Candice Michelle Reflects On The Injuries That Put An End To Her In-Ring Career

Candice Michelle opens up.

Former WWE Women’s Champion Candice Michelle began her career in sports-entertainment when she emerged from the old Diva Search contests that WWE held. Candice then transitioned to the role of an in-ring performer and was involved in various storylines and it all came to a head for Candice when she became WWE Women’s Champion by defeating Melina in the semi-main event at the 2007 ‘Vengeance: Night Of Champions’ pay-per-view in June.

Candice would hold onto the title until October of that year when she dropped the strap to WWE Hall Of Famer Beth Phoenix. A few weeks after that, Candice took a hard fall from the top rope during an episode of RAW that caused her to break her collarbone and she also fell on other parts of her body which kept her out of commission for weeks. Candice recently recalled those sequence of events during a TED Talk session in Youngstown, Ohio and went in-depth about the night when her in-ring career began to take a left turn because of injuries.

“I was on a fourteen day European tour. I’d wrestled about ten matches in ten different cities and a few countries when we landed in Nebraska for Monday Night RAW. I was making history in the women’s division. I went from doing a pudding and lingerie matches to a semi-main event, and I was trying everything in my repertoire to keep her down.” Candice said. “Clothesline, spinning clothesline, drop kick, spinning heel kick. I climbed up to that second rope, but nothing would keep her down for the three count. She was a bigger, stronger opponent over me and I knew I needed to go to the top. I sauntered so tirelessly to that turnbuckle, and I remember putting my first boot on the second rope and I swung my other leg over, and my legs, felt like cement and my arms started to shake, but I pushed right through it up to the top – bam! The next thing I remember, is barely being able to see Stephanie McMahon leaning over me saying, ‘Don’t worry, your husband is being flown in’. I knew this was real, because they never fly your husband in. The diagnosis that night was a concussion, and I shattered my collarbone, and it shattered my dreams of ever wrestling again.”

The full TED Talk session can be viewed by clicking the embedded video at the top of the article.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit ‘TEDx Talks’ with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.