Corey Graves Recalls Being Told He Couldn’t Wrestle Anymore: ‘The Worst Moment of My Life’

– Corey Graves discussed the end of his in-ring career and being told he couldn’t wrestle anymore on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast. Highlights from the piece are below:

On the injuries he was dealing with before he knew he couldn’t wrestle: “It was just frustrating. I had gotten to the point where I was pretty successful in NXT. We’d had the tag team titles. I mean, I came up at the same time as all three members of The Shield, Bray Wyatt, all these guys who are like a who’s who now. That was kind of my class. We all came in together, roughly. And it was frustrating to me that I would get these injuries, and I didn’t even think anything of them.”

On his history with concussions: “I didn’t even know that the extent of and how dangerous concussions were. I had four diagnosed in a year in WWE. But I have no idea how many I had before then. Now, knowing what we know that any time you get your bell rung it’s probably a concussion. So over the years that I traveled the world wrestling on the indies, I had that happen more times than I can possibly count. So it was annoying to me. ‘Oh, I got another concussion, all right. Well, I’m not allowed to wrestle.’ And I couldn’t wait to take the impact test and get clear, and get back in the ring. I felt like I was right there on the cusp. I was hearing rumblings, I was doing live event tours with the main roster. I’d come up and wrestle with them. I don’t really feel like I could have gotten much closer without actually debuting on WWE. I’d had conversations with WWE about having entrance music written for me. I mean, it was right there, at least to my knowledge. The injuries were just annoying, they were like hindrances. It wasn’t really a problem. So that’s why I was shocked the day that they told me I wasn’t allowed to wrestle anymore. It blew my mind and it broke my heart all at once because it was like, I was just waiting to get cleared. I was like, ‘What’s taking so long? I took all your tests, I feel fine.’ And obviously, the extensive testings showed that they saw some things that they didn’t like.”

On being told he couldn’t wrestle anymore: “I will never forget. I would argue [it was] the worst moment of my life. We were at the Performance Center, and Triple H who is the boss, he was there. And I had been on the shelf for a few weeks, and I was just like ‘Man, I don’t know what’s taking so long.’ And I’m talking to the doctors and saying ‘Hey, when can I get back in?’ And they’re just saying, ‘Well, we’re just waiting to see some things, we’re waiting on some tests.’ So I couldn’t get a straight answer from anybody. So I walked up to Hunter, and he was in the middle of a workout. I was passing through the gym and I said, ‘Hey boss, do you have any updates for anything?’ And I don’t think he was prepared at that moment to tell me, but he didn’t want to sugarcoat anything, and he just kind of blurted it out in a way that — I think I caught him off-guard, so he didn’t have a gentle way of telling me. He was just like, ‘You know, I would expect the worst.’ And he tried to justify it, but you could tell he wasn’t ready for that in the moment. He didn’t want to lie to me, so I respect that.”

On his reaction to the news: “It was like the whole world came crashing down on me. I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was gonna burst into tears. I didn’t wanna cry in front of anybody else, so I made a beeline out of the gym up to the locker room. And William Regal was in there. He was standing there, and I walked in and broke down. I told him and all he did, he just stood there and hugged me. It wasn’t like there was anything he could tell me that was gonna make [it better]. Essentially, my dream just came crashing down at a moment’s notice. And he was there for me, and consoled me the best that he could. And by that point, I was panicked. Because I had worked my whole life to get to this point. Now I can’t do it anymore. What the hell am I gonna do? I have a family to support, I’ve sacrificed everything in my life to be here. I’m right here at the cusp and now it’s gone. And that’s a lot to fathom in one moment.”

On transitioning to another role: “Luckily I had a lot of people — friends and coaches that were around that tried. I remember Bill DeMott was the coach that said, ‘Hey, do you wanna go home, do you want to take some time off?’ And I said, the last thing I need is time off. So I just jumped into everything. So a few weeks went by, we had some conversations about what I was gonna do. They weren’t gonna just release me, it wasn’t like I did something wrong. It was just a crappy situation. Essentially, they gave me the keys to the kingdom and said, ‘Hey, figure something out.’ So I went and tried everything and anything. I started running the music at NXT live events, learning the production end of things. I was helping out Dusty with promo class, which turned out to be one of the best blessings in disguise. I got taken out of the ring, but for the better part of a year I basically stood side by side with Dusty Rhodes all the time. So I got to spend countless hours with him and get to know him and learn. I probably learned more after getting shut down from wrestling about the business and characters and just life.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Chasing Glory with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.

Listen to “Corey Graves – Turning Shattered Dreams Into Opportunity” on Spreaker.