Dalton Castle Opens Up About Breaking His Back, 'Boring' Post-ROH World Champion Life
Former Ring Of Honor World Champion Dalton Castle was recently a guest on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast. After dropping his title in June, Castle discussed how life has been going since he lost his belt.
"Life is pretty boring because I am injured. I got hurt, and here is the truth of the injury–I broke my back," he said. "We have decided, several doctors thought that it was about two years ago that I had broken it. So, I have won a world championship with a broken freakin' back."
Castle went into great detail about his back injury. He said he had been suffering for a long time and the pain just became unbearable. He was hindered in his matches and couldn't put on good performances, and he was also in a great deal of pain during his extensive traveling. Castle said he doesn't have a timetable for his return to the ring.
"I know that I am going to be back in the ring but I don't know when," he said. "The problem was that I was in so much pain I couldn't handle it anymore. It got to the point where I couldn't even stand on my own two feet for even a few minutes to do a promo. I hurt my back maybe two years ago and I knew it was back because I watched the entire Summer Olympics on my living room floor. I was slowly working my way back to normal. I was stretching and doing yoga where I felt like I was good again, and then I hurt my back again and this time the pain was different because the pain was shooting down my hip where I couldn't even get out of bed for more than a few minutes. Getting in and out of a car was very difficult. A lot of my life is spent in car seats and airplane seats, so fighting through the pain was no longer an option. I had to figure out what was really wrong with me and I found out that what physical therapy and what muscles need to be moving, and now with this time off I have been really focusing on tightening up that core because it is my livelihood. I love professional wrestling. I have been getting in and out of a car like a champ right now but I still hurt a lot."
Castle also revealed that it wasn't a wrestling match in which he suffered the injury, but rather it was during his Greco-Roman wrestling training. He said he's working on getting back to the high-risk performer he was prior to his ailment.
"I think I know when it happened but it wasn't in a pro wrestling match. I still train, and Greco-Roman wrestle since it is fun. I need to keep sharp just because when I was holding that world title nobody wanted to 'shoot' it from me," he said. "Right now you will see a really relaxed Dalton Castle. I am much more of an entertaining person, but I feel like I am going to get back to being 100%. Right now, for a little while you will see a 'coward' out there but I am going to come back and do what I love to do and what I love to do is to be an extremely self-reckless worker."
Castle has remained positive throughout his time away from the ring. He was asked if he played the blame game when the injury forced him to drop his title, to which he answered, "I get a little sad but I don't dwell on it because I had a little taste of it."
If any portion of these quotes are used, please be sure to credit the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.