JD McDonagh Hoping To Return to the Ring Within a Month

If JD McDonagh has his way, he will be back in the ring in time for this year’s Wrestlemania 41 in Las Vegas. McDonagh suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs back in January after a moonsault to the outside went wrong. In an interview with Chris Van Vliet for Insight (via Post Wrestling), McDonagh gave an update on his health and said that he is hoping to be back in the ring within a month. Here are highlights:

JD McDonagh on what was going through his head when the injury happened: “Time heals all, you know? I wasn’t like this the first week or two after but I’m feeling a lot better now. (I’m feeling) pretty good, pretty good. My lungs are good, my ribs are good. I’m just kind of waiting for the bones to knit back together before they clear me. I punctured my lung with my seventh rib… It didn’t feel great (McDonagh laughed). It was a freak accident on my part I guess. I guess it was in the planning stage really (he said about what went wrong). Well, I needed to be on that side of the ring for something that was gonna come up later on. So I said, ‘I’ll just do it on the announce table side. I’ve done it on that side before’ but, whatever happened on this one, I just was maybe a foot too far forward or a foot too far back and wiped out.

In that moment, I was just thinking, when’s the next breath gonna come? I knew that I didn’t hit my head that hard, because I knew I’d missed a spot in the match and I knew what was coming up next. So I knew I wasn’t unconscious or anything like that, and then, I don’t know, it was like an out-of-body experience listening to Michael Cole with the concern in his voice. I’ve heard him all through the years being like, ‘We got to get a medic down here!’ And then all of a sudden, you’re lying at his feet and he’s saying it about you. Everything goes really slow in moments like that. I wasn’t thinking I gotta get through this match. It was just, okay, what’s next? Can I do that? Let’s do it. So I wiggled my fingers and toes and I was like, okay, I can do that. I got a breath back, I can probably stand up. So I stood up and got back in there.”

JD McDonagh on getting looked over by the medical team: “I thought it was maybe cracked ribs. I could feel my ribs on this side was like Rice Krispies under my skin. I was like, okay, they’re definitely messed up, and I couldn’t get a lung full of air but I just thought that was because I was winded from hitting the table, and then, the adrenaline kicked in and I was, okay, I can do this. I can get back in there and do my part in the match. I didn’t want to leave the guys, especially because it was one of the first few weeks that we were on Netflix, everyone’s excited about it. You got a huge audience watching ya, it’s for the Tag Team Titles, The (War) Raiders’ first defense… If I can stand up and keep participating, then, I’m gonna. I’m not blowing smoke. The thought of stopping didn’t even enter my mind, and the referee came down and he asked me what city we were in and what date it was and I told him that I’m okay and I told him where we were and what we were doing, and I said, ‘Tell Dom that I’m okay and I just need a minute,’ and he passed the message on and then, the ref actually was — he got a lot of heat for it online. Shawn Bennett but, as far as him doing his job, he can only do or relay the message of what I’m telling them and I told him I was good to go, you know? And one of the WWE docs came out in the ad break. She checked me over and I knew if she touched my ribs, she wouldn’t let me back in there and she thankfully asked me about my head and my neck rather than my ribs, and there was a spot coming up in the match where I was needed so I was like, ‘I gotta go!’”

JD McDonagh on getting treated: So they take a tube that’s about the diameter of your little finger and they poke a hole in between your ribs and they stab it into your chest cavity. Because the lung had come away from the chest cavity and collapsed and they need to suck up all the blood and air that’s leaking from your lung in your chest cavity out so that your lung can expand and stick back to the wall of your chest. So I was on this suction pump pulling all the blood and air out for a day. Obviously, like, shallow breaths, like half lung fulls and then they change it to a different machine with a lower form of suction. So there’s less suction helping my lungs stay inflated. They’re seeing if it would stay up. Did that for another day and then they took me off the machine, took the tubes out, and my lungs stayed inflated and stayed stuck to my chest cavity. So they let me go home (from the hospital). I was blessed by the way. We were in Atlanta, Georgia, the next state up from Florida. If I had been in Colorado, I’d still be driving home, because I couldn’t fly. My lung would have popped… WWE couldn’t have been better. They flew my wife up. They extended my hotel for a week. They got us a car and a driver to drive us back into town but, they were awesome about it. But yeah, it was a bad week after the bump… I always remember this, that at the end, it could have been so much worse. I’m sitting here smiling and talking to you and I walked in on my own two legs and I’m gonna be back in a couple of weeks hopefully.”

JD McDonagh on when he’s looking to return: “I’d love to be back yesterday. I’m so bored sitting at home watching the guys traveling around. I’m so jealous. They’re going to Europe this week… So if I could be back, I’d be back right now. Hopefully — I’m going to put a timeframe on it and say within a month, I hope to be back. That’s what I’m working towards so whether that happens or not, whether the WWE docs align (with) that, we’ll see.”