Je’Von Evans was worried about surviving Penta’s chops when the two finally got in the ring together. Instead, he walked away with a tailbone injury that left him limping through the airport—and Evans says he came dangerously close to breaking his back.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Evans looked back at his Intercontinental Championship match against Penta on the May 25 edition of RAW and admitted he was already marking out before the bell. He had watched Penta going back to his Pentagon Jr. days in Lucha Underground, so finally getting to wrestle him was a huge deal. There was just one part Evans wasn’t particularly excited about: those chops.
“Yeah, bro. It’s actually such a great match, bro. That was my first time going against Penta. And I was marking out because I’ve always watched Penta, especially in Lucha Underground. I was just like going crazy, like, ‘Oh, I’m about to go against bro, Pentagon Jr.,’ you know what I mean? I was just so nervous about, like, taking his chops because, you know, his chops on Lucha Underground is so loud.”
The chops turned out to be the least of his problems. While talking about how much he enjoyed the match, Evans casually dropped a considerably scarier detail.
“Exactly, exactly, bro. But it was great, bro. I was just there. I’m like, ‘Just come on, let’s go. Let’s do it. Just do it. Just do it,’ you know? It was fire. I almost broke my back in that match too.”
The moment happened during a planned dive to the outside. Evans was supposed to hit the ropes, launch himself toward Penta and have Penta redirect him over the announce table. Once Evans was already flying, he realized the math wasn’t working.
“So we did something to where he went on the outside and I was gonna try to go for a dive and hit the ropes, and he was gonna, like, catch me and then throw me over the announce table. But I think the table was, like, not far. So, like, he tried to grab me and I tried to, like, post off his shoulder, but it just didn’t go off well.”
Evans suddenly found himself with two pretty terrible options. He could continue toward the table and potentially smash his face or chest directly into it, or somehow change his body position while already in midair. He chose the latter.
“And then I turned, so I saw the table and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m not making it over the table.’ So I’m either going to eat the table with, like, my face or, like, my chest, or, hey, I just gotta — I gotta shift my body, you know? And I shifted my body and literally, like, my tailbone — like, my exact tailbone — hit the edge of the table.”
Evans avoided going face-first into the announce table, but his tailbone paid the price. He remembered immediately knowing something had gone very wrong and described the impact as one of the worst things he has ever felt.
“Bro, like, you can probably see it, but, like, I hit the table and I’m like — bro, I’m, like, tweaking. But bro, that was probably, like, one of the worst things I’ve ever felt ever. First time — pause — but, like, it was, bro, honestly, real talk. And I think I had a bump on my tailbone, bro, like, for a couple weeks after that.”
Getting through the match wasn’t the end of it either. Evans said he was limping on his way to the airport afterward. Then came perhaps the last thing anybody with a busted tailbone wants to do: sit through an entire plane ride.
“Because I think, like, on the way to the airport, I had, like, a limp, and then we had a plane ride, you know? So I’m like, I’m just going through it during the plane ride. But yeah. Yeah, probably top three worst injuries.”
Evans went into the match wondering how badly Penta’s chops were going to hurt. By the time he was limping onto a plane with a bump on his tailbone, getting slapped across the chest probably didn’t seem so bad anymore.
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