Kevin Nash was 42 when he tore his quadriceps, and the surgeon who had already rebuilt him several times told him nobody that age had ever come back fully from it.
Nash described the conversation and the recovery on Kliq This.
“For me, it was like when I tore my quad, and Andrews came in. And Andrews had put me together a couple of different times, and Andrews came in and said, I just want to tell you, I’ve never had a 42-year-old athlete come back 100 percent from a quad tear.”
His first thought was about his other leg.
“I’m thinking, wow. Like my other leg’s already pulverized. Now my good wheel’s f***ed up. Like I might not be able to do this.”
The surgery involved drilling through his kneecap.
“I couldn’t put any weight on my quadricep whatsoever because that whole tendon was pulled down and they drilled holes throughout my patella, and it was just sutured in place, and it had to adhere to my patella.”
He spent nearly six weeks unable to walk at all.
“I ended up being in a wheelchair for like 40 days, because being on crutches with an immobilizer that I couldn’t put weight on was just so much weight on my shoulders. That’s before they had those crutches that curve in, like you see all the hoopers have now. I’ve got a pair of those and did for my knee replacement, but for that quad, they had old-time sticks.”
He was around 340lb at the time, and said the crutches did lasting damage.
“I think that was the start of my shoulder problems. Was just I was heavy. I was probably 340.”
He worked out afterward why it had happened, which made the rehabilitation twice the job.
“Immediately upon doing that, realizing that the reason it happened was I’ve basically had 80 percent of my body weight on that leg the whole time, because now I can’t put any weight on that leg, and it’s all shifted to this cripple, beat up leg.”
“Not only do I have to start from scratch; when you do some straight-legged stuff beforehand, you get some strength, but in about 40 days I’ll start ranging and everything else and start making the actual comeback. I’m at the same time rehabbing my right leg so I can become functional, because I’m in a wheelchair.”
“I’m thinking, how did I get this beat up?”
He stayed in Alabama for the duration rather than going home.
“After that I didn’t take anything for granted, because I stayed down there for over 90 days. I never came home. I just went from the Embassy Suites to the HealthSouth.”
He named the physical therapist who has handled most of his rehabilitation.
“Kevin Wolk was there. Kevin’s so good. He’s been there for so many of my rehabs.”
Nash was rehabbing at the same time as Disco Inferno, who was three and a half hours away doing the same work, and says he did not do enough about it.
“I remember going down with Disco and getting in the ring with him down at HealthSouth. They put a ring up down there. He was sitting down there doing the same thing I did, and it was just like I was such a s*** friend. I could have at least once a month come down and spent a day with him.”
James Andrews is the orthopedic surgeon who has operated on a large number of professional athletes across several sports. Nash has been a patient of his more than once, and says Andrews had put him back together several times before the quad.
Nash returned to the ring after the quad injury and continued wrestling on and off for years afterward, including a WWE run in 2011. He has since had both knees replaced.
Nash is 67. He debuted in September 1990, wrestled his last match in January 2020, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015 and again with the nWo in 2020.
