Amazing Red has opened up about the serious injury that prevented him from taking part in WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic in 2016.
During an appearance on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet (see video below), Red recalled being excited about the possibility of competing in the tournament while also getting the opportunity to perform motion capture work for the WWE 2K video game.
“I’m super hyped. This is it. This is finally what this whole thing paid off for. I knew as soon as I stepped foot in any of these matches, confidently, I’m getting signed. That was just a thing, and maybe it probably was the idea for them also. So it’s about to show up, the Cruiserweight Classic, and I get hit up about doing the 2K video game, and that was one of my dreams at the time to be in the video game and do mocap. I thought that was one of my dreams. Doing this job sucks so bad. I would never do mocap for anything.”
Unfortunately for Red, the mocap session ended with a devastating leg injury. He explained that performers were required to repeat moves several times so different versions and reactions could be captured for the game.
“So in mocap, for this kind of game, you have to do it and miss and sell, do it and hit someone and sell, do it and if there’s a ladder or a chair there, different sell. But you always have to get up a certain way so they can clip it and put it up there, so I had to do this move seven or eight times, and a spiral tap is a move I don’t like because I’m looking at the ground, I’m looking at the ring instead of the infrared. I’m kind of backwards, so I don’t see what I’m doing. I just throw myself.”
Red continued, explaining that he had already performed the move repeatedly and was beginning to feel the toll on his body.
“But with Spiral Tap, you can see everything, and I’m not a gymnast. I just learned this jumping on the beds, so I’m not really professional at doing this. I’m up to eighth, ninth at this point.”
Red said he had a bad feeling before attempting the move one more time, but ultimately agreed to another take.
“I get up there, and I just had a gut feeling, I gotta stop. Low Ki was there with me, and the guy goes, ‘Can you just do one more, man?’ I’m so sorry.’ Can you do just one more? And we’re gonna have you do this, and then we’ll go into a whole set of moves after this.’ I’m like, damn, my body’s killing me.”
Red then described how his foot became caught between two crash pads during the attempt, resulting in his leg breaking.
“I go up there. There’s two crash pads, just for this jump, right? And in the middle of the crash pad, it connects. So I go up there. For some reason, I just jump, and everything just blacks out for me, and I don’t know where I’m at. So I just jump, instant darkness, and I hear this (crack). I wake up, and I’m on the crash pads, and my leg is backwards.”
“So what happened is that whatever flip I did, my one foot went in between the crash pads that connected, and I went the other way, and I heard the loudest (snap), but I didn’t feel nothing.”
Red recalled Low Ki being the first person to loudly call for assistance after realizing the severity of the injury.
“So I’m there. I’m hanging out. I’m just laying down, and everyone’s looking at me. And Low Ki screams at the top of his lungs, ‘Is anybody gonna effing help him? He broke his leg!’ Then they’re like, ‘Oh, call somebody!’ Then everybody started panicking.”
“He said that when he took my leg out, it was backwards. Once I saw that, instant pain, heat everywhere, all of my body, and then I started screaming. And now, at this point, I’m bitter about the CM Punk situation. I’m bitter about the No Way Out situation, and this to me was like my last-ditch effort of being a part of WWE, doing a WWE game, no less.”
The injury ultimately kept Red from participating in the Cruiserweight Classic. Despite his frustration at the time, the former TNA X-Division Champion now looks back on the accident much differently.
“And that was a blessing in disguise. As weird as that may sound, as that may sound, breaking my leg was the best thing that happened to me.”
Also during the interview, Amazing Red reacted to John Cena using his ‘Code Red’ move and the story on his WWE dark match against CM Punk.
