Kaia McKenna details her shoulder injury and when she hopes to return to the ring.
Kaia McKenna revealed back in January 2022 that she suffered a torn labrum injury. McKenna, a trainee Seth Rollins’ Black and Brave Academy, has already competed on AEW Dark and for promotions like Beyond Wrestling.
She wrestled three times in the fall of 2022 since that injury but suffered another injury in October 2022.
In a new interview with PWMania, McKenna detailed how the injury came to be and when she hopes to be back in action.
"Well, I learned my lesson on why you should not be a bad witch. Why you should always be a good witch. I went to strike Mike Bennett in the back when he was attempting to cause some harm to Bravo on AEW in October and his back is like sheet metal. I'm not even kidding," she recalled. "I hit his back, and my shoulder went. I was like, Well, okay, that happened. It was wild. It's totally like a freak accident, not my fault. Not his fault, not anybody's fault. I don't know if it was the right angle or the right amount of force. I have not been able to figure it out. But I did re-dislocate my shoulder in that instance. There was a clip going around for a while if you don't mind being grossed out. You can check that out.
"We’re good. I was really concerned because obviously you have that type of injury happen again, and you’re like, “Okay, Did I did I re-damage something?” I just went through this grueling rehab process," she added. "I had surgery in February, and all this stuff’s going through your head. So I did go visit the orthopedic surgeon, and I did not sustain any further damage. Presumably, I have a small labrum tear just from the shoulder dislocating because that happens when your shoulder dislocates. But it’s not anything that I’m unable to fix with a little bit of physical therapy and some extra time in the gym. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two months is just letting everything resettle and doing as much as I can in the gym and physical therapy to get ready to come back in 2023."
As for her return to the squared circle, McKenna is eyeing late winter 2023. However, she's also taking this time to make sure she is in a good space in terms of her mental health.
"Probably late winter, we’re gonna say. I think that sometimes in wrestling, we all rush like we all don’t want to be away from it. We’re not desperate to wrestle, but we love it so much. We hate being away, and we rush ourselves back," she said. "Sometimes we don’t actually afford ourselves the time that we need to process injuries and handle them accordingly. So even though the surgeon said I’m kind of good to go, I am still gonna take an additional month to make sure everything is truly good to go from all standpoints. You know, my physical therapy is complete. I’m back to lifting the way I want to lift. I’m moving in the ring the way I want to move. Most importantly, like I’ve dealt with the injury mentally, and I’m in a good head space to come back. I feel like sometimes we neglect the mental health aspect of being injured and maintaining a focus on trying to make all the physical repairs."
McKenna last competed in October 2022, losing to Aminah Belmont in SCWPro at their Wicked Ways event.
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