Candice LeRae on the extent of her injury and having proteges to work with
In an interview with PWinsider, Candice LeRae spoke about the arm injury she received at NXT Takeover: Wargames and how she’s feeling surprisingly good in spite of that. Here are highlights:
On how she feels after her injury: I feel great. All things considered, I think whatever little tiny bits of me that are still a bit sore, I’ll take it, because my arm – no break – it was a Christmas miracle. I know. It was hard to believe, I was like this is definitely broken, we went to the ER, got x-rays…even our medical team looked at it and I want to say within 24 hours I was able to pretty much use my arm and my fingers all again – obviously tender, but… (laughs)
On when she realized she was hurt: “Yeah, well so, right after the impact, my ribs immediately hurt, and I’m a pretty stubborn person so I usually try to wait a second and go “Oh, I’m probably fine,” and I told the referee that was in there with me, “I think the doctors need to check on me just in case,” because I’ve never had a rib injury so that freaked me out, and I went to check my ribs myself to see how everything was, and I just completely couldn’t use my arm, and I was like “Oh no.” They were trying to get me to leave the cage, and I was like, “I can’t leave the cage because we lose if I leave the cage, so just give me a second”, and so by the time the match had ended, my ribs had started to feel better, and I could breathe normally and everything was fine, but there are so many things I can’t do with my arm right now. And like you said, you take things for granted, because my poor dad…like I always tell Johnny’s mom, “If anything’s wrong, you’ll hear from us, if something isn’t wrong is when you won’t, if everything’s good, you’re just not going to hear from us, so don’t worry,” and I’m like trying to text her with one hand, I’m going “This is so frustrating,” I need to tell people that I’m OK but it’s taking forever just to type one little letter, it’s crazy.”
On the extent of the injury: “It was a deep tissue…all the cartilage and stuff just got mushed, and I mean, for days after I went up to people like, “It’s not broken” and medical staff were like that’s so crazy because everybody was convinced that it was broken. I’m trying not to cry when they’re telling me it’s broken because I’m like, “I want kids, I don’t have time to take any time off right now, we gotta keep this show going,” and there was still a part of me going, “Maybe it’s not broken,” because my body has endured a lot of things in my almost 18 years of doing this, maybe it’s not broken, but it wasn’t (laughs).”
On having proteges to work with: “It’s been so fun for me because I love getting to work with young talent so much. I think it’s a very underrated thing…I just remember when I started and every time I learned something new – the excitement…you know, they’re just so passionate about this, just like Johnny and I when we first started, so as we see them learn new things and get to try something for the first time, it’s fun to kinda play with this new dynamic and I’m so excited for what their future holds because their potential is insanely endless. They’re so gifted, so talented. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we’d get to have a Christmas special and here we are. I’m just so excited for all the possibilities that come out of this.”
