Ridge Holland: If I Had A Time Machine, The First Thing I Would Do Is Go Back And Not Suplex Big E

On the March 11, 2022 episode of WWE SmackDown, Big E suffered a neck injury when he landed on his head following a belly-to-belly suplex from Ridge Holland. Big E fractured his C1 and C6 vertebrae but didn’t suffer any ligament or spinal cord damage.

He has not wrestled since and has said that his career is behind him.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Ridge expressed regret over the spot.

“The thing that affected me more than anything was the Big E thing. If I had a time machine, right here, right now, the first thing I would do is go back and not do that spot. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t think about what happened. There probably won’t be a day that goes by where I don’t think about it. What happened that day is, we were supposed to have a meeting with Vince (McMahon), and it kept getting pushed back because other people took priority. You had guys who were higher on the card that wanted to speak to Vince, so our meeting kept getting pushed back and pushed back. We got in there and we had a really good chat. By the time we got out there, it was twelve minutes to bell time. I think we were on first or second, so we had 20 minutes to put this match together, and the spot was Big E goes for the suicide spear, I move at the last minute, he eats shit, and then I hit the belly to belly to put an exclamation point on that. In retrospect, what should’ve happened was suicide dive, that’s it, move on.

“Whether I didn’t give him enough or he didn’t give me enough, things go wrong. Unforutnately, it happened and I’ll always regret that spot. I’m grateful that Big E, the class of human that he is, he forgave me and he’s been able to be so positive and move on with his life. He’s killing it. He’s such a good human being and I wish nothing but the best for him. For people out there who think there might be any malice in there, there wasn’t. If I could change it, I would in a heartbeat. What happened was, it really shook my confidence. I contemplated quitting.”

Big E has continued to work with WWE, taking part in PLE pre and post-shows, and helping with the NIL program.

Elsewhere during the video, Ridge detailed his WWE departure. You can find his full comments here.

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