Where is Ortiz?
The AEW star hasn’t had a match since January 2024. Ortiz ended up suffering a torn pectoral muscle during his match against Bryan Danielson and Claudio Castagnoli, which put him on the sidelines for a good portion of 2024.
However, it’s been over a year and there’s still no signs of Ortiz coming back. Since there’s been no sort of update on the 33-year-old then fans have been wondering if Ortiz is still on the roster. Well, according to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Ortiz is still under contract. In fact, Ortiz has been cleared to compete, it’s just a case where AEW doesn’t have anything for him.
It’s a shame because he and Santana had so much promise during their time in the Inner Circle. It was known that those two can go thanks to their tremendous impact run, but he also showcased his promo ability. Maybe Tony Khan will come up with something for him soon. It’s unknown when Ortiz’s AEW contract ends, though Tony can add injury time to it since he’s been out for a long time.
Though Ortiz has been absent from AEW television, he does still compete on the independent circuit. He made his in-ring return in March for various promotions. The AEW star did speak about his recovery process last month and stated that he came close to quitting wrestling altogether.
“Honestly, I haven’t quit wrestling because of them (Eddie Kingston, Homicide & Low Ki), to be honest. Ortiz stated on Johnny I Pro Show. During my injury, of course there’s that moment that you’re like, ‘What am I doing? I was kind of wasting away, I’m sitting there, I couldn’t move for like three to four months. I couldn’t do anything, and I actually never told this story before so, maybe three weeks after my surgery, 'I think I can do legs.' Like, let me do some leg presses or something like that. I’ll take it easy in the gym, and I don’t know if it was that or if it was something else, but then, I had a hematoma.
So it was like a tennis ball that was under my arm. I’ll show you a picture later. It’s pretty gnarly. So, that happened like two or three weeks after the surgery and then I had to go in for a second surgery. So I was just, like, depressed. I went mostly my whole life with ever avoiding the hospital. Unreal that I made it 16-plus years without a serious injury and never had to stop wrestling.
So when I had to get two surgeries within less than a month span, and then I was just like I can’t do anything for a couple of months. I have to just sit there and I was really contemplating, ‘Is this something I wanna continue doing?’ You know what I mean? And of course, you go through those questions, there’s self-doubt, I’m no longer in my tag team so, I definitely went to a low moment. That was a low moment for me."
Hopefully, he’ll be able to make his AEW return soon.