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Big E is officially retired from Professional wrestling, and he announced this heartbreaking news just a number of months ago. He worked in the ring in WWE for over a decade, and for the first time in his WWE career, he was portrayed as a main event star in 2021. He was having an amazing time in WWE before suffering a career ending injury in early 2022.
Big E won the men's Money in the Bank ladder match in 2021 and cashed it in on the same year on Bobby Lashley to win the WWE Championship. He had an excellent reign of the title before dropping the title at the Day 1 event of the 2022 event to Brock Lesnar. After this Championship drop, he could never win any Championship in WWE.
Ridge Holland remembers Big E’s neck injury
His professional wrestling career did not continue for long either, as he suffered a major neck injury during an episode of SmackDown just before WrestleMania 38 at the hands of Ridge Holland. The injury literally killed his professional wrestling career forever. Ridge Holland recently shared an emotional speech on this injury while speaking on his recent YouTube video. He said;
“… The thing that affected me more than anything was the Big E situation,” he said. “I just want to say that if I had a time machine right here, right now, the first thing I’d do is go back and not do that spot. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about it.
Ridge Holland’s botched Belly to Belly Suplex was the reason behind the injury
"What happened that day was… we were supposed to have a meeting with Vince, and it kept getting pushed back because other people took priority. You had guys who were higher on the card who wanted to speak to Vince, so our meeting kept getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.
“We finally got in there and had a really good chat, but by the time we got out, it was like 12 minutes to bell time. I think we were on first or second. So we had maybe 20 minutes to put this match together. And the spot was: Big E goes for that suicide spear, I move at the last minute, he eats s*it, and then I hit him with a belly-to-belly to put an exclamation point on it.
Big E recently announced his retirement from in ring action
"In retrospect, what should have happened was: suicide dive — that’s it. Move on. Whether I didn’t give him enough, whether he didn’t give me enough… things go wrong. It’s not ballet. And unfortunately, it happened, and I’ll always regret that spot.” (H/T to WretleZone for the transcription)
Big E was supposed to team up with is long time Tag Team partners Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods to take on the team of Sheamus, Ridge Holland, and Pete Dunne at WrestleMania 38 in a 6 man tag team match. But the injury not only kept him out of action of WrestleMania 38, it ultimately ended his career. Neck injuries have always been the most fatal of all of the injuries in wrestling. It has ended so many careers. Big E has been one of the latest victims.
