On the “This Is VANCOLOUR” podcast, which can be seen below, Kyle O’Reilly recently gave an update on his health and suggested that he might not be returning to the ring anytime soon.
Since the June 8 edition of AEW Dynamite, where he won the show’s opening Battle Royal but lost to current Interim AEW World Champion Jon Moxley in the main event, O’Reilly has been out of action. The winner of that match would face Hiroshi Tanahashi to become the interim champion at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door.
In this latest interview, O’Reilly acknowledged that he has been fighting through injuries for a number of years, and in particular that these persistent injuries have been “pretty bad” for the past five years, dating back to his time in WWE NXT.
“This October, I’ll be wrestling for 17 years now. It’s a lot of bumps, a lot of wear and tear on your body,” O’Reilly said. “Fortunately, nothing serious has really happened to me. I’ve been hurt a lot, I’ve been injured, but I’ve always grinded through, made the date, showed up and performed as well as I can in the ring despite whatever I was nursing. Sometimes, the medical staff needs to save us from ourselves.
“As wrestlers, we’ll go until the wheels fall off. ‘My shoulder is hurt? Okay, I won’t do any moves where I land on my shoulder.’ We’re crazy like that. This is something I’ve been dealing with, it’s a nagging thing that I’ve been dealing with, specifically, pretty bad for the last five years.”
O’Reilly went on to say that during his most recent AEW matches, he had been “really banged up.” He only recently discovered the full nature of his injuries, but he had planned to learn more by the end of last week or the beginning of this week. It appears that the interview was recorded in the middle of last week. O’Reilly stated that he was getting ready to learn more about his recovery and how long it will take, but that his main goal is to return stronger than before.
“In the last few weeks of wrestling on AEW, I’ve been really banged up and didn’t know the extent of it until now,” he said. “I still don’t know all the information, so I don’t want to disclose exactly what is happening with me. I need more information and I should know probably this week what the recovery time is going to be and what the recovery will entail.
“All I can do is, if there is time off, use it to remotivate myself, get in better shape, and come back stronger than ever before.”
In a recent interview, AEW President Tony Khan said they didn’t know how long O’Reilly would be out, but that it was a “huge loss” for the business and one they weren’t expecting.
Along with O’Reilly, Bobby Fish and Adam Cole are presently on the shelf. Cole has also been working while being injured, although it was said that during the Forbidden Door match against Adam Page, Kazuchika Okada, and the winner, IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jay White, Cole apparently suffered a concussion. Cole ought to return soon. Fish is sidelined with an ankle injury, although Khan estimates that he will return far sooner than O’Reilly.
You can check out the interview below:
