It’s been quite a while since WWE viewers have seen Carmella in the ring, but the former Smackdown Women’s Champion hopes to return someday.
Carmella has been out of action since early 2023 after becoming pregnant and later giving birth to her son in November. In recent months, she has been taking care of her newborn while still on hiatus from competition.
The long-time WWE talent joined former coworkers Nicole and Brianna Garcia on their podcast recently, “The Nikki & Brie Show,” to discuss motherhood and how the past few months have gone. During the conversation, the toping of returning to the ring emerged.
“If nothing else, I miss the fans,” Carmella said, reflecting on her absence from wrestling. “I miss performing, I miss that. I fell in love with that, did it for 11 years. But more than anything I just want to prove, I think to myself, okay, I can go through this insane experience of labor and delivery and pregnancy and my body is completely different now from the inside out. [I] would love to go back and just prove that I can. To no one else, just to myself.”
A return to the ring for Carmella isn’t just a simple process of mentally and physically preparing to perform again. She’s currently nursing an injury called drop foot, which she says has caused her to walk around with a limp.
“Unfortunately, I’ve been dealing with, again, things no one talks about, but I have what’s called drop foot, which is basically I have this injury from labor and delivery and pushing the baby out,” she explained. “I have got herniated discs in my back which push on this nerve that’s connected to my right foot. So the top of my foot, it’s hard to lift. So, I’m literally like limping around everywhere. It’s gotten better but, I mean, I wrestled for 11 years and other than some concussions, knock on wood, never had any injuries and now I have this major injury from delivering my son,” she added.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Foot drop,” which is the same thing as drop foot, “makes it difficult to lift the front part of the foot, so it might drag on the floor when you walk … A person with foot drop may raise the thigh more than usual when walking, as though climbing stairs.”
Carmella’s last in-ring appearance was in mid-March last year when she appeared at a WWE live event. Her last TV appearance came earlier that month against Bianca Belair on Raw.
