Stevie Richards recently appeared on Wrestling Shoot Interviews for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Richards goes in-depth on his recent health struggles after contracting an infection in his spine, the immediate effects, the possible cause, how serious the illness was, and where he is currently in his efforts to recover from the infection.
When Stevie first started experiencing health issues:
“For months, I was just thinking, ‘Oh, my back’s starting to hit that wall. Maybe I’m gonna need surgery, maybe I’m gonna need a nerve block.’ Whatever fix I could have at this point to keep going. Then, in the end of January on a Sunday morning, I had one of my best workouts ever; thought I was pulling through, like, one of those bouts where your lower back keeps biting you… But from 9:00 AM when I got home and I thought, okay, that was a good workout to noon… I was completely stuck in my chair and it was just a mystery, like my back has locked out, but not to the point where my legs are almost useless. Not, paralyzed, not numb. But it hurt so bad I couldn’t put pressure on my legs ‘cause it would shoot up into my back. So my wife, literally from 9:00 AM when I got home and then at noon had me in a walker. I went right to a walker. I’m moving around and it’s just now fear. The early set of fears settling in like, well, I’ve never experienced pain like this.”
On the tests to discover that Stevie’s spine was infected:
“So I’m in a wheelchair, and then Mayo Clinic finally got eyes on me, thank God finally got eyes on me. And once they saw me, I got admitted. They started doing tests. They did a spine biopsy, which by the way, because of the infection, None of the twilight type of anesthesia worked. I felt every bit of them hammering a needle into my spot. Oh, dude, I’m telling you, I was just like laying there and he kept apologizing and I just hear that it sounded like a railroad spike going into my back.”
The source of the spinal infection after ruling out unclean gym equipment or mat burn:
“I was over at my best friend’s house and his dogs got freaked out by something that happened. And I just happened to be petting one of the dogs. It bit me right in the face and like, right through the skin… The other [dog] got freaked out by the noise and then got freaked out ‘cause the dog got freaked out and bit me in the leg. It was a goofy thing, but the point of that was number one, I’m glad it didn’t bite my wife. I’m glad it didn’t bite the neighborhood kids that were over in the house either, ‘cause it would’ve been a lot more traumatic to have that. I can at least grow the beard out and cover it somewhat.”
Where Stevie is at with his recovery process:
“Besides the CT scan, I’m officially out of the woods, but I also have to be very careful because the effects, so the effects from the spine infection have still lowered my immunity. I’m down about 35 pounds still, which I wanted to lean out, but I didn’t wanna do it that way, but I’m down from, I was down from 215lbs and I dropped to 180lbs. Now I’m around 180, 180 5. But my workouts, I have to say thank God, have been outside of hip hinging movements and putting any kind of pressure, axial pressure on my neck or my spine. I’m pretty much able to do just about everything. Now, what I’ve done, James, too, because I’m really a fitness enthusiast and that’s why my fitness brand, I started my fitness journey all over again and I’m still, technically even after about two months, I’m cardio, like 90% isometrics, some suspension, body weight training, and maybe a little bit of cable work, but isometrics have been.”
You can check out a clip from the interview below:
(h/t to Wrestling Shoot Interviews for the transcription)
