Dean Muhtadi on Scariest Part of His Bout With COVID-19, His WWE Release

– Speaking to Renee Paquette for The Sessions podcast, former WWE Superstar Dean Muhtadi (aka Mojo Rawley) discussed his serious bout with COVID-19, which he recently revealed he was battling for 19 months and still wasn’t completely healed. Below are some highlights (via WrestlingInc.com):

Dean Muhtadi on the scariest part of COVID: “Probably the scariest part for a little bit of this was when the breathing was bad, it was scary to go to sleep because I was worried that I might not wake up. You know, I might suffocate myself in my sleep. Especially with how tired I was getting at points because I literally wasn’t sleeping. You know, I worried I was just going to pass out and that might be it, you know? So there was that fear for a little bit.”

On how high his fever spiked: “It was just kind of like the on and off kind of spotty body fever kind of thing. Like the chills and whatnot, I think most people get it. And then, I’m not sure what happened from there. Myself, the doctors, we have a couple of hunches, but things kind of spun out of control, my fever spiked to 104°. I was overheating, it was so crazy. I remember taking an ice-cold shower trying to get my body temp down and like, the freezing cold water would touch the top of my head, and by the time it got down to my neck it was like, boiling hot. I was like, that’s crazy that this, just this amount of distance was causing water, freezing water to boil.”

On going to the hospital: “So I went into the hospital. They checked me out, they took my temperature. They really didn’t have anything for me to do but sit in a cold room by myself to bring my fever down. But after that, I just started developing this cough and these breathing issues. I was coughing so bad that the blood vessels in my eyes burst. So like, my eyes were bloodshot, looked insane.”

On being released from WWE while he had COVID: “We’re doing mass firings, you know, left and right. You know, there seems not necessarily to be a rhyme or reason for it. I gotta get my ass back to work or else I’ll be in the next group. You know? I gotta go back and prove my worth and show them why I should still have a contract and I just was not in a position to do that. And then part of me too, was like, ‘I don’t want to go back until I’m ready. Because if I go out there and my lungs give out in a match and I’m dragging it and my whole thing is I stayed hyped and I’m the hype man and I got all the energy and now I’m the guy that’s blown up’. Exactly, so I was like, I don’t know what’s better, to try and go back with them knowing that I’m recovering, or just to do something or to wait until I’m 100 and get back to business as usual.”