Professional wrestler Syko Stu has broken his silence nearly a year after the August 2025 incident that left him hospitalized and unable to return to the ring. In an interview on the SOS Podcast, the Army veteran opened up about the assault that changed his life and the ongoing health challenges he faces.
Stu who trained under WWE legends including Rikishi, Gangrel, and Reno Anoa’i for 18 years at Knox Pro, describes a day that started like any other.
“I don’t remember too much,” he admits. What was supposed to be a single worked punch after a beer can incident backstage turned into something no one anticipated. “I don’t think anybody expected what was going to happen to happen,” he says.
The physical toll has been devastating.
“I had a severe traumatic brain injury. I lost these two teeth up here. I shattered my maxilla,” Stu explains. After the slam that knocked him unconscious, he remained in and out of consciousness until Tuesday, three days later.
“I couldn’t walk after that. I really had to relearn how to walk,” he recalls. He spent five days in the hospital, unable to leave until he could perform basic functions again.
The recovery extended far beyond those initial days. Stu was off work for an entire year, unable to perform his computer-based job due to the brain injury. He continues treatment with traumatic brain injury specialists, doing memory exercises and word drills.
“A lot of it has to do with memory,” he explains. The effects permeate his daily life. “My wife will tell me something and then like 5 minutes later, I’ll forget it. I’ll do things multiple times because I don’t remember that I did it.”
The injury has affected both short-term and long-term memory.
“There’s a lot of people that I met and like I remembered before, but I just can’t remember names. I was always big on I remember your face, but there’s a lot of people that I just don’t remember faces or names,” he says.
Perhaps the most painful consequence is being unable to wrestle.
“The biggest thing for me right now would be not being able to wrestle,” Stu shares. While physically capable, the mental demands prove too challenging. “It’s psychology. Everything is psychology. You’re telling the story with your body, but you still need the same psychology to put it together to make the match make sense.”
His doctors have advised against returning to the ring, though he hasn’t wrestled since the incident.
“You have a love for something so much, you really want to find any way that you can make that happen. Whether it’s going to happen or not still remains to be seen. It just makes it really hard to not be able to do it.”
Addressing widespread reports about forgiveness, Stu sets the record straight.
“What I actually said was, ‘I’m not holding a grudge.’ I never said anything about forgiveness,” he clarifies. The distinction matters to him. “I just didn’t want to hold a grudge because I feel like that brings the negative energy into it. When you got to let something go, it kind of helps you heal from it.” However, when asked directly about forgiveness, he pauses. “As far as forgiveness, I don’t think he heard the same statement that I read.”
Rampage Jackson did attempt to reach out.
“I did see that Rampage had called. He had wanted me to call him back, but then I seen him go on all these podcasts and stuff that he did, and it was just basically trashing me,” Stu says. “I’m not going to call you back if you already made up your mind about me.”
He specifically addresses claims made on those podcasts: “He was on different podcasts talking about me being drunk all the time and this and that. None of the statements from other people that actually know me would support that.”
When asked what he would tell Rampage if given the chance, Stu is honest about his uncertainty.
He noted, “I couldn’t tell you right now. It’s one of those things that you’d have to be in the moment to kind of get that.”
On whether the 90-day sentence was adequate justice, Stu declines to comment saying they “might have to just hold off on that one for right now.”
Despite everything, Stu maintains his loyalty to Knox Pro, where the same trainers who taught current WWE stars Jacob Fatu and Solo Sikoa helped shape his career. “I don’t hold any grudge trying to hold Knox accountable for what happened. I don’t see it that way.”
Looking forward, Stu’s goals are simple but uncertain. “I just want to feel better. I want to get my mind right. I would love to get back in the ring. Where that stands, we’re kind of at a standstill right now, but that’s one thing about wrestling, you can never say never.”
