Je’Von Evans told a referee he was seeing stars and asked her not to call medical. She called it anyway, and the match was stopped.
The bout, against El Grande Americano on the January 19 Raw, was stopped early and awarded to Americano. Evans explained why on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, and the explanation is a straightforward account of a safety protocol working on somebody who did not want it to.
“So basically, I think before we went to commercial, me and Grande butt heads, right? And for like a couple seconds, I was seeing stars or whatever.”
His instinct came from where he learned the job.
“But I’m from the indie scene, bro. Like, you get hurt, you keep going, unless you can’t go no more. So we butt heads, and I was kind of stunned for a little minute. But then I continued.”
The conversation happened during the commercial break.
“I went to the ref. I’m like, hey, look, I was seeing stars, but I’m good. I’m good. She’s like, what? And I’m like, I was seeing stars, but I’m okay. She said, do we need to call medical? And I’m like, no, no, we don’t. I just got here, dude. Like, I’m okay.”
She did not accept it.
“And then she’s like, no, no, we gotta call medical because it’s a head injury.”
Medical staff came out and the match was called off.
“So we got medical, and then they was asking me questions. I was like, I promise, I’m okay. But because we hit heads and because I was seeing stars, I had to call the match off.”
Evans said he felt fine afterwards and has been through worse. He also did not argue with the decision.
“Oh yeah, I was feeling great. I was like, y’all, I just got stunned. I’ve been through worse.”
Asked whether it was the right call, he agreed without hesitation.
“It is, bro. You just got to be careful. You got to be careful. Head injuries are nothing to play about.”
WWE now has medical staff at ringside with the authority to stop a match regardless of what the wrestler wants, and referees are instructed to escalate anything involving a head injury. That is what happened here.
He is not the only wrestler to have had that conversation recently. Brie Bella has described the referee repeatedly checking on her during the six-woman tag at SummerSlam, relaying messages from the doctors and from Paul Levesque, and asking whether the match needed to be called. Bella talked her out of it and finished the match with a broken scapula, which she has since said left her facing three to six months out.
Evans came up through NXT and joined the main roster in January, weeks before the Americano match, part of a group that had been the top of that brand alongside Oba Femi and Trick Williams. He is regarded as one of the most athletic wrestlers on the roster, and both Cody Rhodes and The Undertaker have used him as an example in the argument that has run through wrestling media this month about whether younger performers do too much.
Rhodes named him and Sol Ruca specifically, and pushed back on the criticism, saying that some of the veterans telling them to do less are doing it because they could never do more.
What was visible on the broadcast that night was less clear than Evans’ account of it. He was on the floor holding his wrist when the show returned from the break, and Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio afterwards that it was the accidental headbutt that drew the stoppage, with the concern being a concussion. Evans was cleared to fly and missed no time, and the two met again on Raw after the Royal Rumble.
Evans was attacked by Big Cass on the August 3 Raw in Des Moines, after beating Ethan Page, in the returning wrestler’s first WWE appearance since his release in June 2018. Cass has gone after him more than once since, and Evans has now called him out and challenged him.
