Rick Boogs suffered a torn quad and patellar tendon injury at WrestleMania 38 when his knee gave out while attempting to hoist up both of The Usos in a SmackDown Tag Team Championship match. It was reported last week that Boogs had successfully undergone surgery on the torn quad and in a new video shared on his Instagram on Sunday the guitar-playing star was shown moving on crutches with his leg in a massive cast and brace.ย
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Boogs made his SmackDown debut in May 2021 and immediately aligned himself with Nakamura. The Japanese star confronted Reigns at the end of this week’s SmackDown and wound up getting knocked out by both Jimmy and Jey Usos.ย
One of the biggest changes Boogs underwent when he jumped to SmackDown was changing his name from Eric Bugenhagen (which is his real name). Boogs has actively supported the change, even as other wrestling stars like Chris Jericho have called it a mistake.ย
“I was definitely happy for the most part, and then the only thing that was negative was you’re saying that Rick Boogs was gonna hold me back that name and I accept that as a challenge. Because I don’t think so. I think Rick Boogs is gonna, it’s gonna get way more over in a sense. I think I take that as, ‘Let’s see what we can do with this name [of] Rick Boogs.’ As of right now. I mean, let’s look at the entrance [with] Shinsuke. Right? I’m ‘Rick Boogs’ I’m saying like, what would we have done with Bugenhagen in that sense? ‘My name’s Eric Bu-gen-ha-gen!’ I mean maybe that could have worked but I think Rick Boogs works better in that sense,” Boogs told GiveMeSport late last year.ย
“So, he had a lot of praise and I’m very grateful for that, and you know, hopefully, I can live up to that,” Boogs said. “I think that’s what I’m doing and I just want to prove him wrong [about] the Rick Boogs schtick.”
