Finally, I’ve made myself sit down and write a new commentary–it’s been way too long since I last posted. It’s 3 in the morning and I’m just sitting back icing my shoulders and finally getting a chance to catch my breath. The last four weeks may have very well been the hardest four weeks of my life. Let me give you a small chronological summary of the last thirty days of my life.

Feb 8-Austin ,TX–I suffer a grade one separation of my right shoulder in a match against Steve Blackman and Al Snow. I am in the emergency room until 3:30 a.m. that night. I fly back home at 7:30 that same morning. I can’t sleep on my shoulder because of a continual sharp pain. I sleep miserable for the next couple of nights.

Feb 11-Jeff and I fly to Denver, CO to start a 5 day loop with 5 appearances besides just our wrestling commitments. During these five days, I did a very minimal amount of physical activity in Jeff’s single matches. I hope this week long rest on my shoulder will be enough to let it heal so that I can start back wrestling the following weekend. The doctor’s prognosis was that I should be off 4 to 5 weeks–not just 10 days.

Feb 16-Jeff and I get home late in the evening from California, and I have a ton of things to do on my one day off, which will be tomorrow, the 17th. My shoulder has healed some but it is no where near one hundred percent.

Feb 17-I have been running errands and washing clothes and paying bills and banking and returning phone calls since early morning. As I am trying to make my way to one of my friends surprise birthday party, my car was ran off the road, my front tire blew out, and I slid off an embankment into the woods. My 1999 Ford Mercury Cougar was totaled and I suffered a severe gash in the back of my head (from where my head busted out the drivers’ side window), an ankle injury, and a ton of small lacerations on my body from the broken glass. My shoulder ached from being aggravated again but it was fortunately not hurt very much more. The driver of the truck that ran me off the road stopped to check on me, in a very respectful move (he could have easily kept going to avoid being in trouble). I refused medical treatment from the EMT’s. I was sick of the fact I had to leave to go to work in the morning with this burden now on my shoulders.

Feb 18–Jeff and I are supposed to do an appearance in Huntington, WV today. I can barely walk between my ankle and the soreness today. When we get to the airport in Raleigh, our flight is delayed 35 minutes. It makes us miss our connection in Charlotte to Huntington. We wait for the next flight in to Huntington at 4:30 –it is canceled because of weather. We attempt to get on a flight to Charleston, WV, but it is canceled right before it’s departure at 6:20. The last flight to Huntington is full at 7:30 and they expect it to be canceled as well. They book us on a 8:50 flight back to Raleigh that ends up leaving two hours late. We get back to Raleigh at 11:40 p.m., and the airlines had lost my clothes along with my phone charger, among other things. We haven’t accomplished anything today and it’s midnight–and that’s after starting our morning at 7:20 a.m. It was a nightmare of a day. We stay in Raleigh that night so we can leave early the next morning.

Feb 19-We do a 2 hour office, non-paid appearance before the Knoxville house show. This was my return to the ring–very painful return to the ring. They thought they had found my clothes at the Knoxville airport, but it was a false alarm. We left the airport in our rental car at midnight. The next day was an afternoon show in Augusta, GA–it turned out to be 350 miles away. Jeff and I drove until 7 a.m. the next morning to get to the town.

Feb 20-To protect my right shoulder, I was bumping almost completely on my left side. After three days of doing that, my left shoulder starts bothering me.

Feb 24-I have two days off, so I try to rest and recuperate my shoulders as much as possible, as well as try and do some car shopping. The airlines finally track down my lost clothes and return them to me.

Feb 26-We do a autograph signing in Baltimore, MD. It was an office appearance, which means Jeff and I make no money at all from it–it’s just something we have to do for the WWF. It was to promote WWF Video sales. Since it was free to attend, over 2000 fans showed up. It was a pretty hectic setup. We were only slated to be there for two hours, but we ended up staying two and a half hours until management made us leave to catch our flight to Hartford. It would have been impossible to meet everyone in that allotted time. From what I understand, there was quite a few people who were upset with Jeff and I personally for not getting to meet us or claiming we left before signing for everyone. That’s quite unfair. We had nothing to do or say about when we came or when we left or who we meet.

Feb 27-We wrestle a 20 minute match on the pay per view against Edge and Christian. After taking a good number of bumps in the match, I was in major pain from my right shoulder. I almost passed out after the match due to pain. As you can see, I’m not getting anytime to let my injuries heal correctly.

Feb 28-We wrestle the Acolytes in Madison Square Garden–I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to wrestle because my right shoulder throbbed all day.

Mar 2-I buy a new car.

Mar 3-We start a seven day loop in Toronto. The next day, we fly to Ottawa first thing in the morning, and we go to breakfast with contest winners–an office appearance. We wrestle Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn that afternoon. Directly after that, we are driven straight to Montreal, where we have another office appearance in a club and shoot pool against some local tournament winners. Following that, we have to go to dinner with Canadian TV people, another office venture.

Mar 7-While wrestling Viscera in Boston, once again aggravate my right shoulder. I have wrestled every day of this loop.

Mar 8-I luckily make it through my match against the Dudleys in Indianapolis without doing further damage to my right shoulder.

Mar 9-I am off until Sunday morning–I am focusing all my energy on treating my shoulders. It’s only 4 more weeks to Wrestlemania–I want to be as healthy as possible for that. I refuse to let my attitude be negative. I will heal. I will get into the best shape I’ve ever been in. I always believe it is darkest right before dawn, and we all have these “dark periods” in life we just have to get through.

I think this is a really good example of how my life, or anyone else that is portrayed as being bigger than life, is very far from having a perfect life. It’s just one of those times where you have to suck it up and get pass a bad time in your life. I hope you all are experiencing very positive times in your life right now. Make sure to make good use of your free time–you don’t know how valuable it is until it’s gone. I will talk with you all again very soon. Be well, and until then…