WWE legend Christian appeared on WWE’s “After The Bell” podcast with Corey Graves this week and explained why he believes he never received a proper send-off on WWE TV after a lengthy career. Christian said that the circumstances surrounding his departure in 2014 made for a tricky situation as he suffered a concussion on RAW and then disappeared from TV. By the time he knew things were over, it was too late for the send-off.
“It’s hard when there’s a chunk of time that goes by and you’re doing these tests and these different things and then, months down the road, they say ‘Okay, you can’t do this anymore.’ Now to come back to TV and be like ‘Hey, remember that thing when I was gone six months ago?’ I had been been off a long time. It just seemed like weird timing. For me, it didn’t need to happen,” Christian said.
He admitted that being forced into retirement was tough to deal with.
“It’s a tough thing to swallow. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. It’s taken out of your hands. You don’t have a say in it,” Christian said. He continued and said he never once thought to question his diagnosis or push for a return to the ring. “When I talked to a doctor, it’s like any prize fighter. You can have a chin made of granite and get hit a ton of times and nothing happens. But that one time you get a bad one, you’re never quite the same and it’s easier to get them after. So, at this point it’s not a question of if you’re going to get another one, it’s when. That’s all I needed to hear.”
Despite no proper end to his career, Christian has no issues with how everything played out.
“A lot of people talk to me and say ‘You never got a ceremony, you never got to come out and say goodbye.’ First of all, I never felt like one of those guys who needed to do that. That wasn’t really my thing,” he said. “I don’t even know if I’d want to do that anyway.”
Christian said he never pays any mind to the rumblings on a possible return when people like Daniel Bryan return from career-ending injuries.
“People talk to me about Daniel Bryan coming back. They say “If he can do it…” and it’s like, first of all, we’re in different situations,” he said. “He’s what, probably, ten years younger than me? I was about to turn 40 when this happened. I wasn’t 30. If I was 30, maybe I’d have a different mindset about it.”
Christian also commented on not wanting to wear out his welcome and the one thing he never accomplished – main eventing WrestleMania.
“Basically the only thing I never accomplished was main eventing WrestleMania and, let’s be honest, how many people get to do that? I maybe even overachieved in a sense and did more than maybe I was every projected to do. So, I was content with the things I had accomplished and, at that age, I never envisioned myself being a guy that hung on too long also. I didn’t want to get into that territory, either.”
Thanks to Pro Wrestling Sheet for the quotes. You can hear the full interview below:
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