Ivar reflects on the injury that nearly ended his career,
A neck injury took Ivar out of action in April 2024, and he was absent until he and Erik returned as the War Raiders on the October 14th episode of WWE Raw. They then won the WWE World Tag Team Championship by defeating Finn Balor and JD McDonagh on the December 16th episode of WWE Raw.
Ivar discussed his injury during an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet.
“So it started in Brooklyn before WrestleMania, me and Ricochet had a match. I took a European uppercut and I was like, whoa. Did a system check. I’m like, I’m okay. I’m all right. Then after that, I was doing Main Event, Raw, NXT, NXT coconut shows. I was doing some SmackDown dark stuff. I was just on everything. Then it got to that match with Oba Femi for the North American Championship in NXT. We got to the second half of that match and I just lost all strength in my right arm. I couldn’t pick him up, so I just started calling audibles in the ring where I wasn’t going to pick him up. We made it through the match, and that was that. The whole time we were checking on medical to see how I was doing. Then after that match was like, okay, that’s no good. Then I went to Discovery Cove that week with my wife just to be like, Okay, I need a break, like a reset. Usually, when we do vacation things, it’s go, go, go. I’m like, I know I need something where I can just relax and just see how I’m doing. We did an animal trek thing where you interact with a parrot. I held my arm up for the parrot to come over and I couldn’t hold my arm up. So that was immediately MRI, we’re getting an MRI right away," Ivar said.
Ivar then detailed how doctors told him that he probably would not be able to wrestle again because the injury would seemingly require him to get fusion surgery. However, his doctor wound up realizing that he could avoid the fusion surgery and correct the issue another way.
"Then we got the results back and that was it, read the results. They’re like, Okay, this is probably the end of your career, to the point where they handed me mental health paperwork to kind of get that rolling, because I already had the double fusion of my neck. So if we’re talking about another level fusion, because the MRI showed I had another herniated disc in my neck the level above. So two levels, C5,6,7, they’re all fused together. This was C4 and 5, so the one directly above, another fusion would probably be the end of my career. So yeah, they were there preparing me for the worst for when I went to see my surgeon. My surgeon had read the result of the MRI, and he pretty much felt the same way that this was it. So for five days, I think this is it. It’s over with. I flew close to the sun and the wings melted. But when I saw him in Birmingham five days later, he actually had the disc for the MRI and he read the results for the MRI himself. He’s like, 'Okay, we can work with this.' So with my original injury, I did the suicide dive, and my head got pushed back into my disc, exploded into my spinal cord, which caused the temporary paralysis and then pretty much emergency fusion surgery after that. This one, the herniation happened, instead of shooting in towards the cervical cord, it went out away from it. So he was pretty sure, because my symptoms weren’t too bad, we could probably rehab it without having to do surgery. If we did have to do surgery, he knew a different surgeon who would go in through the back and just shave the herniation down arthroscopically, which wouldn’t require fusion. So he said on multiple occasions that I dodged a very big bullet," Ivar said.
As for his quality of life, Ivar emphasized that he was pretty good, but he would have to live with permanent nerve damage and pain in his hands. He said that he had good range of motion, and his strength was back.
“So I’m pretty good. To be fair, I do have permanent nerve damage and nerve pain in my hands, and that will never go away. That’s something I live with. But as far as everything else, I got most of my mobility back to my neck. It’s a little stiff now because I have another herniation, but I still have very good range of motion. I credit that to yoga, pretty much. Then all my strength is returned to my arm, so I have no problems there. So it’s really just the nerve pain right now from the original injury that I have that’s permanent. But I have good days and bad days. Some days I can really feel it goes down my arm a little bit, and some days I can’t feel it all, kind of all depends. But quality of life, I feel pretty good," Ivar said.
During the interview, Ivar said that The War Raiders were originally set to return in September. Check out his comments here.
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Thanks to Chris Van Vliet and his team for sharing these quotes.
