Ridge Holland says he regrets the Big E injury incident every day of the week.
Big E suffered a career-altering injury on the road to WWE WrestleMania 38. E and Kofi Kingston took on Holland and Sheamus in tag team action on the March 11, 2022, episode of SmackDown. During the match, Big E took a belly-to-belly suplex from Holland outside of the ring, landing on his neck.
The impact fractured his C1 and C6 vertebrae, and the match came to an abrupt end. E was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. While Big E has since healed from the injury, he believes his in-ring career is “kind of behind me.”
Speaking on his YouTube channel in a new video, Ridge Holland (real name Luke Menzies) recalled the events leading up to the tragic accident. He also expressed his regret over inadvertently causing the injury.
“… The thing that affected me more than anything was the Big E situation,” he said. “I just want to say that if I had a time machine right here, right now, the first thing I’d do is go back and not do that spot. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about it. What happened that day was… we were supposed to have a meeting with Vince, and it kept getting pushed back because other people took priority. You had guys who were higher on the card who wanted to speak to Vince, so our meeting kept getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.
“We finally got in there and had a really good chat, but by the time we got out, it was like 12 minutes to bell time. I think we were on first or second. So we had maybe 20 minutes to put this match together. And the spot was: Big E goes for that suicide spear, I move at the last minute, he eats s*it, and then I hit him with a belly-to-belly to put an exclamation point on it. In retrospect, what should have happened was: suicide dive — that’s it. Move on. Whether I didn’t give him enough, whether he didn’t give me enough… things go wrong. It’s not ballet. And unfortunately, it happened, and I’ll always regret that spot.”
Ridge Holland praises Big E
“I’m grateful that Big E — the class of human being that he is — forgave me. He’s been able to stay so positive and move on with his life, doing punditry and all the work he does for the community, especially with collegiate athletes. I think he works with the NIL stuff too. He’s killing it, man. He’s such a good human being, and I wish nothing but the best for him.
“And just for people out there who think there might have been any malice in there — there wasn’t. If I could change it, I would in a heartbeat. But what happened really shook my confidence. I contemplated quitting, to be honest. When you’re out there on the main roster, under a worldwide spotlight, the last thing you want is for your confidence to go, because it shows in your performances. As soon as you come out through the curtain, people know.
“I think that’s what really harmed me from connecting. I wasn’t in the right headspace to go out there, to be honest. I’m just glad I had people around me who supported me — my wife, my kids — and guys like Pete (Dunne) and Sheamus who would pull me up by my bootstraps and say, ‘Come on, we’ve got this.’”
READ MORE: Ridge Holland Regrets Recent Comments About WWE Exit: It Was ‘Out Of Character’
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