Leva Bates Opens Up About Terrifying Concussion Side Effect

Any injury is terrible, but knowing the long-term effects of concussions makes them a terrifying part of the wrestling business as a whole.

While on Thunder Rosa's Youtube Channel, current AEW Star and backstage head of the makeup and wardrobe, Leva Bates, opened up about going deaf and some of the difficulties that have come along with that.

"I've had bad hearing for a long time, I've been suffering for a long time," Bates said. "I always had kind of bad hearing and I was doing stunt shows ... We were shooting guns without ear protection and one time I shot a wasp's nest in a covered wagon ... It ringed so bad that I am pretty sure that was the beginning of my ears being messed up and then I found out that I have a condition."

"When I get a concussion, the area around my ear canals swell and I lose hearing like, usually about 24 hours, completely. That's terrifying, the first time it ever happened, but it comes back. But now I have tinnitus ... It was during Impact, I got punched real hard [in the face] on accident ... It hit me so hard that I'm pretty sure that like, it popped something, and ever since then I've had constant ringing in my ears all the time. So what the hearing aids do, they made the outside world louder than the ringing in my ears."

Bates has been in AEW since the beginning, first wrestling for the company in the Buy-In Fyter Fest 2019 when she was defeated by Allie, now known as The Bunny. She was put with Peter Avalon in AEW initially, as the two shared a librarian gimmick. Bates has primarily wrestled on "AEW: Dark" for the company and has competed on "AEW: Dynamite" twice, with both matches taking place for a total combined length of fewer than three minutes.

In 2014 and 2015, Bates found little success but much popularity in "NXT" under the name Blue Pants, wrestling 10 total matches for the company despite never signing with them. Bates' biggest and only win in NXT came when she picked up a pinfall win over Carmella on the January 1st, 2015 edition of "NXT."

Bates' most recent AEW match took place on the May 24th edition of "AEW: Dark," when she defeated Kiah Dream in about two minutes.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Thunder Rosa with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.