Natalya says Tyson Kidd's 2015 injury was hardest to write in memoir

WWE veteran Natalya said on a recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast that the most difficult part of writing her memoir was recounting the career-ending injury suffered by her husband, T.J. Wilson, and described being at ringside when the 2015 accident occurred. The memoir, The Last Hart Beating, is scheduled for release on October 28.

Wilson, who wrestled as Tyson Kidd, suffered a spinal cord injury during a WWE dark match in June 2015 after taking a Muscle Buster from Samoa Joe. Natalya said Wilson was briefly paralyzed in the ring and that initial hospital assessments made clear the severity of the damage. She recalled a doctor telling the family, "Oh yeah, you're never, ever wrestling again. You'll have to find another profession," a prognosis that she said was delivered bluntly and felt like a death for someone whose life had been defined by the ring.

Natalya described the immediate aftermath in vivid terms. She said Claudio Castagnoli, Wilson's tag partner at the time, tried to pull him from the ring and later had "a tear rolling down his face" at the hospital. Wilson, she said, refused help in the ring and rose angrily after initially being unable to...