Amputee Iraq Veteran Tries for WWE

Disabled local veteran now WWE hopeful 
The Courier Journal
Connor Casey
July 26, 2015

Iraqi War veteran, Michael Hayes, 29, completes a set of lateral rises during an afternoon workout at the Louisville Athletic Club. In 2006, during a deployment in Iraq, Hayes' Humvee was caught in an IED blast. He was the only survivor in the accident, suffered burns to his body and lost the bottom of his left leg. Hayes spent a year confined to crutches or a wheel chair and said he was more than excited to receive a prosthetic. “When they put me in that leg it was awesome,” said Haynes, “It was liberating.”
(Photo: Alyssa Pointer/The Courier-Journal)

Michael Hayes is tough; tough enough to join the military straight out of high school, tough enough to drag himself out of a destroyed Humvee in Iraq carrying his detached left leg and tough enough to become a professional wrestler.

Born at Fort Knox and raised in Louisville, Hayes decided at an early age that he wanted to be a professional wrestler. He graduated from Seneca High School in 2004, joined the U.S. Army, and was eventually deployed to Iraq.

In August 2006 in Ramadi, Iraq, Hayes was riding in a Humvee hit by an IED (improvised explosive device). Hayes was the only survivor, and he had to drag himself away from the wreckage carrying his own left leg, which had been blown off from the knee down. Along with losing the leg, he sustained a broken hip, a crushed right heel, shrapnel damage in his hands and burns on 35 percent of his body.

Hayes believes now that his injury is what opened the door for him to pursue his childhood dream.

"I think what was necessary was for me to experience some sort of catastrophic pain and suffering, which would allow me to grow enough to where I could accept and actually appreciate doing what I've wanted to do my entire life," Hayes said.

He spent the next 18 months undergoing rehabilitation and physical therapy at the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, using the prosthetic leg he'd have for the rest of his life.
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