Simon Miller was unable to compete in this year’s PROGRESS Super Strong Style 16 due to injury, and he recently explained what went down. Miller spoke with Fightful’s Corey Brennn about having to pull out of the tournament due to the injury, and you can see highlights below:
On the injury keeping him out of the tournament: “The reason I was injured is because leading into Super Strong Style, I got to tour America for two months as part of The Last Match pro wrestling rock and roll musical experience. Right? Because some evil geniuses in a lab had concocted up this thing where it’s a play, but it’s a wrestling show and it’s got songs and it’s the coolest thing ever done. It really, really is. Matt Cardona was in the original one a couple of years ago. He was an executive producer on this one. So I got to talk to Matt Cardona for a while, which is always a treat. Essentially what happened was just because it was quite a labor intensive schedule because you’re performing here, you get in a bus, you go to the next place, you get in a bus, you’re driving, driving, driving. Because I hadn’t been injured in probably, I’d say, four plus years, especially not since the pandemic. Of course, what happened is one of the first shows, I took a bump and I just jarred my shoulder a little bit. Now, if this had been normal life, I would have taken a week off. I wouldn’t have gone to the gym. I would have ice, blah, blah, blah. But I was like, well, no, I’m doing these shows, man. I’m a wrestler. But if you’ve already sort of got a tweak, you’ll be amazed to hear this, Corey. If you’ve got a tweak and then you bump on that shoulder, for literally a month constant, literally one day off, one day off, one day off, one day off. What happens is it gets worse and it gets worse and it gets worse.”
On how he dealt with the injury: “Now, my thing was at the end of that, ironically, during the last match of the tour, my arm still worked. I still had complete rotation. Don’t get me wrong, to be completely honest, those last two weeks, man, I was icing and I was going to physiotherapists, I was stretching, my whole being was just keep this shoulder going so I didn’t want to give up this opportunity and because I want to be ready for strong style so I got home on a Sunday. Strong Style was the following Sunday. I went to my physiotherapist who, you know, you’re a wrestler. It makes sense to have a physiotherapist, right? Especially as you get older. It’s just part of the job. I think most people should be doing that and she started going over it. I was like, I’m amazed to have range of motion, she said, ‘I tell you why you have range of motion. Because you’re the luckiest man that’s ever walked in because it’s like a balloon.’ Because imagine you filled up a balloon with water and you kept throwing it on the floor. Because that is what your shoulder is like. She said, essentially what you’ve done is, I can’t remember all the names, but your rotator cuff tendons, you’ve got your supraspinatus, you’ve got your subscalaris, you’ve got your insta scratch or whatever you’ve literally hurt every single one of them. But because of the rehab you were doing, and because you understand your body and you know what you can and can’t get away with, when one has kind of got worn out, your body’s going to get around the other one. Then that one got worn out around the other one.”
On being told that he would be taking a risk to compete in the tournament: “This is where the Progress flip of a coin came in. Because she was like, ‘I’m not going to tell you you shouldn’t do it. I am going to tell you you’re walking the tightrope right now. You could take 10 more bumps,’ Surprisingly, she didn’t say bumps, but we’ll say bumps for the process of this thing. ‘You could take 10 more bumps and you could be fine. You could take one bump, the whole thing could go and you’re going to need surgery. Because I have to tell you the truth.’ So again, that was a Tuesday. I sat on it for 48 hours, hoping that magically it would start getting better. Then went to see somebody else that was a friend of mine. You know, second opinion. They said exactly the same thing. Then, yeah, I rang them on the Thursday.”
