Ortiz on His Torn Pec Injury, Recent Return to AEW TV, & Him and Eddie Kingston Planning To Open A Wrestling School

A recent episode of the AEW Unrestricted podcast featured Ortiz as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Ortiz’s thoughts about his recent return to AEW television after his long recovery from a torn pectoral injury.

“Oh man, really good. It was a long journey. Almost two years since I was on television. Yeah, I felt every minute of that. It feels really good because I’ve been working really hard during that time off, and I’m just excited to be able to show everyone and show the payoff and just the best feeling in the world. I love wrestling more than anything. Other than my son and my family, wrestling is my number one.”

Ortiz also gave his thoughts about the cause of his torn pectoral injury and how the injury ordeal helped to make him adopt a better mindset and become a better person.

“The end of January 2024. I forget the exact date. 20-something. But yeah, it was on a Collision taping. It was against Bryan (Danielson) and Claudio (Castagnoli) — me and Eddie (Kingston) and it was just from a clothesline. It’s just one of those freak accidents. It’s a move I’ve done thousands and thousands of times, but it was just wrong angle and my muscles were probably tight at the time and you know, it was an unfortunate thing that happened but honestly one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, because mentally, I’m in a better place now. 

I had to switch perspectives. When I initially got injured, I was very sad. I was down and out. Just got broken up with (Mike) Santana at the time; was trying to find myself, was finally getting to do it with Eddie again and it just came very abruptly. It was like, ‘I finally got my shot. Yes, let’s do this,’ and then bam, injury happened. So it was just a very low moment. My confidence, everything, I just — all self-doubt kind of kicks in, and then I felt that for a while and then you could do one or two things: You could either continue down that path or you could do something about it, and I just had to change my perspective and my goals. Just going through that low moment, I was able to come out of it a different person and I like who I am now.”

Ortiz also gave his thoughts about him and Eddie Kingston are currently in the process of opening up a new wrestling school in the future.

“Me and Eddie (Kingston) are in the process of opening up our own school. Coaching and teaching is very, very — an immense passion of mine. Because I’ve had so many great mentors in wrestling and I just wanna pass on that knowledge. I don’t want it to be wasted, and I wanna help cultivate a change in wrestling culture and I’m just thirsty to learn more and then I’m learning through teaching, so, that’s cool.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2