Nick Aldis would like to clear something up. He was not made SmackDown general manager because he was too injured to wrestle.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Aldis addressed an assumption that has followed him for close to three years.
“It’s funny because some of that was just some interesting timing. Because no, I was not put in that role because I was hurt. It wasn’t a case of being not cleared or needing time to heal up or anything like that.”
What he will say is that the time off did him good.
“Having said that, it’s been wonderful to have some time to heal up. And actually, the truth is, I probably did have some issues that I was not fully aware of until I actually had time for my body to heal properly. One being my back.”
Two years of the wrong answer
Aldis said the pain arrived around the time he was starting to work with WWE, while he still had independent dates left. One was a return match with Alex Shelley, and he had to cancel it.
“For probably the first time in my career, outside of being legitimately injured and having surgery, it was the first time where I had to call and pull out because my back was really bad. I’d had this sort of constant nagging pain in my back where some days it would be fine, and then other days it would completely ruin my whole day.”
“I remember being a couple of days out from the show and just calling the guy and saying, I’m having trouble moving around. I’m going to have to pull out. My back is shot.”
He assumed the worst and went to a specialist in Nashville.
“It felt like I had a bulging disc or herniated disc. Turns out I actually just had huge inflammation.”
The specialist found an inflamed stabiliser muscle behind the spinal erectors.
“He goes, that’s why it feels like you have a bulging disc or a herniated disc. He goes, you actually just have massive inflammation in this muscle. And he said, you’re fine. Actually, your spine’s in pretty good order.”
A more recent check at the Orlando Magic’s facility said the same thing.
“The guy said, look, you’ve got the spine of a 39 year old wrestler, but actually, in the scheme of things, it’s pretty good.”
The fix was straightforward.
“It just turned out that I just needed these specific anti-inflammatories. Cleared it up like instantly. That was a thing that had been bugging me for like two years.”
Aldis put the two years down to himself.
“So it was really just a case of me being a stubborn idiot. And just sort of almost not wanting to know, and thinking I’ll just figure it out, or I’ll just wear a back brace.”
Asked how he feels now, he had one word.
“Fantastic.”
