Michael Elgin, best known to wrestling fans for his matches in Ring of Honor and New Japan, has taken to his Twitter account to announce that he has developed an addiction to painkillers due to self-medicating. He has now decided to tackle these issues head-on and is going to rehab, as you can read in his statement below.
Over the next few years injuries piled up, but like an overly proud idiot I didn’t take time off, and kept self medicating to get by. In 2016 I suffered a fractured orbital and rushed back instead of taking the appropriate time to heal. I did the same in 2018/2019 when I had knee surgery.
Then in January of this year in match 1 in a best of 5 with Eddie Edwards I suffered a neck injury. Once again pride and silliness got in the way and I continued down this path.
Over the years I had to deal with many other issues I chose to self medicate. I try not to talk about these struggles because in my head I was supposed to show toughness, show my grit.
Maybe when I recover o cab go deeper into more of my personal life struggles I didn’t really tell many about. But for now I’m going to rehab and deal with these issues. Thank you for everyone who supports me, you’ve been my life line. I gave you everything I had, taking time from everyone in my life. I’ll come back better than ever. Thank you again. Michael Elgin
Elgin is a 16-year veteran of the wrestling business despite only being 33. He became widely known in the wrestling world when he had one of the greatest matches in ROH history when he wrestled Davey Richards at 2012’s ROH Showdown In The Sun. His career highlight would home in 2016 when he defeated Kenny Omega for New Japan’s IWGP Intercontinental Championship. He had been contracted to Impact Wrestling since 2019, but after being named in the #SpeakingOut movement was released on June 26th.
