Rick Boogs Says His Knee Is Still Not At 100% From WrestleMania 38 Injury

Rick Boogs has revealed that he’s still not at 100% from the knee injury he suffered at WrestleMania 38. The WWE alumnus competed alongside Shinsuke Nakamura against the Usos. Boogs suffered a torn quad patella in the match when he tried to lift both Usos.

It’s been three years, but Boogs confirmed in his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet that his knee still isn’t at his best, though he said that he’s doing well now for the most part. You can see highlights below:

On His Personal Best For Lifts:

“I’m a dead lifter for the most part. I mean, zercher squat, I’m great at zercher squatting, maybe not the best ever, but I’m pretty good. 635 zercher squat, 960 trap bar. I can do more than that. It’s just like the thing with lifting is you have to peak, and then once you stop doing it, your strength tapers off. Because a lot of it is nervous system adaptation. It’s not just like, oh, you get big, you get strong. Yes, you’re gonna get stronger the bigger you get, but it’s also specificity. It’s like, the more pro wrestling matches you have, the better gonna be a pro wrestling. The more you do a zercher squat, the better you’re gonna be at it. Your body gets more efficient, more comfortable with it. Romanian deadlift, that’s probably one of my best. I’ve done 785, Romanian deadlift, that’s where you just hinge the barbell just past the knees. My Romanian Deadlift is equal to that in my conventional though. I blew out my patella tendon many years ago and still haven’t gotten the quad strength back, unfortunately. Bench isn’t my best, I’ve done 520.”

On His Knee Not Being At 100%:

“No, definitely not. I don’t know if it’ll ever be. But my 90% is still exceptional. I’m running now. I’m trying, because it’s one of those things that I’m like, Okay, I’ve lifted, I’ve done tons of rehab. Obviously, I did rehab for a year after surgery, and I’ve gotten very strong again. Still doesn’t have the snappiness. What have I not done? I need to sprint on it. I need to get that frickin tendon rigidity, stiffness, recoil, snappiness, and how do you get that?”

On Wrestling Differently After the Knee Injury:

“100%. Just slower. Because if you think about it, tendons are basically what make you athletic. It’s not your muscles. It’s strong tendons, jumping and stuff like that, sprinting and all that. That’s power, and you don’t have to be a big, bulbous balloon man to have power. You just have to have freaking stiff, strong tendons. So when you lose that, it’s like, yeah, I could squat. I think when I returned, I was able to squat 600 pounds, but jumping rope? I couldn’t do it for more than 10 seconds because my knee, just the tendon was like jello.”