Summer Rae opens up about the physical toll her wrestling career had on her body.
Summer Rae was on WWE main roster programming from 2013 until 2016, ultimately being let go by the promotion in 2017. In that time, the matches that she had quickly took a toll on her body and now, she’s opening up about having thoracic outlet syndrome.
Speaking on the Casual Conversations podcast, Danielle Moinet, the person behind the character, opened up about her desires to return and how she ultimately learned of her condition.
Credit to Justin Dhillon for something along the following quotes.
“It was from time, over time. So I have two things. I have a bone spur on a vertebra on my neck I’m pretty sure. It’s c4, I can’t remember so from that I think it’s just the over and over bumping. I have thoracic outlet syndrome.
“I remember I was at a photoshoot, and they told me to pose like this and they wanted me to go like this or something and I was like yeah, so I did it. They were like no no like this and I went no I know like this and I put my shoulders back and then Annie my publicist came up to me she goes no put your shoulders back and I went what do you mean.. My shoulders are back and she goes to look in the mirror and I go huh and so I look in the mirror and I went oh and I think my shoulders were kind of like forward. She did it and then the photographer did it and I went oh. Like when you’re in the WWE, you’re just so busy. I remember Seth Rollins one time told, he said something about his injury and I was like oh like are you happy to be off, like your injury had some time. He was like you get one injury and you stop then your ankle hurts, then your foot hurts and then your knee hurts like everything’s like wait what.. What are you doing, what are you not stopping?”
She continued, “I went to tv and we had this big meeting and I was walking with Tenille (Emma) and John Laurinaitis passed me and I went like this (arm gesture) and I said hey and my hands kind of turned from this to this. I went oh gosh.. Do you also feel shooting pain when you do that right? And she said do what.. And I said when you put your hands like parallel behind and she goes no and then so I started noticing and I’m like well that’s weird and then so I started asking some of the boys and some of the boys were like oh yeah I can’t flex my hand, so it was almost normalized and these nerve damage nerve kind of thing, I could’ve ignored but then at the time too like Daniel Bryan I mean you know Brie was saying Bryan couldn’t open the door knobs. He’s come out and said all this stuff right but I was like that ain’t gonna be me. I’m not gonna be able to one day not pick up my baby one day. I went to our doctor and he was like we’ll have you get checked out at a couple of places and they’re like that’s so weird we had no idea. They sent me to the Pittsburgh doctor there and that’s why I never knew my last match was my last match. The fans will send me dms like you wrestled Alicia Fox on a house show which was one of my last matches I guess.”
She would be open to returning to WWE but said she would need treatment if she was to get physical.
“I’m not like no one’s ever told me you can’t do it again but I know personally I could never go over and over again. Could I like to do the Royal Rumble and have a little storyline maybe, but I would need treatment. Like I need treatment now like my migraines got so bad.
“Yeah, I love WWE. I haven’t gone to other promotions because I also know how that is with WWE and like I definitely feel like my royalty is with them. They gave me such a big part of life, hopefully one day I’ll have a husband and a baby but If I don’t have a man but I do have a baby because I adopt. I would want them to see.. Me and that was such a big part of my life as Summer Rae. I get called Summer on the street and I like to turn around so I love wrestling. I would for sure be okay with going back.”
