Former WWE Cruiserweight Champion Tony Nese was released from WWE in June and is awaiting his non-compete to expire so he can return to the ring. Prior to signing with WWE, Nese spent time with TNA, EVOLVE, worked with PWG and also became a regular at Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore promotion.
Dreamer welcomed Nese onto his House of Hardcore Podcast and they discussed Nese’s departure from WWE, what he is looking forward to in the future and went over some of the highlights of his in-ring career. Nese told the story of when he did a dive out of the ring at a PWG show and suffered a fully torn ACL, a partially torn PCL, MCL and both meniscus tore.
Nese stated that it has been close to eight years or more since that injury occurred and he decided to go on without the ACL in his left knee.
So I also — this was years before I even started doing House of Hardcore. I tore my ACL in my left knee and so I’ve been living without it now in my left knee since then. I was actually at a PWG show. I was doing a dive and I just went right over my opponent, landed right on that leg and it popped out to the side so then, same thing, I just took two weeks off and I was right back at the gym and everything and then I was supposed to go to Japan — well actually, I was on my way to go to Japan for Dragon Gate and this was like a week before and I was like, ‘Man, the swelling in my knee is not gonna go down. I should go to a surgeon and see if he’ll drain it for me’ and when I went, he was like, you know, he was putting over the MRI. He was like, ‘I wanna do an MRI before I drain it,’ does the MRI and tells me everything. It was a fully torn ACL, a partially torn PCL, MCL and both meniscus torn. So, and he was, ‘We should do surgery tomorrow and you shouldn’t even be walking,’ blah, blah, blah and I was like, ‘I’m going to Japan next week’ and he’s like, ‘You’re not gonna make it through that’ and same thing, that morning before I went to go see him, I went to the gym and I was doing box jumps. So I’m sitting there like kind of, ‘I don’t know. I think I’m gonna be alright’ and lo and behold, I just wrapped it up and went to Japan and that’s gotta be like seven, eight years ago now, maybe even longer.
Nese has begun streaming on the Twitch platform. During his appearances on Dreamer and Petey Williams’ respective podcasts, they both inquired about Nese returning to IMPACT and expressed their interest in having him in the company.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit the House of Hardcore Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
