Xavier Woods has had to make the long journey back to the wrestling ring after he suffered a serious Achilles injury, but he’s never let anything stop him from chasing his dreams. In a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet, Woods discussed the lessons he learned from his Achilles injury, his new G4TV hosting gig, and more. You can check out some of the highlights below.
On the biggest thing he learned while sidelined with his Achilles injury:
I guess it was to not stress things I could not control. I am a big perfectionist and a big control freak. Before I tore my Achilles, I was at a birthday party with my 3-year old at a trampoline park. We were doing flips and it was so much fun. We were planning to do it every Saturday. The next week I tore my Achilles, I immediately thought I can’t go to that trampoline park. Then it’s I can’t dance with my kitchen with my kids, the third thing was not being able to wrestle. That’s how much having kids has affected me. Before it was I want to wrestle everywhere and I want to have my name in lights and help change the industry. That was my focus and my motivation. I realized that my motivations changed when my kids were born. You feel that when you see them, it’s a crazy experience. But to have a life changing injury happen to you, everything rushes forward for you. This is what is most important, it’s cool to see that change happen. By the time I was jogging again and playing with the kids, it hit me that I would be able to wrestle again. Some months later I got to come back to wrestling and everything felt great. Learning that wrestling is not the be all and end all is the biggest takeaway. I filled up my diary with conventions to keep my busy. I had surgery on the Thursday and did a convention on the Saturday.
On being the host of G4TV:
G4 is the job that I’m going to transition to once I am done being a bump boy! But also I am learning bass guitar, I have aspirations to be a studio bassist. Hopefully in the next 5 to 7 years. It’s music, so there are components that I already understand with playing trombone. That part is easy, I’ve got the music theory. Translating it to bass has been fun. All of your favorite songs are driven by a bassline. It feels good to play and to spread positive energy.
On Kofi Kingston wining the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35:
I didn’t know it was going to happen. I said don’t tell me. If the outcome changes mid-match I don’t know what I am going to do. I said don’t tell me a thing. I knew what we had to do at the end, but I didn’t know anything after that. I assumed. But it was all so real, not that it wasn’t real before, but this was the thing that said it’s not just us having fun and having a good time. We’ve created something worth what we believe it is worth. Now everyone sees what it is worth. It’s for everyone who walks into work and they do everything in their power to possibly move ahead. But you just can’t. As your crushing it, you see people with little or no experience, they haven’t been through what you have, they are flying past you with no one saying a word to you. At that point in that moment, it made every decision I’ve made in my life correct. You never know if you are making the right choices. You have an idea but you never know.
