WWE: Sting Discusses The Severity Of His Injury

Sting sat down with WWE.com to discuss the injury he sustained during his match with Seth Rollins at WWE Night of Champions this past Sunday.

Sting’s current condition:

Aside from a stiff neck, I’m a little banged up, but otherwise, I feel good. Pretty standard after wrestling a match like that.

What exactly happened:

Bottom line, I had tingling, numbness down both arms, all the way to my fingertips. And then, later in the match, I just fell wrong, whatever it was, and this time [the tingling and numbness] went down both arms and into my legs, and I couldn’t feel my legs too well. They just felt like rubber. I don’t know how to describe it. I had to go down on all fours there for a minute, get my composure. I was a little … I was worried. Long term, well, I’m just going to take care of the short term first and see how the long term might play out.

What was going through Sting’s head:

The referee, the doctor, they’re all in there talking to me: “Are you OK? What’s going on? Can you continue? Are you all right? Tell us what’s happening.” And the whole time, I’m just thinking, “Oh, man, not now,” I mean, I want this to be good, you know? And if it ends up being the last thing I ever do in the ring, I don’t want to go out like this.

“God help me.” I’m trying to just shake it off, you know? “C’mon, c’mon.” I’m stamping my feet or moving my toes, just trying to get a feel back, get my legs back underneath me. It started to kind of clear up a little bit. My fingers were still tingling and all that, but my legs were not at that point. I said, “Let me try to continue, let’s just try it.” So I just stood up and walked away from them, and we continued.

Treatment received:

I was out in the hospital — out like a light. They had a neck brace on me, and they were pumping me with [medication] to get me out of pain. I had to do a CT scan and an MRI. They ended up talking to my wife, and I have some details from my wife, but I still have [further evaluation ahead]. They mentioned cervical spinal stenosis, but that’s only part of what I heard. I don’t know if there’s anything else. The doctor did tell my wife, “He’s going to have to get this dealt with. He’s lucky he walked out of there.”

On working with Rollins:

Really, I can’t say enough. He poked his head in the ambulance and said, “Man, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.” I said, “Seth, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.” And he, for 15 minutes, he said, “I just wanted to tell you what an honor it was, what a pleasure. I can’t believe I had a chance to get in the ring with you and work with you. I was you for Halloween when I was a kid.” He was on and on about it, but man, this young guy, he doesn’t have any idea how much I appreciate being able to work with him.

Questions were also asked regarding Sting’s future, to which he kept replying he is uncertain of the future but would like to wrestle again if the situation was right. As already mentioned in the interview, he also doesn’t want to go out on a match like this.

That was a solid questionnaire with some great insight on the details of the injury. Without sugarcoating things, it does sound very severe and knowing that WWE is stingy with allowing wrestlers suffering from neck related injuries to compete, it will be interesting to see if Sting is cleared to get back in the ring again.

I for one hope it all works out; he’s 56 and wrestled that match like he’s 26. It was a gutsy, excellent performance, so if Sting thinks his body can handle more punishment than I am all for being entertained.