I’ve just told you about all the health problems I’ve had this year, but yeah, I feel pretty good now.”
The back is what ended his in-ring career. JBL retired at WrestleMania 25 in April 2009, aged 42, with spinal stenosis and a neck he had broken in a match in London.
He said he was in much better condition than that as recently as last year.
“When I was training and getting ready to do something in the ring last year, I felt great, man. I was running sprints. I was doing squats. I was lifting weights. I felt pretty good.”
That training was for two projects, neither of which happened. JBL had planned a TNA return built around an idea from Tommy Dreamer that he thought was strong, and walked away when creative replaced it with something he considered pointless. He had a separate plan with Konnan for TriplemanÃa, involving legends and a story about control of Mexico, which was overtaken when WWE bought AAA in 2025.
His last match was in 2012. He entered the Royal Rumble that January, twenty years after his professional debut and three years after the WrestleMania 25 walkout, and has not wrestled since.
He assumed that was the end of it until Jeremy Borash rang about commentary work for AAA, which is what he is doing now. Borash works there alongside The Undertaker, who runs the promotion’s creative, and Rey Mysterio, who serves as on-screen General Manager.
He left the question of getting back in a ring open.
“I might get in the ring and take a couple bumps, nothing significant. And if I got in the ring and started bumping, it may come right back. I have no idea, but I have a feeling that I’m pretty healthy right now.”
JBL is 59 and has now been retired from full-time wrestling for longer than he was a WWE main eventer.
He has done a substantial amount of physical therapy for the back over the years and is not certain how much of the improvement to credit to it. Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal that puts pressure on the nerves, and it is degenerative, which is why the question of surgery keeps coming up.
Since retiring, he has worked as a commentator for WWE, run a financial career, and taken on charity work, including climbing Kilimanjaro for the Beyond Rugby program in Bermuda. He now co-hosts Something To Wrestle alongside Conrad Thompson, and works commentary for AAA.
