Nick Aldis: I Wasn’t Made GM Because I Was Hurt
Nick Aldis was named the general manager of WWE SmackDown in October 2023 after working backstage as a shadow producer for a couple of months.
Aldis had just come off a brief run with TNA Wrestling and the independent scene before moving to WWE, and fans wondered why he wasn’t given an in-ring role.
There were rumors that he was dealing with an injury at the time, but Aldis clarified his situation in an interview with Chris Van Vliet on Insight.
“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 is set to return to the ring at WWE SummerSlam against Gunther.
