Back in September at WWE’s Night Of Champions event, WCW legend Sting suffered an injury during a buckle-bomb from then-WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins. Although it was described by some sources as “career threatening,” Sting remained hopeful, and by the end of September the only plan of action was to “wait and see.”
We waited, and now it’s time to see.
During an interview with The Black Scorpion, Sting revealed that doctors believe his “significant” injury was cervical spinal stenosis, and he’ll require neck surgery to correct it.
“Yeah, MRI’s and neurologists have been looking at it, Dr. Maroon out of Pittsburgh, he’s looked at it. He’s telling me that I’ll have to have a surgery … The dust only in the last couple weeks has kind of started to settle a little bit for me, just trying to get so much done in life but now it’s time to go get this thing taken care of. No, I’m hoping (they don’t have to do a fusion surgery). I know that’s one of the techniques that they use and I’m not sure if Dr. Maroon will have to do that or not. I’ve got two spots in my neck that are troublesome. I guess it’s called cervical spinal stenosis. That’s what it is.
I have two areas in my neck where the spinal canal, which holds the spinal cord, it’s kind of choked off in two different locations. Lucky that a catastrophe didn’t happen that night, long story short. I’ve gotta go get it fixed. I guess John Cena had something very similar, he had his fixed, and Dr. Maroon has done several of the WWE guys up there and all with great success.”
Some had hoped that he’d be healthy enough to make an appearance at WrestleMania 32 — that Undertaker vs. Sting match everybody wanted still hasn’t happened, after all, and that’s always a popular rumor — but that appears to be off the table. Keeping in mind that Sting is 56 years old, that may mean the end of his in-ring career. If Stinger does heal up quicker than expected and decides to make a return to the ring, it won’t be any time soon.
We wish Sting a speedy, healthy and full recovery, and hope we’re wrong about the not wrestling thing.
h/t to Cageside for the transcription
