Dalton Castle on his 'nightmare' injury, facing Matt Taven at ROH Final Battle 2018

Brian Fritz

Dalton Castle on his 'nightmare' injury, facing Matt Taven at ROH Final Battle 2018 image

A lot can happen in a year.

It was last December at Final Battle 2017, when Dalton Castle reached the pinnacle in Ring of Honor, defeating Cody to become the ROH World Champion. But his championship reign was cut short due to a debilitating back injury, which paved the way for him to lose the title to Jay Lethal in June and spend subsequent months in agonizing pain.

“It really was a wake-up call and reminder that, 'Hey, I really don't have a lot of other hobbies,'” joked Castle. “'Wrestling is really taking up a lot of my life and now that's not going on. What am I supposed to do?' Thank god I have cats and video games.”

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After months of recovery, Castle is finally back in the ring and will face Matt Taven at the ROH Final Battle 2018 pay-per-view on Friday, Dec. 14 at 8 p.m. ET available for members of the subscription-based Honor Club streaming network via ROHWrestling.com and also on the Fite TV app.

It’s a clash between the former champion and the man claiming that he is the real Ring of Honor World Champion.

“Matt and I used to travel together for a long time,” Castle said. “We've known each other for just as long as we've been wrestling I think. And here's where it gets weird and muddy for Final Battle: I start finding out what kind of person Matt really is. He's kind of delusional. He's really into that pretend title that he's got, the ‘real’ Ring of Honor title. I feel like this fight, Final Battle, it's about knocking some sense into somebody who I thought was a better person than he really is.”

It was a long summer for Castle who was forced to take time off due to his back pain. Come to find out, this was an injury he had been working through for some time.

“We discovered that I had an old fracture in my back — what they call a Pars defect — and I had broken my two bones in my back,” explained Castle. “I had two little fractures in my back that went ignored for a couple of years and I just kept wrestling and because they were ignored, they shift a little bit and I started getting some nerve impingement, which would just make it unbearable to stand or be on my feet.”

Life for the active 32-year-old had grinded to a halt.

“My routine of life had just been changed completely and not only that, when I'm not on the road, I like to be working towards something when I'm at home,” said Castle. “I like to be at the gym training. I like to be a working on a new design for an entrance or something like that, but knowing that I didn't have a definitive date to return and knowing that I can't exactly go as hard in the gym I like to, it was very tough. It was emotionally draining and it was just hard. There's no way I was an easy person to be around, but I mean, thankfully, I kept pushing forward and I got back to where I need to be. I guess a nightmare sums it up.”

Castle explored every option he could to get back in the ring — including surgery, although that wasn't advised. Instead, it was a long, slow process of rest and rehabilitation until life starting becoming normal again and he could wrestle.

“The biggest thing right now is I'm wearing a couple braces," he said. "I wear like this lower back brace and like a hip and groin brace, which essentially are just kind of preventive. They don't they don't fix anything. They just kind of remind me personally that there's some limits here, so I need to be aware of where my body going and what I'm doing. I think I could wrestle without the braces because when I walk through the curtain I get such an adrenaline rush. It's almost like nothing hurts at all. It's just knowing that I need to do this again the next night that I wear them.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Keep it colorful. Keep it casual.

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Castle admits that he pushed through the injury as much as possible not only because of the pressure that comes with being the ROH World Champion, but also because of his love for the sport.

“I was in a lot of pain and this is something I love to do,” Castle said. “Wrestling is such a big part of my life. For me to have to take a break from it, it had to been something where I was unable to go through it and there were times where I wasn't even able to get out of bed, I was in so much pain. That was a nice wake-up call saying, ‘Hey, maybe you need to take a little break.'"

He continued: “But now, I've been taking the right steps. I've seen a physical therapist specialist and working on things. I went and saw a doctor a couple of times, had some giant needles stuck directly into my spine, which was not my favorite thing, but has helped me immensely get back to where I need to be and I'm back in the ring and I'm happy.”

Now, the glam rocker of wrestling is back and ready to show he is at full strength. His first test will be against Taven at ROH Final Battle 2018 — someone he has a few issues with.

“He's also just a jerk,” said Castle. “I mean, once we went out to lunch and I got up to go wash my hands when our food arrived and I came back and half of my soup had been eaten. I look across the table and there he is with butternut squash chipotle soup around his mouth denying that he ate it, but he did! Did not pay me for it. Did not thank me for it. I held the door for him when we left then. He didn't say thank you."

He added: “We went to a zoo two years ago. There was a petting exhibit where you can go, you know, feed these little pygmy goats. Adorable, right? You put a quarter in the machine, your hand fills up with feed, and then you call the goats over and they eat out of your hand. Matt put a quarter in, has the feed in his hand, called over the goat when they came over to eat it, he threw it in the garbage. What kind of person does that?”

****

2018 marks the 10-year anniversary for Castle in the wrestling business. While he oozes confidence showcasing his exotic swagger, he admits that it took him five or six years before he was comfortable.

“It wasn't until I started doing Dalton Castle that you see today where I really kind of figured myself out as a performer,” said Castle. “I know everything about Dalton. I know how I need to act in situations. I know how I'm going to feel when someone does something or if an audience is turning one way. It's second nature for me. It's not until I figured it out; this character is where I was able to relax.”

While Castle was going stir crazy at home over the summer, he used his forced downtime to start up a YouTube channel showcasing his exploits on the road like only the “Peacock” of professional wrestling can.

“I started going to all these really cool countries and places and I thought I want to do more to connect with the audience," he said. "There's clearly an audience for that. The 'Being the Elite' guys have connected with hundreds of thousands of fans all over the world just making their sketch show, which is hilarious. This is what I've always done. I've been good at editing. I used to like to film on the road and I've got all this extra time now because I don't have a full-time regular job. So, when I'm home, I can devote the time to editing. So I finally gave it a shot. I mean, you get nothing out of sitting home and wondering 'what if,' so I just started the channel up and I got very fortunate that enough people started watching and all the videos that it made me say, 'OK, I'll keep doing it.'”

MORE: ROH champ Jay Lethal on his upcoming match with Cody, nearly 20 years in wrestling

Castle is back on the road again racking up more footage for his “Planet Peacock” videos, but is also on a quest to regain the ROH World Championship. Now that he has a taste for it, it makes him want to show that he can be the top guy once again.

“I know what it feels like,” said Castle. “I know what it takes to get there. I'm going to keep doing those things that brought me there in the past and if I don't get there again using the same formula, I've really got to change up my game plan and that could be frustrating." 

It all begins with his match against Taven this Friday at ROH Final Battle 2018. And Castle sums it up very simply: “It's about defending the pygmy goat and it really comes down to the soup that he owes me.”

Brian Fritz

Brian Fritz Photo

Brian Fritz is a contributor with The Sporting News covering the NBA and NFL who previously worked at BasketballNews. He is a 20-year veteran of sports talk radio in Orlando, Florida, after graduating from the University of Central Florida. He now resides in Durham, North Carolina.