Big E Expected to Make Full Recovery From Broken Neck

The former WWE champion is still a long way from a return but the latest update is a promising one.

Joseph Currier, Wrestling Observer | Jul 13, 2022

Former WWE world champion Big E is expected to make a full recovery after breaking two bones in his neck.

While speaking with ESPN, Big E (36-year-old Ettore Ewen) revealed that doctors have told him they expect he’ll make a complete recovery from the broken neck he sustained in March. Despite that, he’s still waiting to find out how long it will be until he’s able to return to the ring.

Big E tweeted earlier this month that—with his C1 vertebra not forming bone quite yet—the plan is for him to get more scans at the one-year mark and see how things are progressing. Big E said the great news is that he’s feeling “tremendous” and neck surgery is off the table as an option.

ESPN wrote that Big E will also be evaluated at the six-month and nine-month marks, but doctors “do not believe they will have a clear answer” on how long he’ll be out of action until the March 2023 scans happen.

Big E fractured his C1 and C6 vertebrae when the frightening injury happened during a tag team match on the March 11 episode of SmackDown. Ridge Holland gave Big E an overhead belly-to-belly suplex at ringside, but the spot went wrong and Big E accidentally landed on his head.

Neither vertebra was displaced, and Big E also did not suffer any spinal cord or ligament damage.

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Big E was informed at his first doctor’s appointment after the injury that he “narrowly escaped a stroke, paralysis or death.” Big E said life feels even more precious and valuable now after learning that.

Big E told ESPN that he’s so thankful for everyone who has checked in on him since he suffered the injury. He also said he holds nothing against Holland for how things happened.

"I have no issue whatsoever with Ridge,” Big E said. “He’s reached out and said some very kind things. ... What we do is dangerous, and there are inherent dangers. And to that degree, we all kind of know what we sign up for, and it was unfortunate that it went down that way. But I’m not dead. I’m alive. I’m doing well."

Though he isn’t currently able to wrestle, Big E (who is a former defensive lineman for the University of Iowa) will be helping out at a talent tryout WWE is holding during SummerSlam week in Nashville later this month. The invite-only tryout is exclusively for current and recently graduated college athletes.

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Published Jul 13, 2022

JOSEPH CURRIER, WRESTLING OBSERVER