During a recent appearance on the “Insight” podcast, Erik of the War Raiders announced that Valhalla may return to WWE after taking time off for her pregnancy.
Valhalla gave birth to their second child, a boy, late last year.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On almost not returning after his recent neck injury: “Yeah, absolutely. So I got in a freak accident, I landed a suplex, I got dropped directly on my head, just one of those things. I think we kind of say it without really thinking about it that in wrestling any match could be our last, or any move could be our last, or whatever. We kind of don’t think about the weight of that. I was on a live event, non televised, just a match that we don’t really think about or we take for granted, doing a move, taking a suplex that I had taken 1000s of times in my career. Didn’t think once about it. For whatever reason, on that day, I over-rotated and landed directly in my head. When it happened, I knew I was hurt, but I didn’t know how bad I was hurt. I thought it was something that was in my trap, and everything kind of locked up. So I was treating it muscular. It got worse. We got MRIs, saw there was herniation in the disc. I kept wrestling, because I was like, well we can just keep treating this with PT. I was talking with doctors. I was doing whatever we did. I was doing PT like 3, 4, 5, times a week. I was getting dry needling, scraping, everything, trying to mitigate all the stuff I was doing. I was doing electric therapy and stuff like that, trying to stimulate the nerves, trying to doing everything I could to avoid surgery. But at the same time, I was wrestling every single week, I didn’t miss a match, and then I took another bad fall, just got tumbled up going over the ropes one time and it actually didn’t even hit my neck. I hit my elbow on the apron on the way over, and then three days later my tricep disappeared, my right lat shrank like half in size, and then my right pec flattened within days. I came in, and I was terrified. So I came into work that week, and we were scheduled for a match, actually, against New Day. Ironically enough, we were scheduled to wrestle The New Day. I sat down with medical, I sat down with Triple H and everybody, the consensus was, ‘Hey, you’re going to Birmingham tomorrow. You’re not flying home, cancel plans. We’re flying you from TV to Birmingham.’ I saw Dr Cordova. We did try a nerve block thing, because he was like, hey, maybe we can reverse some of this. So we tried that before cutting and then that didn’t have the effect that anyone wanted. So we did neck surgery but it was immediate, it was fast. It was like, bang, bang, bang.”
On if the surgery was scary: “It was. They’re going through the front now. So it’s ACDF surgery. It’s at level six, seven. Ivar’s got two levels. So his is actually the one above and mine, but our symptoms are totally different, even down to the fingers, our nerve pathway, the way that my nerve pathway was affected was totally different than his. So it’s funny that we both have surgically repaired necks, but our injuries couldn’t be more separate. But yeah, I’ve always been a fast healer. After the motorcycle wreck I was back in six months, so in my brain I was like, I’ll be back in six months. I’ve done this before, it’s fine. Six months came, I went for the scan, still didn’t have full fusion, seven months no fusion, eight months no fusion, nine months no fusion. Now I’m getting scared. What happens if this doesn’t fully fuse? What is life without wrestling? How does this go on? Then thank God, finally it did fuse. We showed full fusion, I was able to start training again, get back really quickly. But then it ended up being 13 months, I think, from surgery that I was out. There were definitely some times of like, this might be the end. So I was thinking, and I’m texting with Ivar, and talking to my wife every day, how do we go from here? What happens now? So it’s sobering to be struck there. So, then having the motorcycle wreck, then having the neck surgery. There’s all of this. Like, Hey, dude, don’t take anything for granted. Not a single flight, not a single match, not a single move, not a single day. Then with kids, you know this is bad as anybody, the days are long and the years are short. So my oldest is already four years old. Even though I know you shouldn’t take anything for granted, you get weighed down by just how hard that is, not sleeping, not whatever, you know what I mean. I heard something that was like, parenting is only hard for good parents. I’m not saying that I’m the best parent in the world. I know I’m not. I just try my best every day. I care. We’re up at night. We’re up early, sleep late, whatever we have to do. I’m not trying to say that I’m better than anybody else, but you think about that, and you think about those kids and you just try to soak all that stuff in, even when it’s hard. It’s something that Sarah and I talk about a lot, like, wow, it’s hard. I remember with Cash, she’s breastfeeding, and we’re co-sleeping, we’re doing all this stuff. She’s not sleeping more than 30 to 45 minute stretches for like a month at a time. She looks at me, and she was just like how long can someone go without sleep before they die? I’m like, I don’t know, but it’s not yet.”
On the various names the War Raiders had: “Not until the main roster. So from War Machine to War Raiders, the initial one was Doomsday Raiders. We were like oof. Okay, could we give you some ideas? So Ivar and I went and we talked about a bunch of stuff, we probably gave 50 names back. Then someone told us they really want to put raiders in the name. So we came up with 50 names with raiders in them, and the number one on our list was actually Viking Raiders. We’re like, ‘Hey, this is a name that we like. It kind of fits who we are, the look we’ve got, the energy we’ve got, I like this name.’ So we sent it up and I think it was Hunter who was like, ‘We’re kind of thinking War Raiders.’ I was like, well, let’s give you some different ideas. He said, ‘Yeah, but we really like War Raiders.’ And we’re like, yeah War Raiders is the coolest name we’ve ever heard. So then we became the War Raiders. Then we were War Raiders in all of NXT, we liked the name, and then we got called up. We were the Viking Experience. Our first day on the main roster. We had never actually physically met Vince McMahon, but we went and stood outside his office to go and plead our case. Because I was ringside, this is fun, I was ringside, and I see our music starts playing, and it’s The War Raiders up on the screen, and then the logo changes, and Berserkerz comes up. Now I’m looking like, oh man. Then that goes away, and the Viking Experience comes up. I look and I’m like, Oh no! So I walk up and Hunter was actually ringside, he’s texting, and I walk up to him and I was like, ‘Hey, dude, is this a rib?’ He just shakes his head and goes, ‘I wish.’ I’m like, ‘What do we do?’ He’s like, ‘Well, you gotta go talk to Vince.’ All right, cool. So Ivar’s plane was late, he gets to the building, I tell him we got to go talk to Vince. This is bad, right? So we go get in line, stand, we make our case. Said, Viking Experience sounds like a Disney ride, it sounds something like a small world, the tea cups and all that stuff. The Viking Experience, bring your kids, right? So, we pitched that case, and Vince was like, ‘Well, that makes sense, but we don’t have time to get that through legal.’ Because we asked to be Viking Raiders because we heard through a little birdie told us, when we changed from War Machine to War Raiders, it was they were really stuck on Raiders. So all of the names had raiders in them. This time, Vince was really stuck on us being Vikings. He loved Vikings. Little known fact, Vince was a big fan of the history show Vikings, which is probably why we got called up in the first place, because he was like, Hey, we got Vikings on TV? Bring them up. So he wanted us to be the Viking something, right? And the problem is, Vikings are a very popular thing in culture right now. So nothing could get past legal, nothing could get trademarked, nothing could get whatever. Viking Experience was shockingly free, because no one wanted to be that, including us. So we asked to be Viking Raiders. By this point, it’s like, 7:30 right? The show’s going on at eight. He was like, ‘Well, we can’t get this cleared through legal at this point. So what we’ll do is, you’ll be the Viking Experience today, and if we really don’t like it, then we’ll be Viking Raiders next week. And you know, no press is bad press. So worst case scenario, people will talk. They’ll be talking about you.’ So we’re like, okay, and as we’re leaving the office, kind of in an afterthought, he goes, ‘Oh and by the way, one of you is Ivar, and one of you is Erik, I don’t care who.’ We just walked out. I looked and we were maybe two steps outside of his office, and Ivar grabs my arm for real, and he’s like, ‘Please don’t make me be Erik. My brother’s name is Erik.’ The bully in my brain for like, three seconds, I was like, Man, I really should be mean. No, okay, fine, you could be Ivar. But I really, it was close to us being the other way. I was like, Man, I don’t know how they came up with these names. Someone in creative might have just Googled famous Viking names or something. Because I did that afterwards, trying to figure out where they come up with these names? The first one was Erik the Red. Then it was Ivar the Boneless. I was like, Oh, cool. So it’s literally just Erik, Ivar. You guys are Vikings, yep, Eric and Ivar.”
On if Valhalla is considering a return: “Yeah, she is. She is a constant inspiration for me. She works so hard, she is so dedicated and disciplined. She keeps me on my diet so much better because she’s so disciplined with hers. She’s already running, jumping, throwing things, getting back into battle shape and getting ready. So yeah, I don’t know when this is gonna air, but I’m sure it won’t be too long in the future you start seeing her again.”
