The photo at the right comes courtesy of @BenMarcumPhoto.
Michael was featured early in the season on the WWE Network Tough Enough specials. He is also a war veteran and works as an independent wrestler.
NH: With Triple H being there (on the set of Tough Enough), I know he’s very, very busy right now. He seems to be on a kind of “Vince McMahon type schedule.” What was his demeanor like? Did he seem upbeat? Did he seem exhausted?
MH: My whole experience there was really, really positive. It was one of the best experiences of my entire life. My experience with him was that I could tell he was working very hard. He was exhausted; I could tell that if he could have stopped and if I would have put a pillow in front of his face he probably would have caught some “Zzz’s.” He was working his ass off and he showed nothing but respect to everyone he talked to.
NH: Let’s talk a little about the way you left the show, Mike. You left of your own volition. Why don’t you fill everyone in that didn’t see the WWE Network special? Why exactly did you leave Tough Enough?
MH: I chose to leave because the drills that we were doing put me in a precarious position with the prosthetic leg I was working with. There’s a weird thing that happens when you have a residual limb where the volume of your limb will change. As you exert effort and energy you sweat, you lose water and your body shrinks pretty much. As sturdy and as capable as some of these sockets and prosthesis are when things like that happen the functioning and the operation change. Certain things happen to your body where your body is not agreeing and working in conjunction with the leg. It’s now working against it just trying to make it happen. It wasn’t like a fluid process. And with a lot of that repetition, what it was doing was tearing up some of my scarring because some of my legs are burned up really bad. Not only do I have a fake limb, most of my lower half was burnt, third degree, my body service area, to the point I lost most of my calf in my right leg. So, the graphs and the skin and the tissue I have right now isn’t exactly… when it’s put in a situation where there’s constant friction it doesn’t respond very well. What ended up happening was the bottom part of my residual limb was grinding and rubbing in the bottom of the socket. And there’s not much protection at the bottom of my limb so it was causing a breakdown. After the first evening of drills I went back to the hotel and took my liner off and it was just lined with blood. So, I knew that was going to be an issue. I wound up making the decision, once we had conversations about future opportunities and where I stood with the company, I made the decision to step back. Just because if I wanted to take part and do something with the company I wanted to do it in a healthy way, I want to be effective.
In the full interview Michael speaks more candidly about being on the Tough Enough set, his fellow competitors, what his future opportunities with WWE may be like & MORE
The full interview can be found by clicking HERE or by listening to the show in the embedded player below.
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