Ex-WWE Star: “I Was Dead For Two Minutes… My Heart Stopped”

A former WWE star has opened up about their close shave with death after their heart stopped.

One of the early success stories in NXT was in the brand’s tag team division as the explosive Konnor and Viktor made light work of the rest of the roster. Together, known as The Ascension, they held the NXT Tag Team Championship for almost one calendar year between 2013 and 2014, defeating the likes of Adrian Neville, Corey Graves, Jason Jordan, Baron Corbin, Sami Zayn, and even Attitude Era favourites Too Cool to hang on to their gold.

However, when the team made the jump to the WWE main roster, they became an early victim of the chasm that existed and the creative differences between NXT, RAW, and SmackDown. Reduced to enhancement talent in short order, Konnor and Viktor both left WWE in the spring of 2019.

Konnor eventually joined TNA, where he became part of the Violent By Design faction, but it seems his biggest battle was to come out of the ring.

Ex-WWE Star Dies For 2 Minutes

Appearing on the Developmentally Speaking podcast, Konnor explained that he suffered a major health scare in 2025, as his heart stopped and he had to be brought back to life:

Well, 7 months ago, I died. I don’t know if I told you that, but I’m pretty sure I did. I passed away, and I was dead for two minutes. My heart stopped; they had to rejuvenate me. It was a moment of clarity, I guess you could say. And that is something that I’ve never told anybody. First of all, I haven’t done interviews since. So you are the first one to know that I had passed away for two minutes.

I went through a tough period for the past two years of my life, and I think that kind of rolled over into what caused all of this stuff to happen. It now has helped me focus so much more on what is important.