Colt Cabana Says He Wasn’t Under AEW Contract For Two Days, Almost Died In Chris Jericho Bout

On the November 2 episode of AEW Dynamite, Colt Cabana made his return to AEW when he challenged Chris Jericho for the ROH World Championship. 

It marked Cabana’s first AEW TV appearance since the March 8 episode of AEW Dark. He was moved to the ROH roster during that time and there were reports CM Punk asked him to be moved from the AEW roster, which Tony Khan denied. 

Speaking on his Art of Wrestling podcast, Cabana confirmed his AEW contract did briefly expire. 

“I did this podcast at AEW, a place where I’ve been contracted, I would say off and on, I was not contracted for two days, for the past almost three years,” he said.

Cabana went on to reflect on his match against Chris Jericho and how he nearly died. 

“A couple of weeks ago, I wrestled Chris Jericho. I wanted to share the story of how I almost died wrestling Chris Jericho. I’m not telling this story to make an excuse, nobody would have known, everyone complimented me on my match and I’m appreciative for that. It’s a fun story and in 20 years I will laugh about it. In the moment, I did not laugh,” he began. 

“In my laundry room is my wrestling gear, I wash my kneepads and singlet, I don’t dry them, I hang dry them. Of course, I wash my wrestling socks. I don’t know where my wrestling socks went, they went somewhere. I like long black wrestling socks so there isn’t a gap between my boots and kneepads. I don’t want airy skin, so I like long socks. Before I wrestled Jericho, I had to go out and buy new socks,” he said before saying he went to Target at the last minute and bought compression socks. 

He continued, “I wrestled Chris Jericho. That match, there were many emotions, there was a lot of tension going into it. My anxiety was high, tensions were high, the building was hot. As I go to wrestle Jericho, I put on my compression socks, kneepads, and boots. What I don’t realize is that I have essentially made a tourniquet in the bottom half of my body.”

Cabana noted are designed to help increase circulation and often used for hospital patients to help prevent blood clots as patients are not active. 

“My blood flow is perfect, so essentially what I did was restrict everything. I remember vividly thinking, ‘I can’t feel my legs. I guess it’s just the nerves. It was nerves and anxiety, but it was also compression socks. By the time I did the moonsault to the outside and had to run into the ring to give Jericho a flying asshole, I had nothing left in my body. I attributed it to the night of wrestling, but no, it was because I cut off the supply of blood to my own legs, causing high blood pressure and low oxygen. I knew I was on live TV and it was big moment for me, I figured a way to do it to Jericho knowing the match would come to an end very quickly, it did, I could not move as I made my way back to the trainer’s room asking for electrolytes and the trainer being like, ‘We’re not sure what’s going on.’ I ripped my singlet off, I couldn’t breathe, I had a headache, I felt lightheaded,” he said before taking off his boots, kneepads, and informing the doctors that he was wearing compression socks. 

“The eye’s of the trainers were like, ‘what?’ I was asked to lay back for the next two hours while ice was put all over my body. I was educated as to why you should not professionally wrestle in front of 10,000 people and almost a million people at home in compression socks,” he stated.

Jericho was victorious in the bout against Cabana, successfully defending the ROH World Title in the process. 

Cabana has not been back on AEW TV since the bout. 

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.