One of AEW’s young and rising stars is Red Velvet. She made a name for herself by being one of the sidekicks of former TBS Champion Jade Cargill. In the six-year career of the Miami-born wrestler, she has suffered a bunch of injuries.
Recently, Velvet was interviewed by Elijah Burke in his interview series, The Pope’s Point of View. During the second part of the interview, Red Velvet opened up about her injuries. She first started talking about the hip injury she suffered in early June of last year. That injury sidelined her for about five months.
“In June (2022), I suffered a hip injury after my match with Stat. I was gone from June all the way to November. We really couldn’t figure out what it was. There was no surgery for that. I just ended up doing PRP, getting rehab on it, and I was fine. I was back in November, had a couple of matches.” [H/T Fightful.com]
Red Velvet had issues with her knee
After she returned in November, the 31-year-old star parted ways with Jade Cargill and as a result, got a shot at the TBS title. The match took place on the 1st of February on an episode of AEW Dynamite. Velvet shared with Burke that she had knee issues prior to her match against Jade Cargill.
“And then February 2023, I suffered a knee injury, not during my match with Jade, I think the issue was a little before that. I felt a change in my knee, possibly after my first match with Billie Starkz. We’re wrestlers, so if something feels tweaked, you give it a couple of days, and nothing was crazy about it until my match with Jade when I did a simple Thesz press, and as soon as I got up, I just knew something in my knee was stuck. It was stuck, wasn’t straightening, but the adrenaline was out of this world.”
Red Velvet had worn pants and kick pads to keep her knees together
The AEW star also shared that she had just switched to wearing pants as opposed to short wrestling tights. If she had been still wearing shorts without any kick pads, her knees could have ripped apart fully.
“I had just converted to wearing pants and I had two knee pads on top, my kick pads, and pants, which I think held my knee together. Had I been wearing shorts, I think my knee could have possibly exploded or tore fully. Nobody really knew, I tore my medial and lateral meniscus. I tore my meniscus in 2018, and I retore it this time when I did the Thesz press, it was apparently already torn because of the impact, the tear came out. I was getting stuff in my joint where the knee bends. There was no getting around that but having to go in, cutting it off, and all that. That put me on the shelf for nine months,” Red Velvet said.
Velvet returned to the ring in November of this year. In the four matches she competed since returning, she’s only won one match.
Are you happy about the return of Red Velvet?