Keith Lee: I Didn't Tell My Family About Medical Condition That Kept Me Away From WWE

Keith Lee has opened up in detail about the medical condition that kept him away from WWE for a number of months, revealing he didn't even tell his family or fiancée Mia Yim what was going on and became resigned to the fact his wrestling career was over. 

Lee, after wrestling Riddle on the February 8 episode of Raw, was not seen on WWE television for a number of months, leading to speculation about the former NXT Champion's well-being and standing in the promotion. 

The Limitless One would eventually return in July and has since been reinventing himself on the red brand. 

A naturally private person, the 36-year-old has revealed he kept details of his medical condition so private that he didn't even discuss them with his family, choosing instead to fight on his own. 

Lee also admitted he truly believed his WWE career was over after a number of MRIs.

Speaking on the Out Of Character Podcast with Ryan Satin, Lee disclosed: "I wasn’t feeling bad personally, originally. There were things that were going on that I didn’t really understand. The problem with this Covid thing is no one really knows what’s going on. It’s a trial and error situation. Everyone experiences different things. Sometimes these after effects hit people differently. Sometimes Covid hits people differently. Some people, it doesn’t really hit at all.

"In my case, I just assumed that would be fine. I’m ok. I tested positive, and in a couple weeks, we’ll get back to what we got to do. I came back after three weeks. I had that match with Riddle on February 8th. The next day, I got a call saying there was something odd in my blood which gave the idea there was an inflammation. That led to multiple MRIs and really uncomfortable machines that jammed up this shoulder.

"At the time, yes, I felt some things that were odd, but I didn’t understand them to be that.  I just assumed because other people were having different scenarios that were odd, post Covid, that maybe it was going to take me a little longer to get back to normal. I didn’t feel abnormal, but there were just some small things that felt odd. One MRI passed, and we were like, ok, we’re going to give it a week, two weeks, or whatever, and then we’ll do another one. The second one was worse than that. It led to, we can’t workout or do anything until we figure this out.

"Then it became very uncomfortable because even though I knew what the potential endgame could be, I wasn’t telling my family. I wasn’t telling Mia (Yim). Because it’s something not in our control, it’s something I didn’t want them to stress about. It was a personal battle that I tried to calm on my own, and for the most part, stayed quiet about it regardless of timing. Just absurd amounts of messages. 

"I’m not sure what it is about people thinking that their demands should be met in knowing what’s going on in my personal life. I’m generally a private person, so it took me a long time to share what was going on because it was my own personal fight, and I wanted to fight it. There was nothing more important than fighting it to me. 

"To this day, I still have some friends over a year later that are suffering from effects that are post-Covid. At the end of the day, I’m just grateful for the fact that I was even able to come back and be back in the ring because that fourth or fifth MRI, when I had to go to Pittsburgh, I was resigned to the fact that my career was done. I was just ready to be like, ok, I guess it’s time to pursue some other projects that I have an interest in. Then I got some good news.

"It took a lot of work to come back because when you’re a 340 pound athlete, the amount of training, power, and explosiveness that it takes to be a guy that’s 340 and does backflips. Then it was five months (that he couldn’t work out). Then coming back out of nowhere, it’s like 5 weeks of just dying. Trying to come back was like, how have I not trained a thing, then I come back and try to cardio everything, every week, just trying to get back to normal. Normal, I didn’t know what normal was anymore. It was very strange.

"But now I can get back and have high energy workouts. It was nice when I can feel like, ok, I’m about where I feel I should be, but I still feel like there is work to be done. The grind continues, and I will keep on grinding."

H/T WrestlingNews.co