Fans waited a long time for Paige to return to the ring, and she finally returned to Raw in November of 2017, but her return was cut short. A few weeks after her return, Paige suffered an injury during a tag team match at a WWE live event, and WWE officials decided not to clear her for in-ring competition.
The former Divas Champion recently opened up about the spot that took her out of action during an appearance on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness, and she said that it was the most terrifying experience of her life.
“When it actually happened and the accident happened in the ring, I lost all feeling in my legs and my arms,” Paige said via Reddit. “It was literally the most terrifying experience in my life and I would never wish that upon anyone. It was so scary. I literally was like “Oh my gosh, I’m done, I’m going to be in a wheelchair now, this is it, I’ve pushed myself too much.” Because I really did, because everytime I was in the match I was like “its okay, I’ll do the comeback, I’ll take the bump, I’ll do this, I’ll do that” because I was just so eager to get back in the ring you know. I feel like I pushed myself too hard to the point of where my body was like “stop.” You know I’ve been doing this since I was thirteen as well and my body was like “you need time to grow woman.”
Even though it was obvious that something wasn’t right, Paige still held onto hope that she would be able to continue wrestling.
“I refused to believe I was hurt, I remember doing this. Coming back to Orlando to go get my MRIs and stuff and I felt good, I could get back in the ring again even though I just experienced temporary paralysis. I was like “No I’m good, I can do this, please don’t make me be out.” And I was like begging them, “Please I don’t want to be out anymore, please don’t let me be out.” I was just crying to the doctors and stuff. So then Dr. Maroon was like “I’m sorry you cannot get back in the ring again.” It was horrible, it really breaks your heart….it really does.”
Unfortunately her in-ring career is over for now, but Paige hasn’t disappeared from WWE programming, as she’s currently working as the General Manager on SmackDown Live.
Even though it seems unlikely that she’ll be returning to the ring at this point in time, her contributions to the women’s revolution haven’t been overlooked. It’s just a shame that she can’t participate in the revolution now that there’s finally some serious momentum behind it.
