Felix Upton on February 19, 2026
Christy Hemme is finally clearing up a long-standing rumor about what really ended her in-ring career—and it wasn’t what fans have been led to believe.
For years, there’s been chatter across wrestling circles that Hemme suffered a broken neck during a private training session involving AJ Styles. That story spread across message boards and reports, but according to Hemme, it’s completely off base.
During a recent appearance on The Velvet Ropes with SoCal Val, Hemme addressed the speculation head-on and revealed that her career-ending injury actually happened during a televised TNA match with Awesome Kong—not in training.
Hemme recalled the exact moment things went wrong inside the ring, describing a terrifying loss of feeling after taking a bump in the corner. She initially tried to shake it off, but the situation quickly escalated when it happened again moments later.
“I remember I was in a match with Kong. I got thrown into the turnbuckle and going numb from the neck down.”
“I remember it like, ‘What was that? Oh my gosh.’ And then I came out of it, and then I got thrown again in the turnbuckle and it happened again. It was stuck a little bit longer. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I just remember thinking, this is really serious.’”
After the match, Hemme wasted no time getting checked out backstage, immediately alerting medical staff that something wasn’t right. That decision led to an MRI, which revealed just how serious the situation really was—and why she had no choice but to walk away from the ring.
“And so when I came backstage afterwards, I told Brad Holman, this is our doctor… I said, ‘I’m feeling this thing in my neck or my head or my back.’”
“And that’s when I went and got my MRI, and I had two protrusions in my spine that were sitting on my spine. You can’t wrestle with that.”
Hemme made it clear that continuing her career could have led to catastrophic consequences, including paralysis.
“Like that’s the kind of thing where if I had been thrown a little harder, which is not my opponent’s fault by the way… but if I had been thrown harder, it could have severed my spine and I’d be paralyzed. So I had to stop completely.”
Despite the severity of the real story, Hemme admitted she’s still puzzled by how the false version involving a training accident took hold in the first place.
“And so that’s how it happened. I don’t know why we undramatized that story and made it a training story.”
Hemme’s comments finally put to rest years of speculation and shift the focus back to what actually happened inside the ring that night. While her wrestling career was cut short, she continues to stay connected to the industry and will be appearing at the For the Love of Wrestling convention in Manchester this weekend, along with a Future Shock Wrestling event featuring Team Hemme vs. Team Melina.
With the truth now out there, it changes how fans look back on the end of her career—and raises questions about how easily misinformation can spread in wrestling.
What do you think about Christy Hemme finally clearing this up after all these years? Drop your thoughts below and join the conversation.
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