By Matt Duda
No matter how physically fit a sports-entertainment superstar may be, a damaged knee can keep the athlete out of the ring for a significant amount of time - even longer than a smashed voice box could. Just ask WCW Superstar Billy Kidman.
Kidman spent the last month rehabilitating a partially torn posterior crucial ligament, which he suffered at a live event in late July. Recent checkups showed the former Cruiserweight Champion is nearly back in proper physical form. Hopefully, Kidman says, the OK to return to the ring will come this week following another doctor's visit.
"It's actually doing real good," Kidman told WCW.com about his injured knee. "I went to the doctor about a week and a half ago, and I thought it'd be cleared then. But in therapy they had me do a different exercise for the hamstring where normally I had been working on the quads, and I couldn't do the exercise. So I was a little worried about that. But I've been working on the hamstrings. So I think I'll be cleared Wednesday."
The torn PCL managed to keep Kidman out of action for the longest stretch in his career, but it's hardly the most frightening injury the high-flyer suffered in the ring. A match with Shane Douglas in the old WCW regime called for Kidman to be hung from a strap. But the stunt went awry and Kidman came away from the contest with a fractured larynx that kept him out for a few weeks.
"It's actually pretty scary when you watch it on tape," Kidman said. "I was hanging there and you can see me make a last-ditch effort to tap him and tell him. You see my hand go try to tap him and all of a sudden I just go limp and I'm just hanging there for another three or four seconds.
"That I can work through. What's scary is the doctors said if I got clotheslined too hard in the throat the larynx will break, go into my windpipe and I'd probably die. But that's stuff that you can kind of work around. Whereas if you can't walk, you can't really work. That's why this really kind of sucks."
In his weekly WWF.com column, World Wrestling Federation Senior Vice President of Talent Relations Jim Ross states that Kidman will spend some time working in Ohio Valley Wrestling soon. But Kidman isn't worried about shedding ring rust and regaining his timing.
"I don't think it will be that difficult," he said. "When I very first started in WCW I would only work once a month if I was lucky. I can pretty much go that day and bounce around the ring and I'll be OK timing wise.
"But wind wise is a different story," Kidman added.
Kidman kept up with the ever-unfolding saga of the Alliance versus the Federation by watching RAW IS WAR and SmackDown! on a regular basis. "It's cool to watch the show because I don't know what's going to happen," he said. "When you're at the show … you see what's going to go on. It's cool like when they debuted the new SmackDown! set; I had no idea what it looked like until the show came on. It's cool to watch it from that perspective because I don't get to do that much anymore."
Of course, Kidman also saw more surprising images on television during these past two weeks. But despite the increased fear of terrorism in the nation's airline industry, Kidman sees little change in his traveling habits once he gets back on the road with WCW.
"Of course every time you do it you're going to be nervous -- at least for a while anyway," he said. "But it's something there's really no way around in this business. So you've kind of just go with the flow and pray every time you're up there."
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