WWE legend R-Truth recently joined Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp for an in-depth interview about his career, including how the the former multi-time 24/7 champion almost retired due a knee infection. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On suffering the knee injury and it later turning into a horrible infection:
The part of the injury that I would say was questionable was it got infected and there was a hole in my knee. Oh, yeah. I had a hole in my knee. See, people thought I just tore my quad tendon. It was an infection. I went like, really, three months without even bending my knee because they had to get the infection under control. So mentally and emotionally, once I got past that stage, I was pretty much ready for the rehab. The rehabilitation was like a cake walk. I was ready for that. When you’re hungry and you’re thirsty and you want it, you just go get it.
How he thought about retirement:
Yes. Oh, yeah. Concerns out the yin yang. ‘Cause you gotta think, I had five different infections in my knee along with MRSA, staph, their cousins and brothers and sisters, too. Yeah, you’re thinking that. I thought all those thoughts. All those thoughts, I felt all those emotions. That’s where it comes from; I always tell people you have to be your own cheerleader sometimes. Sometimes you gotta push yourself. You gotta shake your own pompoms sometimes. I don’t even know if that was PG. But sometimes you gotta mentally discipline yourself or mentally stay real, true to yourself. ‘Cause sometimes motivation don’t be there. Life can send stuff your way where motivation ain’t there. Discipline and just having that faith and knowing, man. Now you see me now.