Lance Archer made an appearance on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast to discuss a wide range of topics.
During it, he was asked the difference between the injury that Big E suffered compared to the injury (a broken neck) and the injury he suffered in 2021 when he landed on his neck:
“First of all, for Big E, I hope for a speedy recovery for the guy. I was literally there on his first day of training at FCW way back in the day. He’s a super good dude from the very beginning. Everybody that seems to know him and love him, we’re all hoping he has a speedy recovery. His (injury) seems to be a little more severe than mine. I got lucky and was blessed because I didn’t actually break my neck. The MRIs that I got were all clean. I didn’t have any damage to the spinal cord, no brakes, nothing like that. I just ultimately had severe trauma to the muscles through my neck and into my back. It’s basically like having a severe whiplash situation on my part. So for him, you know, luckily he said he has cracked vertebrae, but nothing that requires surgery from what he said, which is an amazing thing. But it’s a long process. It’s just kind of that mental aspect going on. Like, for me even now, I think I’m as recovered as I’m going to ever be, but my body kind of still protects itself, like somebody will say something, they’ll be like, ‘Hey Lance’, and instead of just turning my head and looking at them, I’ll do the whole body turn. I don’t even really need to do it. It’s just my body is still kind of in that, protect yourself locked down and make sure you don’t hurt yourself mode.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription