It was a pain that Soho has never experienced before.
On November 30th, Ruby Soho returned to All Elite Wrestling after being on the shelf with a broken nose. She suffered the injury at All Out when Tay Melo set her up in a backpack position and pulled her around for a knee to the face.
Soho reflected on her ‘rollercoaster’ 2022 while on Busted Open Radio. She stated that she has been trying to find her role and footing in AEW.
2022 has been a rollercoaster. It has been me kind of trying to find my footing here in AEW, exactly what my role is, where I fit in, who I wanna present myself as and obviously getting injured and being out for three months and then kind of mentally dealing with that which I think, you know, anybody on this panel who has wrestled before understands that injuries are more mental than they are physical, at least for me anyway, and so it’s been a rollercoaster but I think it’s been really empowering and I think the best has yet to come for me for sure.
Going back to the topic of her nose injury, Ruby feels that time off was needed. Despite it being sudden and thinking about what she could be missing, her body was already hurting and she needed to rest.
With this one, with my nose being broken at All Out [in comparison to the double shoulder surgery I had], I think it was because it was so sudden and I had no time to prepare for it and you gotta understand, it’s go, go, go, go, go, on to the next thing, on to the next thing and all of a sudden, it’s abruptly stopped. You go home and you’re not going back to work for the foreseeable future because you have to recover, you have to have surgery, you have to do this, that and it’s such an abrupt stop with no anticipation and I think it’s such a change in lifestyle in such a quick period of time so your brain has to have time to get used to where you’re at now and try to convince yourself, oh, maybe I’m missing an opportunity that I could have had if I didn’t get injured and a lot of mental difficulty comes with that but I think at the same time, it’s super important to realize you need those times, you need those times for things to stop so you can process everything that’s happened in the recent years or months or whatever and you can really just take the time to let your body recover because my body was hurting and not even just — obviously my nose but my back was hurting, my neck was hurting. I probably wrestled more in the last year than I had probably in the four years prior to that and it was tough matches with incredible women that go and put it all out there every time so, my body was hurting. So I think honestly, mentally, physically, emotionally, all of that, it was needed if I’m being honest.
Soho further elaborated on that and recalled wrestling Riho in the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. After the match, Ruby said she was in the most pain she ever felt coming out of a match.
Although the match with Riho was physical, Soho does not think it was the bout that made her feel that way but rather it was a multitude of nagging injuries that built up over time.
As soon as I got injured this last time and I stopped, it [nagging injuries] got even more noticeable but even while I was doing it, even though the schedule was so crazy. I think vividly, I remember my match with Riho during the [Owen Hart Foundation] tournament. After that match was the most pain I had been in after a match in a really long time and I don’t think it was anything — it was a very physical match, don’t get me wrong. Riho is absolutely incredible. But, I think it was just a build up and it’s a tournament so I’m wrestling quite a bit and moving on in the tournament, but after that, I couldn’t move my neck and my back was hurting so bad. It was just a pile up to where I was like, man, I might need some time. I might need some time but you never know when the right time is. If you wanted to take some time away, if you wanted to take some time off, you never know because it’s always in the back of your mind, am I missing an opportunity? Am I skipping out on something that I need to be there for that I could be doing something great with? So, there’s never a time until sometimes wrestling just tells you, this is the time. You don’t have a choice.
She went on to detail the pain she experienced when her nose was broken at All Out. Prior to that, Soho had broken her nose several times before and had a deviated septum.
She mentioned that when she would take COVID tests, the Q-tip would get stuck in her nose. After the injury, she stated that she could not breathe out of her nose for a few months.
It was about three-and-a-half, four months [I was out due to the broken nose]. So I had actually broken my nose probably several times prior to my most recent break. I had a deviated septum for a long time. I could not breathe through this nostril. Whenever we got COVID tests, they would stick the Q-tips up my nose and it would get stuck, it would stop… and then they would have to go to the other one because it was so deviated on this side. But, when I got it broken the last time, one, I have never felt that kind of pain before in my life. If you watch the clip back right after she [Tay Melo] knees me in the face, you can see my stomach go in because I’m literally screaming and I’ve never screamed out of pain before in my life, because it ended up — my septum went like this so I could not breathe out of either nostril. Most of this is cartilage. I’ve broken my nose, which is just that little space here, in two different places and then just slanted entirely. My nose was just so wide and across my face. So, I had always had trouble breathing prior to that but then after that, I couldn’t breathe out of my nose for the first two-and-a-half months and then I had surgery and everything like that. Once the stents — because they put stents on each side of your nose after surgery — once the stents came out which is the most disgusting thing you’ll ever see in your life by the way. Just these long, gross things, exorcist-style being pulled out of your nose. Once they came out, I slept like the dead. Like gross, unattractive, drool coming down my face. Slept better than I’ve ever slept in my entire life because I could finally breathe. But it was a rough recovery for sure. Right after that, it was brutal. Not being able to breathe out of my nose for so long and then breathing out of your mouth so much and then your throat gets dry and that starts to close up and then you can’t breathe. It’s crazy, just some of the things you kind of take for granted that are just normal, everyday parts until it’s taken away from you.
Soho’s in-ring return was on the December 14th AEW Dynamite and she scored a win over Tay Melo in singles competition.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Busted Open Radio with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
