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Xavier Woods on the Timetable for His Return, the Scary Part of the Rehab Process, His Thoughts on the NXT Brand

December 8, 2019 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris

Chuck Carroll of CBS Sports recently interviewed WWE Superstar Xavier Woods, who discussed his injury rehab and more. In the full interview that’s now available, Woods stated that there isn’t a “real time frame” on when he will be able to get back in the ring. Below are some highlights.

Xavier Woods on his injury rehab: “Oh, it’s good. I’m bouncing around the world still. Doing all my stuff for my YouTube channel, UpUpDownDown, all budget gaming stuff. Recently did a quick live stream with a group called Rooster Teeth. We helped raise over a million dollars for children’s hospitals. So that’s been cool. But other than that just kind of working out, keeping mobility in the Achilles area and waiting to come back to wrestling at some point.”

Xavier Woods on where he is in the rehab process: “That is the scary part, because by a lot of times, especially with professional wrestling, with being on the road as much as we are and having that live experience with crowds, you can fall into a weird dark place when you get injured. Like same thing with any pro athlete or anybody in general. But the rehab process for me currently is just kind of doing all my exercises, writing out my ABCs with my feet. And like I said, making sure that I can kind of increase the mobility in the area, break through that scar tissue. I just got the cast off (two weeks ago) and got into a walking boot so I can put like 25 pounds of pressure on it and as I go along that’ll hopefully increase as it should. So hopefully in the next 43 days, I’m out of the walking boot and in an actual shoe and then everything’s going from there. But I’ll probably do PT two, three times a week to keep on it. But then constantly while I’m by myself, just doing everything I can to kind of heal it up as fast as possible.”

Woods on the new podcast: “Everywhere is a studio, my good friend. We are essentially still traveling. We’re traveling around the world doing this, so Kofi and E, my partners, part of the New Day, they’re still traveling, doing all of the wrestling shows that we normally would be doing. So when we need to record, I’ll normally jump on a plane and then come out to whatever show they’re at, because on one hand we’ve got to record this podcast, which is entitled ‘THE NEW DAY: FEEL THE POWER.'”

“But then I’m also up there filming stuff for my YouTube channel UpUpDownDown. So it’s two birds, one stone. But being able to do this podcast with two guys who I consider my brothers is awesome. Essentially the first couple of episodes are about the origin of New Day, how we got together, how we got started on TV and essentially getting us caught up to where we are now. Just kind of giving some stories that people don’t know and just really letting people in on things that happened that really haven’t seen the light of day.”

Xavier Woods on first meeting Big E and Kofi Kingston: “I think the first time that I met E was when I got signed to WWE and I went to train at FCW. So before it was NXT, it was FCW, which was Florida Championship Wrestling. And I think my first introduction to E was through Norman Smiley, a fantastic wrestler, one of the teachers down there. And he just explained to me that they’re billing E as like the strongest man in Florida. So have a wrestling match with him, and I think that was the first time that I actually met him and wrestled against him. Our friendship really didn’t blossom to the degree that it is now until years later, when we started kind of talking about trying to create The New Day. And that’s where we really bonded and got this level of friendship that we currently have.”

“Then with Kofi, I’d met him multiple times before I signed with the company. There are multiple stories of me finding where the training facilities are and just going in and giving my resume, because I’m just essentially begging for a job. When I was 19, when I was 20, like whatever it was, I’d find where they trained, and I just walk in and talk to somebody. And both times I did that, Kofi happened to be there training. So he saw my physical grind. I’m trying to get a job. And so it’s always interesting. But he was there for those parts of my journey, because I consider them very important parts of my journey in getting to WWE, because you can actually see the sacrifice of telling my teachers, ‘Hey, so I’m in college, and they all know I want to be a pro wrestler.'”

“They know that I wrestle around the South Carolina and Georgia area and say, “Hey, I found out where the WWE facilities are. I think that I want to go down there and give them my resume.” It’s like a Thursday, and we’ve got class, and my teacher’s giving me their blessing to go and pursue my dreams. I’ve been very, very lucky in that. So Kofi seeing those things occur really is really cool. Just for the memory banks.”

Xavier Woods on time frame for his return: “There’s no real time frame on when I’ll be back, because Achilles tears are so different. It could be five months, it could be nine months. There’s a lot of wiggle room in there. So to be able to stay relevant is extremely important in this day and age because the news cycle is so incredibly fast. So if you’re not constantly doing something new, then soon it’s going to be out of sight, out of mind. So my line of thought is that as long as I can stay visible doing something, then I’m in a good spot. I’m lucky that that’s something is a thing that I’m also extremely passionate about in the world of video games.”

His thoughts on NXT building its brand on USA in primetime: “That’s the first time that NXT has been live on TV with their own spot, prime-time. It’s nice because, like you said, there are the hardcore wrestling fans who have been watching NXT. Now they’re watching it on USA and there’s still that section of wrestling fans that don’t know about NXT. They’re not familiar with the talent, they don’t know the storylines that are going on. There’s so much good talent down there. It’s almost absurd. It’s like they’re overflowing with talent, male and female, trainers, coaches, all types. So the fact that they were able to work in all of the stuff they’ve worked in for Survivor Series. For instance, Adam Cole had the greatest week that anybody could have in wrestling, what, last week, two weeks ago. Being able to main event all three shows and show, ‘Hey, this is the guy down in NXT, and this is what he can do.’ So, for me, that says, if I like what this guy’s doing, I should check out NXT to see more of this, because maybe there are more people down here who can do awesome stuff like this. And there are. I think that Survivor Series, in particular, is a great, there has been a great build for the NXT brand and all of the talent that’s down there.

article topics :

WWE, Xavier Woods, Jeffrey Harris