Keith Lee has revealed the reason why he was absent from WWE for about five months.
Keith Lee took to his Twitter and YouTube to post a video in which he revealed that he contacted Covid-19, and was also diagnosed with heart inflammation earlier this year.
Lee wrestled WWE US Champion, Sheamus on the January 11 episode of Raw and defeated him. Lee said he then contracted COVID-19 and was off television for about three weeks because of it. He came back for one match against Matt Riddle in February, but he got a call the next day informing him that there was something off in his blood.
“Some people may have experienced this thing where there’s like an inflammation in the heart or lungs, for me it was the heart,” Lee said. “That led to very scary times. I was basically forbidden from training or any activity outside of a light walk. There was a fear that doing more than that—that there was a chance that I could just up and pass away.”
“So this became a fight against death, so to speak,” Lee said. “And it took up until the company sent me to Pittsburgh to get looked at. It was to the point where I was about to have to undergo genetic testing and all sorts of things because it was thought that there was a potential I could have a heart disease of sorts.
“Very fortunately, even though it took a long time—we waited that amount of time—for that allowed the inflammation in my heart to eventually go down to normal. So even though the first MRI was bad and the second one was worse, over time things got better here and there. And eventually after that visit I was cleared to try and get back into some sort of shape [laughs], that’s where the real struggle is. But, yeah, it took some time. And to be honest, it wasn’t even certain that I was going to show up in Dallas, in terms of on TV.”
Keith Lee returned to WWE TV on the July 19 episode of Monday Night Raw in Dallas. Now that he fought off death, he doesn’t mind fighting anybody else, looks forward to making the most of what he can do in a WWE ring.
Lee’s full video is available to watch below:
