Keith Lee Explains His Absence From WWE TV

Keith Lee had been absent from WWE television from February to July, with no official reason being given other than him not being cleared. “The Limitless One” repeatedly said on social media that, when the time was right, he would explain why he had to step away. That day finally arrived on Thursday, as Lee uploaded a six-minute YouTube video explaining everything. It started off with Lee stating that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 back in January and that his fiancee Mia Yim also contracted the virus after insisting that she take care of him. He returned to TV in time for a match on Raw with Riddle and was supposed to be in a triple threat with both Riddle and Lashley at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. But on Feb. 9 he received a call that halted those plans.

“The next day I got a call saying there was something off with my blood. Some people might have experienced this thing where there’s an inflammation in the heart or lungs, for me it was the heart,” Lee said. “And that led to very scary times. I was basically forbidden or any training outside of a light walk. So there was a fear that doing more than that there was a chance that I could up and pass away. So, for three or four months this was kind of the case and I had several MRIs on my heart. By the way, I don’t fit in those machines, it was terrible and my shoulders really struggled with that. But we had to do what we had to do, right? So this became a fight against death, so to speak. It took up until the company sent me up to Pittsburgh to get looked at. And it was up to the point where I was going to have to undergo genetic testing and all sorts of things, because it was thought that there was potential I could have a heart disease of sorts.

“Very fortunately, even though it took a long time we waited that amount of time, that allowed for the inflammation in my heart to eventually go down to normal,” he continued. “Even though the first MRI was bad and the second MRI was worse, over time things got better here and there. Eventually, after that visit, I was cleared to try and get back into some sort of shape. That’s where the real struggle is. But it took some time, and to be honest it wasn’t even certain that I was going to show up in Dallas (where he returned and challenged Lashley to a non-title match) in terms of on TV.”