Steve Blackman Opens Up About Migraine & Neck Issues, Says He Was In Pain For 80 Percent Of WWE Run

He navigated through a lot of pain.

From 1997 to 2002, Steve Blackman competed for WWF/E. While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Blackman shared that for 80 percent of his time there, he was in pain that stemmed from severe migraine and neck issues.

Blackman said 80 percent of his run was ‘brutal’ because of the pain he was in, and the neck issues ultimately led him to stepping away from the ring. As he was documenting the lead-up to him stepping away from in-ring action, Blackman revealed that he was going to have a run with the Tag Titles with the late Brian Christopher (Grandmaster Sexay).

“Yes (I was in pain my entire WWE run). I think it would be like Monday, I’d wrestle, get a migraine and I don’t mean a little headache where, oh, I have a headache. No, I mean, feel like you’re being stabbed in your head. Throw up, lay down, throw up, lay down. Go to bed. The next day, you’d sleep all day, wrestle, the next day, the migraine again, go through that next day resting. So it’d be like every other day I’d have a migraine, and I’m not being funny but you can’t imagine what it’s like getting forearmed or body slammed when you have a migraine. You feel like a grenade went off in your head. I wrestled Kane one night in a Hardcore match, and I landed on the back of my head on the floor. My foot got caught and I jumped off the rail, kicked him, my shoe hit him in the chest and I landed on my back. The migraine kicked in in one second. Just shot up through my spine. Every time he hit me, I felt like a grenade was going off and that was the beginning of the match. We had 15 minutes more to go, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’ and I’m just fighting through it, fighting through it. I’d sit out in the hall and just squeeze my head and then at night in a hotel, I literally laid on my side. Sometimes I’d have a baseball in my bag. I’d put a baseball under my back, try to lay on it. I’d find a spot where I could pinch off the nerve going to my head. So finally, after about an hour, I could fall asleep, and then, sleep the whole night and the next day, I’d just be tired from the pain, but I’d wrestle again and that’s what I went through for years.

I’m gonna say 80 percent of my run (I was in pain). But yeah, it was brutal, and I’m like, ‘Man, if I would have had that stuff done before I went back –’ wouldn’t have gotten much worse than there but if I’d had that done and then gone back, I just could’ve done a lot more. There were nights where I wanted to do more crazy stuff, and I just couldn’t. My head hurt too bad. So I just do what I could to get by but, the hardcore stuff worked out great for me because I could just showcase weapons and speed and things like that. It sounds funny but, I was getting cracked as much as them but, it was still easier on my neck… Yeah (being in pain led to me leaving WWE). The last 13 months (before) I had left, Brian Christopher and I were tag teaming. It was getting over well. Trish (Stratus) would be a valet with us. The whole gimmick was getting over. We had good matches, we had good chemistry and we planned on having the tag team run for the next 13 months and stuff, you know, with the belts and stuff. We go to Canada to do an appearance. They’re sending us on more appearances because we’re getting over well. He gets caught at the border with stuff in his bag, gets fired immediately and our gimmick’s over, and I’m like, ‘J.R., now what?’ He goes, ‘Well, we planned on you being with him for the rest of this.’ I said, ‘I figured that.’ I said, ‘Well, are you opposed to me going and getting my neck operated on?’ I said, ‘I’m living here with migraines every day.’ He goes, ‘We know you do. We can see that,’ and I said, ‘Well, how about if I get my neck fixed?’ And he’s like, ‘Go get it fixed.’ He goes, ‘If you get doctor clearance after that, you can come back anytime you want.’ Well, once I had it worked on — Kurt Angle and (Chris) Benoit and all those guys, they all had atrophy in their arm right before their operation. For some reason, I had a depressant symptom or something they described it as. My atrophy started after the operation. My right arm wouldn’t work. I was a wild man. I literally couldn’t bench anything. I couldn’t push anything, I couldn’t do a push-up, my arm wouldn’t even work, and in a matter of a month after that, my right arm’s like two or three inches smaller than my left and I’m losing my mind. So I buy a Smith machine, stick it in my brother’s basement. I go over, push it up, let it down with my right hand. Push it up, try to let it down, I try to focus on here. Well, it just wouldn’t work. I throw my tantrum, firing weights, kicking weights, I’m losing my mind. About 11 and a half months goes by, and I’m like, ‘My God, it’s working’ and it actually started to work after doing that like five times a week for 11 months. Then it started coming back, then it came back quick after that. 

To follow up on what Blackman shared about scrapped tag title plans, he also revealed in the interview that he was supposed to win the WWF/E Tag Team Titles with Al Snow.

Blackman did not say who, but said someone in the office went to Vince McMahon and expressed that it was not the right time to put the titles on them.

“I don’t know how that came about but, it got over (pairing with Al Snow as ‘Head Cheese’). The vignettes were comical. People pop like crazy on them. It’s funny because it got over great for three months, and here’s another one, we were gonna get the tag belts at that time, and one of the guys in the office said something to — I don’t know if it was Vince (McMahon) or whoever was pulling the shots that night — it’s usually Vince — said, ‘Oh, I don’t think we should give ‘em the belts yet,’ and they just squashed it and squashed our gimmick, and I don’t wanna say who it was. That’s not me but, I’m like, ‘Really, dude?’ I didn’t find out till a year later. But I’m thinking, that’s brutal. So he goes up there and uses some clout to put a stop to it.”

Blackman is 61 years of age and stepped away from in-ring competition in 2007. During his time with WWE, he won the company’s Hardcore Championship six times.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.