Every night you go out there, you get hurt. It's really the easiest way to say it. People can describe wrestling however they want to, but your body is flesh and bone, and it's not meant to be slammed on wood and steel.
The wrestling is real, all the injuries are real, so much so that in no other sports, whether soccer or cricket or hockey, players get so many injuries as in WWE.
I think that those wrestlers, those women and men that go in the ring are not protected. I don't think anybody is ever looking out for them and I think that they are used badly.
In the '70s and the '80s, what wrestlers were doing back then, yes, they're taking bumps, and they're busting up their bodies and things like that, but now, we got these cages: they're falling off.
I honestly think that we're getting away from the basic structure of wrestling and it causes wrestlers' careers to come up short because of injuries.
I really have to accept the fact that I'm not a young man anymore, that I've probably taken one lifetime's worth of punishment already, and I really do need to be careful. Certainly I don't want other WWE superstars taking the shots I did. That makes me feel very uncomfortable when I see somebody get hit with an unprotected chair shot.
One of the wonderful things about wrestling, to me, is that you can protect people who have had head injuries.
If I had a son, I would steer him away from wrestling. It was fun for me, but for most it's not healthy in the long run.
