Stevie Richards On His MAJOR Health Scare Earlier This Year, Learning To Walk Again
Stevie Richards On His MAJOR Health Scare Earlier This Year, Learning To Walk Again
Stevie Richards (@bWoStevie) is a professional wrestler and fitness influencer known for his time in WWE, ECW, WCW, TNA and Ring of Honor. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his recent health scare with a spinal infection he had earlier this year, his road to recovery, his YouTube channel Stevie Richards Fitness, the breakdowns he has been doing as a wrestling analyst, why he feels bad for that infamous chairshot to JBL in WWE, his thoughts on the Right To Censor theme song, being part of that faction with Ivory, Val Venis, The Godfather and Bull Buchanan, the advice he got from Raven about the Blue World Order, being the 21-time WWE Hardcore Champion and much more!
Subscribe to Stevie Richards Wrestling Analyst YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@stevierichardswrestling
Subscribe to Stevie Richards Fitness: https://www.youtube.com/@StevieRichardsFitness
Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com
Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV at http://thecoldplunge.com
Quote I'm thinking about:
"The secret to getting ahead is getting started" - Mark Twain
On the road to recovery from a spine infection:
“Yeah, it was, it was pretty scary. But also it was, looking back on it, and obviously 2020 has hindsight. And, you know, having perspective after the facts were really easy, during it is the hard part. Yeah, it was something that being a wrestler for so many years, and any athlete will understand even entertainers and people in Hollywood who you talk to, when they do stunts or they get injured doing physical things. If there's a blueprint, and there's obviously a predictable diagnosis right away of you broke your ankle, you broke your neck, you tore your ACL, it's pretty easy to see, within a short amount of time. This spine infection was a dormant thing that became a mystery and hit me out of nowhere. And it was something that an illness like that is so unpredictable. And then you factor in my age of 51, you factor in other things that are unpredictable when it comes to an infection, and that moves so quickly when it gets to your spine. That's what makes it more scary, the unknown, of not only the diagnosis, but the unknown of can I get treated? And then even after treatment, what percentage am I going to be after the treatment is complete? I'm thankful to say that, in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm back to 100%, but in a whole bunch of other ways, we're very early in the stages in my road to recovery.”
On when did the infection start:
“I couldn't [walk] at one point, I did do a what happened video because there was kind of like these pictures that I wanted to update people and just didn't want to disappear off social media or YouTube. And even though my ego and my pride didn't want to share myself in my low point, I'm so happy I did now, because it did speak to a lot of people. I've made a lot of friends since then. But going back to the beginning, the morning like late January, on a Sunday morning, I had one of the best workouts which is must be a sign of the jinx that's coming. I had one of the best workouts I had on a Sunday morning around 9am. But my back was a little stiff. But I thought, you know, obviously, you've spoken to a lot of wrestlers, our backs on our necks are eventually going to hit a wall at some point. And about three hours after my workout. I was completely stuck right in this chair that we're talking to each other in right now. I could not get up, my back was completely at the time thought locked down. And my wife literally had to come home and peel me out of this chair and put me in the bed threw me on a heating pad, then it just progressively got worse within seconds, not minutes. Now I mean, literally, after it was over, it just accelerated whatever pain I had from the beginning. And then I turned into for having a heating pad with assistance from her to walking with a walker. So from 9am to about 12:15pm, my entire world, my entire life just completely changed. That's the very beginning. And then the, just the desperation of trying to find a doctor, trying to find a surgeon, trying to find a hospital that can correctly diagnose me. You know, we went to a first hospital where they couldn't find a diagnosis, we ended up in the Mayo Clinic and they saw from the week I had a CT scan in the previous hospital to the week that I was admitted in the Mayo Clinic. It had already eaten like half my L4 and L5, and like the entire disc was gone and it was already working into L2 L3. So Mayo Clinic was really scared and at this pace within a week this happened. Number one, even if we don't know what's wrong with this guy after a painful spine biopsy, we're going to start them on broad spectrum antibiotics right away because we got to stop this infection. Because if it gets to his brain, it doesn't take a super intelligent person to figure out if an infection gets to your brain, it's over. So it was really like, We need to hurry up and figure this out. So that was the beginning stages what I needed to get done.”
On realizing something major was wrong:
“So, about maybe eight, nine months before that, I was over one of my best friends houses, and his dogs got kind of freaked out by something. At the exact moment, they got freaked out both of them, you know, I was leaning over petting and this was like maybe the third or fourth time I pet the dog and it's same exact manner in this visit. But something freaked them out and spooked them to where the one dog bit me right in the face and kind of like right through my lip here, all the way through. And then the other dog bit me in the leg, because I got scared by the other dog that bit me. So it's like a recipe for disaster. But, you know, it was a dog bite. I was like, Okay, well, it's a dog bite, no big deal with, not a feral [dog], not any of that stuff. So we went to the emergency room, they stitched me up here, they left the leg open. And then I got COVID Four days later, which knocked my immune system down. By the way, this is still absolute pure speculation, but maybe an educated guess on the doctors, infectious disease. And then us trying to piece it together. We think that might have lowered my immunity. Then even with that the doctor claims, this is where I was like, I'm in great deal of pain. But at the same time, I'm like happy that the doctor put me over because he was like, Hey, thank God, you work out so hard. And you do this and that because other people it would have been a lot worse or would have happened a lot faster. I forget I was sick for half a second. But hey, I still had an ego. But the fact that I worked out so hard and tried to take care of myself as best I could over the years definitely did, according to the doctor, saved my life. So overtraining is awesome.”
On being grateful that he is still here:
“Maybe I'm predisposed to the fact that those sad cat videos, like the SPCA videos are when somebody is really like mourning the loss of a loved one. And that spoke to me too, because I'm still here. Like I can, there's people, you're right, there's plenty of people that, unfortunately, are just waiting around the die. They're not really living their life to the fullest. I don't mean redlining or going and jumping off a cliff or climbing a mountain. I just mean live the life that you want to live, make the choices and try to do the things that you want to do. You know, and fail at them. I failed plenty in my life. And I look forward now that I'm still here. Thank God, I look forward to failing and a lot more and getting feedback from Trolls everywhere. I look forward to that day because it's all part of life. And it wasn't like that every day. I'm not trying to sugarcoat it. But like I said, my wife was there, and then she trained me to retrain my own mindset that when I started to hear that it was like, no F you, I can do this and it would make me more productive. So, thank you for giving me credit, I turned around and took the credit off myself once again.”
On the success of the YouTube channel:
“Well, thank you, that's, that's always been me. I've been really wired in a positive way that the three things I'm most passionate about, never get old, they always change, they always evolve. Fitness, technology, which we were geeking out before we started recording, giving each other credit, well, you don't have a better setup, no, you have a better setup. And the third thing is pro wrestling and, uh, you know, people kind of crap on it, or it's not like it used to be or it's different. But in essence, when I was looking at matches from the 70s and 80s, I see stuff in 2023 that actually do mirror that. So it evolves and and it kind of revolves back into what's old is new again. And what's new, is the old school, it's kind of kind of a cool place to be.”
On being in the right place at the right time in multiple promotions:
“Yeah, I would think so. I think in ROH too, the short run I had. Jay Lethal, Adam Cole, Silas, they and a great crop of talent. But it was still kind of what the old identity of Ring of Honor was and it motivated me to get in the ring. And then the newer guys like Adam Cole, who was new at the time, Silas. Jay was even new even though he's World Champion and TV champ. They really did, they were carrying a new era and I wish Ring of Honor had more of a chance to see that crop of talent do what they can. I mean, mostly all of them became stars after Ring of Honor. And if they didn't, it was just politics because they were all immensely talented. But I was blessed to be in Ring of Honor and TNA during the height of that, when 2 million viewers was like, oh my god, we're an abject failure. When obviously ECW during the BWO, and then WWE right at the end of the Attitude Era, to be able to if I didn't go there during the Attitude Era, I don't think the Right to Censor wouldn’t have been born at all.”
On hearing the Right To Censor theme for the first time:
“No [I didn’t hate it], I was just happy to have something, and when I heard that music, it's funny, we talked about it on the first interview. When I had, well, it could be on, I was gonna say it's never gonna make the volume, whatever on music, I stopped myself. But when I look at that, like I knew it was an opportunity. I knew I was on TV as a character. And even if it sucked, I had custom entrance music, I had the Titan Tron, and looking at that, Chris, that made me think back to Raven, when I was putting on the half shirt and daisy dukes telling me you're gonna stand out. You're completely different. Nobody will ever take your gimmick from you. Because everybody wants to be tough, be a shooter, be a badass. He goes, You will cornered the market on a specific type of heel. That's the voice that I heard in my mind. When that music hit. I was like people are gonna hate us so much. This is awesome.”
On Ivory in Right To Censor:
“The fact that Ivory was so over as the female in the group, she was way more special than us. As a matter of fact, I would have been all for Ivory being the next leader to replace me because that's even more heat at the time. You're looking at a woman bossing these big guys around and a woman, she would have been the original Karen if you think about it.”
On the chair shot to JBL:
“You guys with this chair shot. I still feel really bad about that. I mean, we're laughing about it. But you know, I really do. I mean, John laughs about it now to thank God, but, you know, that's not what we’re in the business for and you know, people can think the way they want to think. I told this story when I did the interview with James, you were talking about James from WSI. And he asked me about it and I was talking and I literally said, once again, the reason why I have this kind of overthinking mindset, which works with this, I'm talking to John and I said, Dude, you're so tall, I don't know if I can hit you properly with the chair with you standing. The dude’s like, what? 6 foot 6, 300 pounds, he's a monster. I asked him Is there any way you can be on one knee or something where I can get you? And he was like, no, no, just lay it in, no big deal. He was totally cool about it. So even in my mind, I knew he's way up there. I'm not going to be able to hit him fully with the seat. I never knew it was going to be what it was. But I knew it was going to be a live round to some extent that he was going to get.”
Why does Stevie Richards still feel bad about the chair shot:
“I feel bad about it because it's not what I was trained to do. I was not trained to hurt people. I was not. I didn't want a reputation, I never had a reputation for hurting people on purpose. And I knew after this. I mean if Vince released me for hurting him to that degree. It might not have been fair in people's eyes. But I could understand it because that's not what we do.”
Is Stevie Richards retired from wrestling:
“I really don't know about that. I mean, but the spine infection and the fact that two discs and four levels of my vertebrae are eaten away, and I need them to naturally fuse over 12-18 months, essentially right now I'm done.”
What is Stevie Richards grateful for:
“The gift of life that God gave me, my wife and everybody who has reached out to me.”