Kevin Owens knew his body was trying to tell him something was seriously wrong—and the scariest warning came when his legs stopped responding during his Elimination Chamber match against Sami Zayn. The WWE star revealed that his symptoms began months earlier, but doctors initially had trouble figuring out what was happening because nothing pointed directly to a spinal cord or neck injury.
Owens explained during an appearance on the Toronto Sun’s No Holds Barred that returning to the ring was always his goal. However, once the medical team uncovered the damage inside his neck, there was a real possibility that the match against Zayn would be the final one of his career.
“That was definitely always my goal, but there was a real possibility that was going to be my last match when we figured out what was going on. It was a few months before we could truly nail down what was going on with me. Starting in January, we were well aware something wasn’t right. We just didn’t know the extent or exactly what the issue was because every symptom I was reporting to the medical staff wasn’t indicative of a spinal cord injury, neck injury or anything like that.”
The situation became even more confusing when Owens temporarily started feeling better. He was able to face Cody Rhodes in a brutal ladder match at the Royal Rumble and walked away without any immediate disaster.
“It took a little while to get there, but things had gotten better in between. By early January, something was wrong, then it got better, and I had a pretty insane ladder match with Cody Rhodes at the Royal Rumble, which I managed to walk away from relatively okay.”
That sense of relief didn’t last. During the Elimination Chamber match against Zayn, Owens realized his legs were no longer functioning the way they were supposed to.
“Then the match at Elimination Chamber happened, and at the end of that match I realized, ‘Oh, things still are not right,’ because my legs just didn’t function properly. They weren’t responding how they should. Once that happened and it didn’t get better, we obviously realized something pretty serious was going on.”
Owens and WWE’s medical team finally dug deeper and ordered an MRI. That test uncovered the neck damage that his earlier symptoms had failed to expose.
“We finally dug a bit deeper and did an MRI, which originally wasn’t thought to be necessary because nothing I was reporting seemed to indicate that an MRI would be the answer. But it turned out it was.”
The scan delivered the answer Owens had been searching for—but it was the answer nobody wanted. Doctors immediately told him that he was finished and needed surgery.
“Once we saw all the damage and everything that was going on, they told me right away, ‘You’re done. You need the surgery.’ It wasn’t just the damage that was there. I happen to have some sort of condition with the way my bones grew in my neck that made my case different than everybody else who had the surgery before me.”
That condition made Owens’ case more complicated and left his WWE future hanging in the balance throughout the entire process.
“That made things more complicated and more uncertain. From the time they told me we were going to have the surgery, to the time I had the surgery, to the time they told me I was good to go, all of that was very uncertain. There was never a guarantee that I’d get back in the ring at all.”
Owens ultimately fought his way back after nearly 17 months away, but his description of his legs failing him shows just how close he came to having his career ripped away without warning.
What do you make of Kevin Owens continuing to wrestle before doctors discovered the damage inside his neck? Let us know your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
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