Paige Thought She Would End Up In A Wheelchair After Accident That Ended Her Career

Former WWE Divas Champion and current SmackDown Live General Manager Paige recently did an interview on Edge and Christian’s podcast, E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness, to talk about her in-ring career coming to an end and her new role in WWE. Paige was forced to retire after suffering an injury at a live event in January.

She injured her neck just months after returning from a long layoff following multiple neck surgeries. Paige believes she pushed her body too much too soon, and it finally caught up with her:

“I honestly felt really confident about it, but that’s the inner-wrestler stubbornness. You know how we are; we can be fine, and all believe we are unbreakable. Just coming back and it kind of humbled me a little bit,” Paige said.

“I thought I was fine, and perhaps earn a championship match, but I did come back with the confidence that this was going to be fine, but I kind of felt that in a single’s match where something didn’t feel right as it was before.

“I had to go down to the Performance Center and take bumps by moving my neck somewhere and kicking out of a finish and moving my head to the side because it couldn’t be the same. I had to adjust in a lot of ways.”

Paige then recalled the moment she suffered the injury and called it the scariest moment of her life. She also said she feared she would end up in a wheelchair:

“I felt it in a single’s match where I realized that something didn’t feel too good, but I thought that it was fine, I’m just rusty. I’m doing a 25 minute match, and I thought, ‘Okay, this is going to be fine,’ but then when the accident happened and I lost all feeling in my legs and arms, it was the most terrifying experience in my life, and I never wish that upon anyone. It was so scary,” Paige said.

“I literally was done, and I thought I was going to be in a wheelchair. I had pushed myself too much. I really did. Every time I was in a match I was like, okay, I will take the bumps, I pushed myself too hard where my body was literally done. I have been doing this since I was 17, it’s like, I need to let my body grow a little bit.”

Her injury came at a time where women’s wrestling in WWE was on the rise, however, that doesn’t erase the amazing accomplishments Paige has already achieved in her legendary career:

“I am really, really proud. I definitely filled in a lot of stuff after my small career in WWE. I have been with WWE for over 6 years now, and I had that year and a half out which wasn’t the best year of my life, but missions were accomplished after I came back,” she said.

“I even had a couple months to accomplish a little bit more, and getting to commentate the all-female Royal Rumble, it was great. It’s not ending like I haven’t done anything with my career. I actually have a couple of trophies that I have to display under my belt as well.”

You can listen to Paige’s interview on E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness by clicking this link here.

H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions