Nick Aldis on Injury Rumor Causing Him To Be GM Instead of Wrestler in WWE, His Concerns Ahead of His Match with Gunther at WWE SummerSlam 2026, His Belief WWE Will Document His Career Before SummerSlam Match, & WrestleMania 41 Match with Randy Orton Was Never Discussed with Him

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured Nick Aldis as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Aldis clarifying the online rumors of him dealing with an injury being the reason why he was made as being a General Manager instead of in-ring wrestler in WWE.

“Yeah, it’s funny because some of that was just some interesting timing. Because no, I was not put in that role because I was hurt. It wasn’t a case of being not cleared or needing time to heal up or anything like that. Having said that, it’s been wonderful to have some time to heal up, and actually the truth is, I probably did have some issues that I was not fully aware of until I actually had time for my body to heal properly. One being my back. Some of this was magnified by the fact that right around the time that, I don’t know if I had signed yet, but I was shadowing and I was coming to TVs and getting to know everybody. I had a few dates left, and one of them was one of them was going to be a return match with Alex Shelley at an independent show. I believe it was in Chicago, may have been Detroit. And for probably the first time in my career outside of being legitimately injured and having surgery was the first time where I had to call and pull out because my back was really bad.

I’d had this sort of constant nagging pain in my back where it would really vary. Some days it would be fine, and then other days it would just completely ruin my whole day. And eventually, I remember being a couple of days out from the show and just calling the guy and saying, ‘I’m so sorry, but I’m just having trouble moving around. I’m gonna have to pull out; my back is shot.’ I went to Vanderbilt in Nashville and saw a specialist because it felt like I had a bulging disc or herniated disc. Turns out I actually just had huge inflammation. There’s like a thin sheet of muscle that sits behind your spinal erectus, I believe. Finally, this specialist at Vanderbilt was able to find it, and he goes, ‘Yeah, that’s why it feels like a bulging disc or a herniated disc. You actually just have massive inflammation in this muscle.’ He said, ‘You’re fine. Actually, your spine’s in pretty good order.’ I just got checked out at the Orlando Magic Facility in Orlando a couple weeks ago, and they said the same thing. The guy said, ‘Look, you know, you’ve got the spine of a 39-year-old wrestler, but actually in the scheme of things it’s pretty good.’ It just turned out that I just needed these specific anti-inflammatories. Cleared it up instantly. That was the thing that had been bugging me for like two years. So it was really just a case of just me being a stubborn idiot, and just sort of almost not wanting to know, thinking I’ll just figure it out, or I’ll just wear a back brace, or I’ll just do this, whatever. And all I needed was some anti-inflammatories, and it was just like something had just aggravated this specific stabilizer muscle, and it was just super inflamed.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts about the concerns he has ahead of his match against Gunther at SummerSlam 2026.

“I think the big nerves are still to come, obviously. But I think because I feel like I’ve got my body right, now I feel a bit more comfortable. In the beginning, when I first sort of realized that this was on the horizon, I think my biggest concern was my physical ability. I don’t mean my ability to execute a bodyslam. I mean my conditioning. I suppose I should take it as a compliment that upper management didn’t seem to have very much concern about that. But I was very concerned, and I remember saying to Ed Koskey, there’s a big difference between physique shape and ring shape, and I only have one of those right now.

Honestly, I say this with all sincerity. My focus for the last couple of weeks, or a little more than that, has been entirely on conditioning, performance and conditioning. You’re not going to make a whole lot of difference to your physique in four weeks. Obviously, you can make some significant dent in your body fat and you can tighten up. But I’m not going to add any muscle. I’m not going to make any drastic changes to my proportions or composition or anything, but the focus had to be on being able to go. I basically just decided, okay, whatever happens with the physique, it is what it is. The physique’s somewhat there, so I have to be able to go.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts about how he can be presented as a threat to Gunther when he’s been a general manager for three years. Aldis also gave his thoughts about his belief that WWE will be documenting his wrestling career before his upcoming match against Gunther at SummerSlam.

“It’s a fair question. It’s a fair point. Well, I think we need to document my career. I believe that is in the works. I think it’s a bit of a crash course for the WWE universe. Is this is who this guy was before he came here? I think that’s necessary. Fortunately, there’s quite a good relationship with TNA and I believe with the NWA as well. So hopefully we can put together something compelling and substantial that really helps sort of fill that gap for people who don’t know, and the rest is up to me.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts about if he thought a comeback match in WWE was possible and how a potential match against Randy Orton at WrestleMania 41 was never discussed to him.

“Yeah, might be, but that doesn’t mean that this one didn’t come as a total shock, because it did. You know what’s funny? There were two people when there were other moments where it looked like that might be on the cards. Two people that said to me, ‘You have to stay somewhat ready because they’re not gonna give you three months’ notice. You’re gonna get like a couple weeks.’ One was Mickie [James], and one was Randy [Orton]. Because last year at WrestleMania, a lot of people felt like maybe that was a possibility. Was never discussed with me, you know, and even Randy even kind of leaned toward it on TV. But like I said, I try to make a point to stay out of it in that respect. I didn’t lobby for anything. But I remember Randy talking to me at WrestleMania and kind of saying, you know, you need to stay ready, because it’s gonna happen, and they’re gonna do it like that. It’s gonna come out of nowhere,” he said.

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3, FW4Online.com