JD McDonagh recently appeared on the latest episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet to discuss various topics, including his current injury status.
In January 2025, McDonagh suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung during a World Tag Team Championship match on WWE Raw. He was teaming with Dominik Mysterio against The War Raiders when he sustained the injuries.
While the damage appeared to be caused by a nasty bump where his neck bounced off the announce table, the actual injuries were to his torso.
Following the match, McDonagh was immediately taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with serious injuries that will keep him out of action for the next few months.
Here are the highlights:
On how he’s doing:
“Time heals all. I wasn’t like this the first week or two after but I’m feeling a lot better now. [I’m feeling] pretty good. My lungs are good. My ribs are good. I’m just kind of waiting for the bones to knit back together before they clear me.”
On the table bump:
“I guess it was in the planning stage really. I needed to be on that side of the ring for something that was going to come up later on. So I said, I’ll just do it on the announce table side. I’ve done it on that side before, but whatever happened on this one, I just was maybe a foot too far forward or a foot too far back and wiped out.”
On his immediate thoughts right after the accident:
“In that moment I was just thinking, when’s the next breath gonna come? I knew that I didn’t hit my head that hard, because I knew I’d missed a spot in the match and I knew what was coming up next. So I knew I wasn’t unconscious or anything like that, and then I don’t know, it was like an out-of-body experience, listening to Michael Cole with the concern in his voice. I’ve heard him all through the years being like we got to get a medic down here, and then all of a sudden you’re lying at his feet and he’s saying it about you.”
On returning to the match:
“Everything goes really slow in moments like that. I wasn’t thinking I gotta get through this match. It was just okay, what’s next? Can I do that? Let’s do it. So I wiggled my fingers and toes and I was like, okay, I can do that. I got a breath back. I can probably stand up. So I stood up and got back in there.”
On whether he knew how bad the injury was at that point:
“I thought it was maybe cracked ribs. I could feel my ribs on this side were like rice krispies under my skin, they’re definitely messed up. I couldn’t get a full lung full of air but I just thought that was because I was winded from hitting the table. Then the adrenaline kicked in and I was okay, I can do this. I can get back in there and do my part in the match. I didn’t want to leave the guys, especially because it was one of the first few weeks that we were on Netflix. Everyone’s excited about it, huge audience watching you for the Tag Team Titles, War Raiders’ first defense, yeah, I didn’t want to [quit]. If I can stand up and keep participating, then I’m gonna.”
On not wanting to quit:
“The thought of stopping didn’t even enter my mind. The referee came down, and he asked me what city we were in and what date it was. I told him that I’m okay and I told him where we were and what we were doing. I said, ‘Tell Dom that I’m okay and I just need a minute.’ He passed the message on, and then the ref actually got a lot of heat for it online, Shawn Bennett. But as far as him doing his job he can only do or relay the message of what I’m telling them and I told him I was good to go. One of the WWE docs came out in the ad break. She checked me over, and I knew if she touched my ribs she wouldn’t let me back in there. So she’d thankfully asked me about my head and my neck rather than my ribs. And there was a spot coming up in the match where I was needed so I was like, I gotta go.”
On what he was thinking when he got back in the match:
“Just what’s the next thing? Okay, it’s a big back body drop. Not ideal. But the one thing that I did change in the match, and Dom is going to kill me for telling this story. The finishing stretch that we talked about. I said it would be cool if we could do 619, you tag me in, I’ll do a 450, I’ll bounce off and I’ll tag you in, you hit the Frog Splash. It’ll be like our super finisher. We’re super late in the match now so I have no energy left whatsoever, no air left. I tried to say to him, ‘I can’t do the 450.’ He didn’t hear me. He’s taken off for the 619 Please, God, just let him go up for the Frog Splash. He hit the 619 he runs across to me no, no! He tagged me in. So the one modification I made was I knew I’d really hurt myself if I did the 450 and I’ve done that moonsalt probably 10,000 times, and I knew I could kind of protect myself a little. And Ivar is a big guy, big landing pad. So I thought this is gonna be the last big move that I do. I’ll make it a good one, and get out of here.”
On the scene after the match:
“So we got back behind, not even to the curtain. I had my arms over Dom and Carlito coming up the aisle way, and that was really hurting me. But I couldn’t take my hands off them or I would have fallen down. I didn’t want to fall down in Gorilla because there was loads of people waiting to go out to the next match, and you don’t want to sell for anybody in the office. So I just lay down on the other side of the curtain, thinking that I was out of the eyeline of people, but I was in view of the fans. They caught a photo of my feet sticking out into the entrance way they said JD has just collapsed backstage. But I just had to lie down and catch my breath. It wasn’t a full collapse.”
On the possibility it may be his last bout:
“No, I don’t [think about that] because I understand the risks that we take being a wrestler. I’ve been doing this for 22 years now, 23 years in September. So I know. I have seen people wiping out and losing their careers. I know that’s something that you gamble with every time you go through the curtain, but if you were thinking about it often, I think you’d psych yourself out.”
On his recovery:
“I’ve been in the gym. I was doing skipping and really low impact cardio for a couple of weeks, and now I’ve kind of progressed in doing Pilates and other non-impactful. So I haven’t taken a bump yet. That’ll be the next step. Get back in the ring, hit the ropes. See if that hurts. Take a bump. See if that hurts.”
On a timeframe for his return:
“I’d love to be back yesterday. I’m so bored sitting at home watching the guys traveling around, I’m so jealous. They’re going to Europe this week. They’re doing Madison Square Garden on Monday, and then jetting off to Europe. So if I could be back, I’d be back right now. Hopefully, I’m going to put a time frame on it and say within a month I hope to be back, that’s what I’m working towards. So whether that happens or not, whether the WWE docs align, that we’ll see.”
