When Tay Melo and Anna Jay AS took the ring against Ruby Soho and Willow Nightingale at the “Fabulous” Kia Forum in sunny Los Angeles, California, fans knew they were in for a bloodbath. Veterans of the hardcore game dating back to their first street fight against The Bunny and Penelope Ford at New Year's Smash in 2021, Melo and Jay came into the match with sky-high expectations but unfortunately came up short when the match mattered most, dropping the loss and disappearing from television – at least as wrestlers – ever since.
Well, as it turns out, there's a reason for that: the duo got absolutely messed up in the match. For Jay, the injuries were apparent from the end of the contest, as she took a particularly brutal bump from Nightingale that resulted in a bruised tailbone and broken ribs, which she described on social media as “not fun.” Melo, too, didn't leave the match unscathed, but her most visible injury didn't become so until hours later, when she was on a plane with her husband, Sammy Guevara, as the duo detailed on the Elite POV podcast.
“So we had to rush, after the Street Fight, straight to the airport because we had a red eye,” Sammy recalled via Fightful. “On the flight, Tay's like, ‘Oh, my braids are so tight, it feels like something is stabbing me.' Then, she's trying to take out her braids, and then she takes a thumbtack out of her head. On the plane, she took a thumbtack out of her head.”
“It was hurting so much, and I thought it was my braid, and I was like, ‘Oh, no. I know what it was. It was all the way in, and I had such a bad headache, and I had blood in my hair because I had no time to wash my hair,'” Melo responded. “I took a shower at the arena, but I had no time to wash my hair because it takes a long time, so I just did a little crazy thing and went to the airport with blood in my hair.”
Wow, after an experience like that, it's hard to imagine Melo would want to take part in another street fight, right? Quite the opposite, actually.
“I love it,” Melo said. “I feel like I didn't know what to expect after the first [Street Fight]. I told Sammy, I feel like I found myself [by competing in Street Fights]. I don't get as nervous for a Street Fight as I do for a normal match. It's crazy. It's like my blood's going. I want to be there more than anything. I want to keep going. I want more time. I want to do more crazy things. I don't really think about what can go wrong. I come up with so many ideas for those types of matches. The finish [of the most recent Street Fight] was our idea. I was like, ‘Oh, I want to do this. Help me get there.' I just love it. I really feel I found myself in those types of matches, and I'm telling you, I want to do one every month.”
Unfortunately, Melo's wish won't be happening any time soon, as she's unfortunately been dealing with a long-term injury that currently leaves her unable to compete.
Tay Melo isn't currently cleared to wrestle in AEW.
Elsewhere in her interview with Elite POV, Melo disclosed that she has been dealing with a “protrusion on her back” for some time, and it left her in a wheelchair heading into her big-time match with Jay, Nightingale, and Soho.
“I have a protrusion on my back, so it’s something that I’ve been dealing with for more than 10 years by now. I know how to go about it,” Melo said via Fightful. “Before the match, I started feeling it a little bit, and the doctors in AEW, they’re super good. I told them, they helped me see if it was okay to do it. They asked me, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna do it. Let’s go.’ I’ll never say no, let me tell you, unless I’m really dying. I was like, I’m in pain, I knew I was in pain. The day before, let me tell you, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t walk. At the airport, the walk was so long, we had to get a wheelchair for me because I was not able to walk for too long. It was really bad.”
Though Melo was ultimately able to make it through the match, the pain hasn't gone away since, and after multiple doctor consultations, she has been deemed unable to compete in AEW. Still, Melo isn't done with wrestling and will be back in the ring when she is 100 percent able to compete once more in the not-too-distant future.
“It was getting better,” Melo said. “The doctors helped me a little bit. The day of the match, in the morning, they were helping me with a massage and stuff. So I was able to do the match, bur after the match, I knew it would suck because I was already in pain. All the girls and everybody was so nice, and they were helping me because they saw in my face. I’m always super excited, I was excited, but you could tell that I was in pain. I’m trying to kind of hide it and let people get worried about me. I’m like, ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ But people know. Then after the match, I checked everything. I went to a couple different doctors and our doctor in AEW. So I’m not cleared for now, but I will be really soon. I’m good, don’t worry. I want to be cleared, but the doctor trying to hold me [back] a little bit to make sure I’m 100%. They told me I will be cleared in the next couple weeks, so I’ll be fine.”
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