Steffanie Newell Discusses Her Pre-Mae Young Classic Injury, Being Cleared to Return

– Steffanie Newell, the former Nixon Newell, spoke with WWE.com about her injury before last year’s Mae Young Classic and more. You can see some highlights below:

On suffering a torn ACL just before the Mae Young Classic: “It happened during training. It was just a fluke accident. I was running a drill. My foot stayed perfectly forward, but my body turned the other way, and I dislocated my knee and tore my ACL at the same time. Luckily, as soon as I hit the mat, my knee popped back in, so it was one less thing I had to deal with. But it happened literally two or three weeks after I arrived at the WWE PC, so the timing was very inappropriate with the Mae Young Classic being so close as well. As soon as I hit the mat, I knew something was wrong and I knew deep down I was out of the Mae Young Classic. When I got injured, I was crying — not because of the pain, but because I knew I was out of the Mae Young.”

On her friendship with Dakota Kai: “Unfortunately, the injury happened while we were running a drill together, and in a weird way, that kind of strengthened our bond. We started at the PC on the same day. We arrived at the airport at the exact same time and drove from the airport to our apartment in the same car. But I think the injury strengthened the friendship more than anything, because she was there at the time it happened, and she will continue to be there. She has been my rock. She’s become one of my best friends, and I genuinely don’t know what I’d do without her. I’m very excited to see where this friendship and this tag team do go.”

On what she was especially excited to do upon returning: “I was really excited to start hitting some Shining Wizards again. I’ve done that move for so long that it’s become me, almost. I’m known as “The Girl with the Shiniest Wizard,” so to be able to do that move again just made me feel happy. It was the first day I was back in the ring wrestling people. Dakota and I were just messing around, and she said, “Hit me with the Shining Wizard.” I was like, “No, no, I’ve got this big leg brace. I don’t want to do it,” and she’s like, “No, do it!” As soon as I hit it, it was just incredible.”