Persephone on Wanting to Change Injury Culture in Mexico & Encourages Hurt Wrestlers to Take A Break

Fightful held a recent interview with CMLL and AEW talent Persephone. One of the topics discussed included Persephone’s thoughts about the wrestling industry’s attitude towards injuries and how wrestlers in Mexico will often “wrap it up” and take medicine to keep working instead of taking a break to heal.

“I think, especially in Mexico, the culture in terms of injuries, it’s getting better, don’t get me wrong, but it’s very different. It is a very different structure of the way we do things. I think in Mexico, we kind of wrestle almost every night and it’s to the point of you just kind of keep going. It’s just the mentality that has been ingrained in Mexican wrestlers. I don’t think it’s so much as for ego. I think it’s just the way things have been for so many years where if they get injured, it’s kind of just like a wrap it up real tight, take an ibuprofen and keep going.”

Persephone also gave her thoughts about how wrestlers should not be doing this and brought up her own limits when it came to dealing with injury issues during her training and wrestling.

“As someone who studied sports medicine, I know like we should not be doing that guys. We should not be wrapping things up and taking an ibuprofen and keep going. So I think I’ve benefited quite a bit. I’ve tried to maybe even help people as much as I can, especially like in trainings, if someone goes down, if something happens and I’m there, I think I’ve been able to help. But more than anything in my own career, I can kind of feel my own limits and I can feel when it’s maybe time to put the brakes on. Whereas in Mexico, the culture is very go, go, go, go, go, and you don’t stop at all even if you’re injured, even if something hurts. To be clear, things are not supposed to hurt. Like in terms of like my knees should not be feeling sharp pains. That’s not normal, right? I shouldn’t be walking around like unable to turn my neck. So I think when Mexican wrestlers are ingrained this idea of go, go, go, go, go, my background has really helped me take care of myself so I can have a long career, so I can reach the goals that I want to reach being just 100% physically able to.”

Persephone also gave her thoughts about how a number of wrestlers have reached out to her in the past to get injury advice.

“I feel like I get that a lot. Wrestlers, especially the ones that know the background that I have, they’ll say, ‘Hey, I have a partially torn, whatever ligament, tendon, maybe a muscle. Should I wrap it up really well to keep wrestling? How can I wrestle with this?’ It’s like, ‘You shouldn’t be wrestling with that at all. You shouldn’t be wrestling. Take a break, buddy. You shouldn’t be wrestling with that.’”

Persephone also gave her thoughts about how the current mindset in Mexico surrounding injuries can be very toxic and how she wants wrestlers who are hurt and dealing with injuries to take a break in order to heal up properly.

“That’s definitely the vibe in Mexico as well. Like if you don’t work for a big company or if you don’t have maybe as much work, you keep going because you need to get paid. That culture, I think, can be very toxic for our bodies at least of that keep pushing through injuries and keep pushing through pain. ‘Cause I know a lot of people that do it. I think that’s why in the long run, we see so many now retired wrestlers who have these long-term injuries that they can’t get rid of. It’s kind of annoying too, because when you talk to them, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, my back flares up and I can’t move for an hour and I can’t walk.’ But we shouldn’t be that way, right? We shouldn’t end our careers that way. So I take a lot of precautions. I do a lot of preventative measures to just not end up in that state of, ‘Ah, well, I’m injured, but I’m going to keep going,’ or in a future of retiring, ‘I can’t feel my back,’ or ‘I can’t move my knees.’ I definitely don’t want to end up that way. I hope no one has to endure that or end up that way. So I really hope the culture can kind of start changing. If you’re starting to feel injured, if there’s a bad bump, if something got twisted or torn or whatever it is, take the break and take the time to do therapy and get back to being a hundred percent before we get back into the ring.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com