Colt Cabana’s return to AEW Dynamite was a heartwarming moment but nearly turned tragic after the bout.
Cabana returned to Dynamite on the November 2, episode to challenge Ring of Honor World Champion Chris Jericho in a losing effort.
The match marked Colt’s first televised AEW match in close to a year, as fans (and many in AEW) suspects that CM Punk pressured Tony Khan to remove Cabana from TV.
Compression Socks
With this being such an important match in his career, Cabana wanted to be at his best for the match, but problems arose before the match got started.
On his Art of Wrestling podcast, Colt explained how his usual wrestling socks went missing, and in a rush, he brought compression socks to wear for the match.
“I put on my compression socks, my kneepads, and my boots. And what I don’t realize is that I have essentially made a tourniquet in the bottom half of my body. Essentially what I did was restrict everything. I remember vividly thinking, ‘I can’t feel my legs. I guess it’s just the nerves.'”
Cabana added that with the compression socks, wrestling boots, and kneepads cutting off flow to his legs, he was dealing with high blood pressure and low oxygen for most of the match.
Backstage
Cabana would be unsuccessful in dethroning Jericho but was grateful that the match did not go any longer than it needed.
Speaking on the podcast, Cabana said that after the match, he felt his body go rigid and that at first, nobody knew what was going on.
“I could not move. And 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.’ And me just saying, ‘I gotta get this stuff off of me, I feel so compacted.’ And I ripped my singlet off and it still didn’t feel like enough. And I couldn’t breathe, I felt lightheaded, and I had a headache and my head was pounding.”
“I couldn’t breathe, I felt lightheaded, and I had a headache and my head was pounding.”
Colt Cabana.
Fixing Things
Nobody knew what exactly was going on with Cabana, and unable to move, Colt had to ask the trainers to remove his ring attire.
The ROH star admitted he felt like a “schmuck” for asking for help being undressed, and it was only thanks to a passing reference to the socks that AEW’s medical team learned what was wrong.
“I say, ‘You know, I bought these compression socks last night.’ And then the eyes of the trainers are just like, ‘What?’ As 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.”
Cabana’s return on AEW Dynamite was meant to be a ‘morale booster’ to the locker room but has reportedly made things worse between Khan and CM Punk.