CJ Perry is on the mend.
Perry was set to accompany Andrade to the ring for CMLL on December 15. However, she was absent from the show, and she didn’t appear on AEW Collision, either. She later shared that she went to the emergency room to treat an infection in her finger.
CJ Perry had surgery earlier this week and said that the surgery was successful. Perry said that the infection was caused by a splinter, and urged people to take care of themselves.
On Thursday, she shared a post-surgery photo of her finger along with the following caption:
“After surgery & over 5 days in the hospital. Thank you all for the love,” CJ Perry wrote.
All about respect
WrestleZone spoke with CJ Perry about her WWE feud with Nia Jax. The former Lana went through tables for several weeks, but it was all about earning respect in her mind.
“I think that for me, when I was fighting Nia, I feel there was a part of me that proved myself to the wrestling world. I was always considered like the model girl or the actress. And yeah, I am an actress, so thank you,” Perry explained, “but I was kind of always put in that category of like, ‘oh, she’s fragile, or she’s dainty.’ I kind of would almost get offended because it’s like look, I remember one time people were like we just don’t know if you’re durable or tenacious. This was many years ago when I first started. I’m like, okay you clearly don’t know me, but alright.
“So I feel like I was able to prove that. Because it’s like Nia Jax is one of the toughest women out there. I always call her the Samoan Dragon, and the fact that I was taking [consecutive] powerbombs, and where she like lifted up even higher and all these other big bumps, I’m going through tables, nine tables in a row, commentary tables. I mean TJ [Wilson] was telling me he’s never even gone through a commentary table, and most people don’t go through nine tables in a row. To be able to [say], like ‘no, I’m still here and I’ll do it again. I’ll fight you, I’ll go out there.’
I’d do it again
I feel like I proved myself to the wrestling world and also earned a lot of people’s respect,” Perry stated. “Earned the womens’ respect, earned the guys’ respect, earned the fans’ respect. And I would do it all over again, for real. That was 1000% worth it.”
Perry once again stated that it was all about earning respect, noting that she loves wrestling and just wanted to give back to the business she was part of.
“That’s all I really wanted, was the respect from my peers and respect from the fans,” Perry said. “I never took for granted that I was working for WWE and living a lot of other people’s dreams. The least I could do was to work my ass off and give respect back to this business that so many people want to be a part of. I think because I was hired and I got brought up quickly, I was from Hollywood — people didn’t really realize my tenacity and my work ethic, so it took me a while to earn the respect from people in that way. It really, really meant a lot when I did earn their respect, and like I said, I would do it all over again.”
