Big E is about to have a check-up to see how his recovery is going after he suffered a neck injury when he landed on his head following a belly-to-belly suplex from Ridge Holland on an episode of WWE SmackDown in 2022. The New Day member fractured his C1 vertebrae and C6 vertebrae.
While speaking on Busted Open Radio, Big E noted that he will have a check-up during the first week of April. He is still waiting on the C1 vertebrae to ossify. This means turning completely into bone. He said,
“So right now, still haven’t gotten the one-year check-ups yet. We’re actually gonna do that when I get back home after WrestleMania. So early April, after that first week, we’ll get another set of scans. Initially, the thought was after about three months, I should be ready but because of the nature of my fracture, I broke my C1 in two places and it’s a Jefferson fracture is the specific term for the kind of fracture I have and sometimes, unfortunately with that injury — thankfully, there’s no displacement so we didn’t need to have surgery or anything. All the bones were kind of still placed and hopefully heal together properly. So it’s healing fibrously, meaning it’s connected enough that I can walk around and no one’s concerned that I’m gonna be in any kind of pain or have any issues. But, it’s just not ossifying yet. It’s not turning completely into bone and to deal with the rigors of bumping and doing what we do on a nightly basis, obviously you wanna make sure your C1 is completely ossified, that it’s all bone, that it’s in the best shape possible so right now, that’s the plan is get some more scans at the first week of April and have the doctors review them and make a decision from there. This is one of those things, obviously your C1 is a very important bone and I wanna make the best decision health-wise for myself and it’s one of those things, you just don’t wanna rush and I’ve been in rehab right now for about nine months, working on strength and range of motion and all that stuff has been great. So… that’s where we’re at right now is we’ll get those scans and move on from there.”
