Eagles: Knee injury could be career-ending
That’s never a title you want to read, but it’s the reality that the winner of the 2011 PWI Female Fifty, our choice for 2010 Wrestler of the Year, former SHIMMER Champion and current PWWA titleholder Madison Eagles is having to consider at the moment.
Speaking exclusively to Ringbelles following a two week, self-imposed exile from the Internet, the 27 year old Australian broke her silence in the latest Women Of Wrestling Podcast to explain the nature of her knee injury, when and how it occurred, and its severity.
It’s just disgusting. I got the worst prognosis that I could have; either surgery and you can’t wrestle again or let’s just wait it out and see what happens. Unfortunately, that one doesn’t have any time restraint on it. We’re looking at crap or crapper.
It was two days after SHIMMER [back at the start of October] that I did it. I did a double stomp – from doom, as I call it, the Double Stomp of Doom – and just hyperextended my knee so horribly that I just collapsed in pain and couldn’t move. I think it was six weeks after I actually did the injury that I finally got my MRI from the specialist done – and at that point it still looked pretty horrible, like, having been healing for six weeks. So they put me in a brace for another five or six weeks and that’s just come off recently and it’s still pretty bad. It just looks horrible from my point of view.
At the moment, Eagles is electing to see if the knee will heal of its own accord, though there is no set timeframe for her to be given a clean bill of health. This could mean weeks, possibly months, or even longer before she is able to return to the ring. The injury has also meant that Eagles has had to turn down a number of bookings in Japan, as well as having to miss JoshiMania earlier this month, after having been announced in late October as one of the few gaijin stars who would be on the card.
For fans of women’s wrestling, it has been a horrible few weeks. Serena Deeb has been advised to not wrestle again after suffering a concussion during the most recent SHIMMER tapings, while LuFisto also discussed how she is taking a break from wrestling after her long-standing back injury flared up again. Most recently, current Women Superstars Uncensored Champion Mercedes Martinez has had to rest up following a concussion and stinger that she suffered during the War Games match at Breaking Barriers 2 last month, which has left her experiencing migraines and dizzy spells. Of all the injuries, LuFisto and Martinez are expected to return to the ring next year, but things look touch and go for Eagles (who is also still dealing with a shoulder injury that she suffered in a car accident back in April), and even are more dire for Serena.
On a critical level, 2011 has been a tremendous year for women’s wrestling, especially for the four stars who are currently on the shelf. However, all their hard-hitting matches appear to have taken their toll on some of the biggest names in North America. Hopefully, serious injuries like the ones discussed (as well as MsChif injuring her leg back in April, keeping her out of the ring for four months) don’t happen so regularly in 2012. Obviously, you can’t prevent injuries, but this cluster which have emerged in the last three months have been pretty depressing for fans of their work.
These names, among others, have helped to propel the popularity of women’s wrestling over the past 5 years, and each of them don’t deserve to have their careers cut short before their time. Hopefully they can be part of the future that they have helped to build for newer names coming into wrestling, instead of having what they love snatched away from them prematurely.
- Lee Burton
Source: http://ringbellesonline.com/2011/12/26/eagles-knee-injury-could-be-career-ending/
