While he doesn’t know when he suffered the injury, Bo Dallas worked a portion of his WWE run with a broken neck.
Along with the likes of Samoa Joe, Mickie James, Cassie Lee and Jessica McKay, Bo Dallas was released from WWE in April following WrestleMania 37. Dallas, real name Taylor Rotunda signed with WWE in 2008 and had been with the company up until his release.
After coming out of NXT and having a title run that ranks him fourth on the longest-reigning NXT Champions of all-time list, Dallas moved to the main roster and found sporadic pockets of success but was not featured often.
Highspots Wrestling Network hosted a virtual signing with Dallas and he revealed that he worked a portion of his WWE run with a broken neck. He isn’t aware of how the injury initially occurred, but he’s glad he did not get it readjusted while he was working because it could’ve worsened the injury.
Something that a lot of people don’t know is I broke my neck two years ago. The last time I was on television on SmackDown, I think it was a segment involving — it was a B-Team segment involving Braun Strowman. I had a broken neck in that segment and I got time off after that to either re-break my neck and wear this whole construction thing so they would have to take me out for over a year or my neck had already started to heal incorrectly but it started to heal and I had the opportunity to rebuild the muscles around there and strengthen those so I did that and for nine months, I did that and got to 100 percent or what I felt like was 100 percent and as that happened, COVID hit and so like, I was hurt a year before COVID hit and then the chaos that-that created coming back. I’m in the best shape of my life and I have been for the past year, ready and willing to come back and do what I want to do and that just didn’t work out in WWE because it’s not what I wanted to do and whatever is happening next, that’s gonna be what I wanna do.
My neck was hurting really terribly bad one specific tour before I got it checked. We were over in Europe for two weeks and it was really bad and like, when you do a tour in Europe, it’s pretty rough because it’s 14 days, show every single day and the travel’s usually crazy. You can go from Italy to Germany to sometimes from Abu Dhabi to Germany. It’s all over the place. You don’t know where you’re gonna go and where you’re gonna be at the end of the night and my neck was killing me the whole time and like, I was voicing that to the locker room and we had a chiropractor that went everywhere with us or at least a couple shows in Europe and they were there at the show and all my friends were, ‘You need to go to see the chiropractor’ and I was [like], ‘You know what? It’s hurting terribly bad but for some reason it feels like a bad idea’ and I didn’t do that, thankfully I didn’t because I was working on a broken neck that whole time and didn’t know it and if I would’ve gotten readjusted, it could’ve been really bad and no, I don’t know specifically where the broken neck happened. I have some ideas and certain matches where it possibly could have happened but…
Dallas’ last match was in November of 2019. He last appeared on WWE TV in September of that year. He clarified that he is far from done in the ring and wants to find something he can sink his teeth into that feels important.
So, my next goal, I’m definitely, 1,000 percent not done wrestling. There’s no chance in that. My next goal is to find something that I can really sink my teeth into, something that I really love and that I’m passionate about that is not a one-off, it’s not a small time thing. I don’t need to do it, I want to do it and I’m looking forward to finding that because I’ve been thirsty for that for a really long time and not creatively… happy and this is the opportunity in my life. I’m dabbling in a bunch of other things but wrestling is my passion and I’m re-finding the love for it. If I’ve lost any of it, I’m finding that passion all over again in my way and I’m really excited. Whatever’s gonna happen next, it’s gonna be bigger and better than anything I’ve ever done.
Dallas’ brother Bray Wyatt was released from WWE in late July. Wyatt’s last appearance for WWE was at WrestleMania 37 where he lost to Randy Orton.
Elsewhere during the signing, Bo Dallas stated that he and his sister are starting a production company.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Highspots Wrestling Network with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
