Chris Jericho is one of the biggest names in pro wrestling history. After enjoying a fruitful career in WWE, he has now established himself as one of the top stars in AEW, currently holding the ROH World Championship. Last year saw him stuck in the UK after suffering an injury during a tour with his band Fozzy. After his return, he had a pretty noticeable weight gain. Jericho recently revealed how scared he was for his life during that troubling period.
The AEW star recently made an appearance on Howie Mandel’s Does Stuff program, where he looked back on his health scare in the UK last year. The ROH World Champion admits that the whole ordeal had him freaked out, especially since COVID was at an all-time high during that period.
“Couldn’t breathe. Like literally, I was on stage with Fozzy and I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t catch my breath. And I was like, ‘This is weird.’ And I started hearing a blood clot, because I talked to a couple doctors that I knew here. And lo and behold, I had a day off in London, went got some blood tests and they said, ‘You gotta go right to the hospital, you got you’ve got blood clots. Pulmonary embolism.’ Which I mean, people die from that. Right away, you got to start getting blood thinners. And they bring this freaking needle and they stick it right in your thigh and it’s like, ‘Ahh!’ The blood thinner’s got to get in there right away to start tearing them apart, essentially. So that was the first thing, and then the oxygen level was really bad, because you can’t breathe. And that’s something I think during COVID time, everyone was checking their oxygen levels, it was supposed to be at like 99 or 100? Mine was like down at like 92. I couldn’t walk from here to that couch without being like [panting].
Jericho recalled feeling fine through his first few shows before being caught off guard at the fourth show. He said the pulmonary embolism caught up to him pretty quickly.
“It was quick. It was quick that [it] got to that point. So at the beginning of the tour, the first three shows were great. Fourth one I started feeling weird, and I lasted about another three days after that before I went to the hospital. So it hit very quick. [The] onslaught was like, ‘boom!’ And that’s how people die from it because you don’t know. No one knows if you have blood clots, how are you supposed to know that? I had no symptoms or anything, it was just a normal guy, normal day and suddenly I can’t breathe. So it was really kind of like, when you hear that people die of these you can understand how because you don’t know.”
Chris Jericho went on to confess how scary the whole situation was for him. He reiterated that the whole thing taking place during COVID only seemed to amplify his anxiety during his hospitalization.
“When you’re in the hospital at any time it’s kind of scary, because you never know, like ‘Oh, what if,’ right? When you’re in the hospital and this is once again, during COVID times, so the level starts going down, and then they put the the oxygen in your nose. And I’m like, ‘The next step is the intubation, the freaking ventilator.’ And then you start freaking out. And I was like, ‘I’m not getting in a wheelchair to go to any of these tests, I’m not putting on this gown.’ ‘You got to put on the gown.’ ‘No I don’t.’ ‘You gotta get this wheelchair. ‘No, I’m walking. I’m walking where I need to go.’ I was scared. Everything that would like, if I get into a wheelchair and put the hospital thing on, that’s one step closer to in my head never getting out… I just didn’t want to accept the hospital gown. All of it was just in my head, like ‘What if I never get out of here,’ you know? ‘What if I don’t get out of here,’ and you start thinking that way. It’s freaky.”
It’s safe to say he’s doing much better right now. Chris Jericho’s next challenge is defending his ROH World Championship against Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, and Sammy Guevara in a Four-Way match this Full Gear. For more updates, stay tuned to Ringside News.
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