Dean Ambrose Reveals Staph Infection Diagnosis Which Nearly Killed Him During Injury Recovery

WWE star Dean Ambrose recently spoke with The Monitor and below are some interview highlights.

On his return to WWE after a lengthy injury absence:

It’s good to get back out in front of people. I had a lot of frustration I needed to really get out that built up over the last eight months. It was a long, long period of time. Much longer than would have been anticipated.

It was just one nightmare after another. It was a pretty challenging period of time to go through. I ended up having two different surgeries. I had this MRSA, Staph infection. I nearly died. I was in the hospital for a week plugged up to this antibiotic drip thing, and I was on all these antibiotics for months that make you puke and crap your pants.

So it was a pretty rough time. My arm wasn’t healing correctly, and my triceps. It’s kind of an indeterminate period where I initially hurt it. I thought it was, we call it Dusty elbows. It’s a pretty typical wrestler thing. You just get this bursa sac of fluid on your elbow from banging it on the mat or whatever. I’ve had that dozens of times on both elbows. It usually just goes away. It was kind of disguised. By the time I finally went and got the first surgery, my triceps was already starting to atrophy and look weird. I wasn’t able to flex my triceps for a really long time. And then the first surgery didn’t really, something went wrong in the process. Probably due to that infection. It’s kind of hard to say when that really even got in my body. This is a long answer to your question. But for a minute there, it was getting scary. By the time I got that second surgery, it was March, I think. My arm was so shrunken and skeletal that it was weird. I hadn’t been able to move it or flex it in so long that I was starting to get scared I wasn’t ever going to get it back. To go from not being able to eat my Froot Loops, to being able to get back in the ring and throw people around and throw punches and do everything back to normal, it was a very gratifying feeling.

On his new physique:

Nothing fancy. Pretty basic. Just basic powerlifting. Bench, squat, dead lift. It’s a lot easier when you have the time to just recover and stuff. Being on the road 280 days per year, you’re working 30 minutes per night and traveling all around the world, recovery is a lot harder. But nothing fancy. Just super basic, heavy-ass weights.

I can pretty much eat whatever I want. For me, it’s just, you have to eat a ton to make sure I keep on size. I especially eat tons late at night. Everybody tells you you’re not supposed to eat late at night. I’m the opposite. I’m stuffing food in my face 24/7. I eat generally a pretty clean diet anyway, just regular stuff. Steak. Stuff like that.