Rey Fénix has put his body through plenty over the years, but there’s one injury that still forces him to take extra care of himself every single day. The WWE star revealed that a serious right hip injury was the worst he’s ever suffered, and if he doesn’t constantly stretch and warm it up, things can get painful enough that even walking becomes uncomfortable.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Fénix opened up about the damage he’s accumulated throughout his wrestling career. His list includes fractures, ligament issues and multiple dislocations, but none of them compared to what happened to his hip.
“I’ve had some injuries — to me, they’re many, right? Because I would love to tell you, ‘Oh, no, I’ve never been injured.’ I think there are very few lucky wrestlers who can say they haven’t been hurt or haven’t suffered an accident. But the first one that comes to mind quickly from the beginning of my career is that I fractured the instep of my right leg. That’s, more or less, the first one. Later, I fractured the tibia of my left leg. I took a very hard hit to my right knee. It didn’t become a huge problem, but basically the ligaments were overextended, so to speak.”
That wasn’t the end of the list either. Fénix also dealt with a dislocated elbow and shoulder before getting to the injury he considers the worst of them all.
“So, to regain that strength in the ligaments and muscles of my knee again, it took quite a while. I dislocated my left elbow, I dislocated my right shoulder, and the most painful and strongest one I can tell you about was in my hip — my right hip.”
The hip injury happened during one of the high-risk dives Fénix has become known for. He landed completely on the right side of his body, causing serious problems with the cartilage where his hip and leg meet.
“I had a very bad fall. I did a dive to the outside and landed completely on the entire right side of my body, specifically the hip. That led me to have very serious problems with the cartilage that is in the junction of my hip and leg. And it was very hard for me to recover from that injury.”
Fénix says he doesn’t consider the hip actively injured anymore, but that doesn’t mean the problem has completely disappeared. He now has to stretch as soon as he wakes up and again before going to bed because the muscles around the area remain extremely sensitive.
“That is why today the first thing I do when I wake up is stretch, and before sleeping is to stretch, because the muscles in my hip were left so sensitive that, if I don’t warm them up, if I don’t stretch them, two or three days can pass and my muscles start to atrophy, and then this flexibility problem arrives.”
And if Rey Fénix gets lazy about that routine for even a couple of days, he definitely notices it. The tightness can become uncomfortable enough to affect something as simple as walking.
“And, well, it’s painful for me even to walk, right? I mean, now it’s an injury that, thank God, has passed — that we can no longer call it an injury — but a way of taking care of myself regarding that injury is that, right? I mean, it’s having that care, stretching it.”
That same routine follows him into the gym and wrestling training. Before doing anything physical, Fénix has to make sure the area is properly warmed up and stretched so the muscles don’t tighten again.
“Every time I’m going to exercise, like wrestling training or the gym, warm it up, stretch it out so that we don’t get to that point where they atrophy again and then they’re very tense and then, well, they become a bit uncomfortable even to walk, like I was telling you, right?”
The recovery itself wasn’t exactly simple either. Fénix underwent MRIs and X-rays before receiving PRP treatment, which involved drawing and processing his own blood before injecting the resulting material around the damaged area.
“That one for me has been the toughest because I received PRP, which is basically them taking your blood, putting it in a little machine — I don’t know the specific names, I mean, the correct names, but to give you an idea or so you understand me, they take your blood.”
Fénix then described how the material was separated and injected directly around the injury in an attempt to help the damaged tissue recover.
“They put it in a little capsule where it spins around a lot and they separate the blood from this sort of oil that we ourselves generate in our body naturally, which helps us regenerate, right? Tissues, cartilage, ligaments, blah, blah, blah — it helps us recover. And basically they draw blood, they separate the blood from this; they put this into a process so that, to be able to return it, they inject it locally, right? I mean, where the injury is, they inject it directly.”
Those injections went into both the back and front of the hip area, and Fénix remembers the treatment itself being brutal. Even anesthesia wasn’t enough to make the process comfortable.
“And they had to inject me in what is the lower back part, almost a little bit there in the waist, hip, and here in the front, what is the joint between the hip and the leg. And it was basically there — it was local — and even with the anesthesia, it was very painful.”
Looking back, Fénix said the hip issue easily stands above his other injuries because there wasn’t a quick fix. Unlike a dislocated joint that could be put back into place before beginning rehab, this required scans, injections and a much tougher recovery.
“I think that has been the hardest because, apart from that, well, when I dislocated my elbow, dislocated my shoulder, they just pop it back in and you have to wait for it to recover. You keep it there for a while and then strengthen it. But not this. This really involved MRIs, X-rays, having this PRP process done, and it really is painful because, mainly, the procedure itself is painful and also the discomfort that it causes you to have the pain right in the leg, in the hip. And it was — it has been for me the worst because it has been way too painful. Both the recovery and the injury.”
The injury may technically be behind Fénix, but the maintenance clearly isn’t. Years later, that one bad landing still affects how he prepares his body every day, and Fénix knows skipping that routine can quickly bring the pain back.
What do you think about Rey Fénix revealing just how much maintenance his hip still requires after the injury? Let us know in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
