Kaia McKenna had big goals in mind when she returned to action last fall, but unfortunately, those comeback plans would soon be derailed.
Following a near ten-month hiatus from a shoulder injury, “The Conduit of Karma” returned to the ring on September 10th. “I was booked every weekend for the first time in my career, and I was so excited about it,” McKenna told WrestleZone‘s own Ella Jay.
“You go to a lot of places and you hope for opportunity. You pay a lot of dues and you hope for opportunity and maybe you pick up some shows here and there, but you’re really just trying to scrounge stuff together, especially like that first year and a half. I felt like for the first time I was like, ‘Oh my God, people want to see me. People want to book me. People are excited that I’m wrestling again,'” she recalled.
McKenna went on to complete a small string of appearances at SCW Pro Wrestling, before arriving to AAW in Chicago, Illinois in mid-October. As Mike Bennett received a beat down from McKenna’s allies, she joined in herself. As she went to strike Bennett from behind, McKenna’s previously injured shoulder uttered a noticeable pop upon impact.
“You’ve got to be shi**ing me,” she remembered thinking. “I have just had major surgery, I have rehabbed for eight months. I threw a b*tch 40 feet the other day, no problem, and I hit him in the back and the shoulder just gets worse. It was the most insane feeling,” she said.
Luckily, though, McKenna recognized her “gnarly” injury right away, and swiftly exited the ring to tend to it. “I’m actually one of those people that’s not horrible in a crisis situation. So once it happened, I knew what it was because unfortunately, it has happened to me before. But I also knew there was other parts of that segment that needed to happen and I needed to clear the ring. So, I just immediately got out of the ring because I did not want to distract from what everybody else had been working so hard toward that evening. The show goes on. It had to go on.”
“If I would have just flopped over on my back and be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m hurt,’ that would have sucked and ruined everything. It would have ruined the spot. It would have ruined the segment. Everybody would have felt weird for the rest of the show because nobody likes to see anybody get hurt. Let’s be honest, that ruins the vibe. If someone gets hurt, it’s just always over people’s heads. I’ve seen it many times when other people get hurt.”
After leaving the ring, McKenna utilized the nearby ring post to try and pop her shoulder back into place. “I tried to walk my shoulder up, kind of like the Bruce Willis gimmick. It was not going,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh man, okay, this really sucks. All right, what are we going to do now?’ Because my first thought was like, ‘I’ve just got to get this back in before it gets too tight [or else] I have to go to the hospital.'”
“I was like, ‘I don’t want to go to the ER.’ I then crawled over and I gently asked the ring announcer if I could borrow his chair for a second. I internally rotated my arms, so I put it on the seat of the chair and I just dropped my head below the seat of the chair and I was able to pop it back in. Then Masha [Slamovich] helped me in the back because she’s a wonderful friend and wrestling mom.”
“It’s crazy. It all happens so fast. Your first thought is like, ‘Oh,’ and then you’re like,’ okay, there’s other shit going on’. So I have to still get through it and clear out [of the ring’ and not ruin everything.”
Despite the setback, McKenna does her best to keep an optimistic mind. “My time is not denied, it’s just a little delayed,” she said, a message told to her by Suge D. In January, she was cleared to begin training again. Now, she has resumed work at the Black and Brave Wrestling Academy as she hopes for a late winter resurgence.
