When Colt Cabana made his triumphant return to AEW for a match against Chris Jericho for the Ring of Honor World Championship, he wrestled the match like it was his last. He came out to the ring with tears in his eyes to a glowing response from fans both in the ring and watching along online – even from many of his fellow wrestlers – and as the match went on, the favorite son of Maxwell Street gave “The Ocho” his all, with many of his signature moves being thrown Jericho's way.

Did Cabana win the match? No, obviously not; Jericho wouldn't be wrestling Claudio Castagnoli for the Ring of Honor championship if he did, but it sure looked like Cabana left it all in the ring… and, in a way, he almost did. Why? Well, because according to Cabana himself, he quite literally almost died in or at least around the ring due to a very strange reason.

Colt Cabana's AEW return almost ended in tragedy.

Speaking on the Art of Wrestling about his very interesting return to AEW, Cabana decided to spin things off and tell a very interesting story about how his match with Jericho was almost his last… ever, as transcribed by Fightful.

“A couple of weeks ago, I wrestled Chris Jericho,” Cabana said. “I wanted to share the story of how I almost died wrestling Chris Jericho. I'm not telling this story to make an excuse, nobody would have known, everyone complimented me on my match and I'm appreciative for that. It's a fun story and in 20 years I will laugh about it. In the moment, I did not laugh.”

“In my laundry room is my wrestling gear, I wash my kneepads and singlet, I don't dry them, I hang dry them. Of course, I wash my wrestling socks. I don't know where my wrestling socks went, they went somewhere. I like long black wrestling socks so there isn't a gap between my boots and kneepads. I don't want airy skin, so I like long socks. Before I wrestled Jericho, I had to go out and buy new socks.”

Alright, so nothing too unusual so far in this story, Cabana forgot his wrestling socks and had to buy some new ones – where is the story? Well, keep reading, folks, for it's about to get interesting.

“I wrestled Chris Jericho. That match, there were many emotions, there was a lot of tension going into it. My anxiety was high, tensions were high, the building was hot. As I go to wrestle Jericho, I put on my compression socks, kneepads, and boots. What I don't realize is that I have essentially made a tourniquet in the bottom half of my body.”

“My blood flow is perfect, so essentially what I did was restrict everything. I remember vividly thinking, ‘I can't feel my legs. I guess it's just the nerves. It was nerves and anxiety, but it was also compression socks. By the time I did the moonsault to the outside and had to run into the ring to give Jericho a flying asshole, I had nothing left in my body. I attributed it to the night of wrestling, but no, it was because I cut off the supply of blood to my own legs, causing high blood pressure and low oxygen. I knew I was on live TV and it was big moment for me, I figured a way to do it to Jericho knowing the match would come to an end very quickly, it did, I could not move as I made my way back to the trainer's room asking for electrolytes and the trainer being like, ‘We're not sure what's going on.' I ripped my singlet off, I couldn't breathe, I had a headache, I felt lightheaded.”

“The eye's of the trainers were like, ‘what?' I was asked to lay back for the next two hours while ice was put all over my body. I was educated as to why you should not professionally wrestle in front of 10,000 people and almost a million people at home in compression socks.”

Wow, now that is a story. After watching the match back, Cabana does look notably spent as the match comes to an end, but in the moment, he simply looked like a wrestler who gave it his all but wasn't able to will himself to victory against one of the best in-ring performers on the AEW roster. If Cabana was really in that much pain, then props to him, as he made it work, sold his stuff, and came out looking like a wrestler worthy of a spot on the AEW roster.