During his appearance on My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox, WWE Superstar Kevin Owens provided details on his neck injury.
Owens addressed reports of his injury on this past Friday night’s episode of SmackDown, saying that he has been dealing with neck issues over the last four months and will require surgery. His match with Randy Orton at WrestleMania 41 will not take place as scheduled.
Owens said that the injury happened during a routine match without any hardcore moves. He had two matches in January on SmackDown – one against Rey Mysterio and the other was against Jimmy Uso.
“I am telling you it happened in a regular match. No hardcore things, nothing. There were two very simple things that I’ve done a million times.”
Owens went on to provide more in-depth details pertaining to the injury.
“25 years in, with the stuff I’ve done, I feel like it was bound to happen. It sucks. The timing sucks, for sure. I hoped it would never happen, obviously, nobody hopes for it, but I felt like doing this for 25 years, I felt really great. Even now, I feel great, I do. It’s not like a constant problem, but over the last few months, I’ve had an issue in my matches that made me go, ‘I think something is not right.’ We looked into it and found out there was something wrong with my neck…I know for a fact there was a specific moment because in December, I did a full body MRI just on my own for curiosity, just like to make sure and see if there is anything I need to be aware of. It’s a thing where you can see if you have issues with your bone structure or organs or anything like that. At the time, the report came back that my knees were sh–, but I’ve been well aware of that for a long time. There is no concern there. There was something about my spine and mild to moderate stenosis, which, for what we do, and I showed it to WWE doctors and they’re like, ‘For what you guys do, everyone has a level of stenosis. Everyone on Earth has a level of stenosis. Your spine and neck, everything looks good. For what you’ve been doing, you’re fine.’ Great, and I felt great. In January, I had a match. In the match, two things happened that really jarred my neck. That’s when the issues started. I knew there was something. We ended up doing an MRI this week and found out it’s serious. I think that match in January is what did it because I had an MRI a month before that and everything looked fine.”
Owens also said that he doesn’t know the timeline of when he will return and that he’s speaking with a surgeon on Monday. He added that he knows others who have gone through similar neck injuries that were out six months to a year.
He also expressed the disappointment of not being able to compete against Randy Orton at WrestleMania 41 and that he really wanted to break the news to the fans first about his injury before it hit the internet.
You can watch the full interview below:
Source for quote: Fightful.
