Delmi Exo seemed poised to kick off 2022 with full steam, but unfortunately, all her plans came to a halt on Thanksgiving Day 2021.
Earlier this year, Major League Wrestling announced that Delmi Exo had officially signed on to join their roster. Exo wasted little time to make her mark. On April 6, “The God Queen” unseated Taya Valkyrie to become the new MLW Women’s Featherweight Champion at War Chamber. With her title win, Exo now takes her place at the top of the company’s women’s division, but as it turns out, her journey to the throne was far from easy.
Speaking with WrestleZone‘s Ella Jay, Delmi Exo detailed some of the troubling events that preceded her recent success, long before she even signed with MLW. Amid Exo’s attempts to launch a new indie promotion — GRIND — and find her footing as a singles competitor, an unfortunate incident occurred.
“In 2021, I got into a car accident on Thanksgiving,” Exo recalled. “I didn’t really have like a serious injury, but my back was kind of a little messed up and roughed up from it. And two, it totaled my car completely and I wasn’t in a place where I could just upfront the money to pay for a car. Especially because I had just started GRIND and I wanted to put all my focus into that. I wasn’t going to exactly like be able to have the means to put myself first and get a car and then also balance financially running a wrestling promotion for the entire year. “
A Humbling Experience
Exo stressed that her intention in sharing this wasn’t to gain sympathy, and continued on to admit that the aftereffects significantly “humbled” her. “I was very humbled taking the bus to work and a lot of my coworkers were really sweet and offering me rides. It kind of put me in a perspective of like, not having a means to get from point A to point B, and I had, not taken for granted that, but it had definitely put me in a situation where I was just like, ‘Man, I just want my freedom.’ I felt like I had to be so dependent on people and dependent on my partner and, I didn’t feel like I had like control of my own life,” she said.
“It felt so strict on what my schedule was and what I was allowed to do. I didn’t take out any other bookings because I wouldn’t be able to get to them. I really just worked to make money and save for a car, and it just felt like a never-ending story and like it was just never going to happen.”
Outside of the transportation changes, Exo explained how the accident had derailed some of her personal and professional aspirations as well. “On top of that, I feel like with wrestling itself, I was trying to build myself as a character, as a singles competitor. It definitely gave me a lot of doubt with being able to stand on my own because a lot of people would just constantly bring up the tag team [with the Sea Stars],” she said. “As proud of as I am of Sea Stars, it almost felt like it was weighing me down and it felt hard to be able to be proud of something because it just felt like you couldn’t do better than that.
“I put into perspective, whenever a band from like back in the day, like you can picture like AC/DC, if they were to put out a new album and say it on stage, like, ‘All right, we’re going to sing a song from our new album.’ The crowd is going to be receptive to it, but then they’re going to be like, ‘Play Back to Black.‘ I’m so young that I’m not trying to be a nostalgia act. It got to me a lot, and it felt like I didn’t have any value in the ring.”
“GRIND was doing great on that end. So, on that perspective, GRIND is my baby, so it felt like almost like a mother when they have a kid and they lose their identity. That’s kind of how I felt last year. I felt like I was the owner of GRIND or a Sea Star and I wasn’t Delmi, like there wasn’t room for me to be myself.”
“Then outside of wrestling, I just had that weight of not being able to, ‘Oh, I want to go grocery shopping at like Trader Joe’s.’ I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do something as simple as that. ‘Okay, I would have to take a bus here to then get here, but it doesn’t take me back to my city.’ I know that’s like an everyday problem that someone can go through, so I don’t complain, but when things stack like that, it seems like the smallest thing can just feel so big,” she said.
Exo Reflects On The Physical & Mental Effects
Luckily, Delmi Exo didn’t sustain too much physical damage from the car accident. “Honestly, because of wrestling, because we’re so used to impact, I think that’s what helped me with the car accident,” she explained. “I had a lot of adrenaline when it initially happened, and so I just in go mode of like, ‘Okay, report it. Okay, process all this.’ Then, the night of, laying down, that’s when it finally, fell apart. I just couldn’t sleep on my back for a while, I started rehabbing it. I have my certification in Physical Education. Actually, I have my NASM Certification, so I know a little bit about fixing my back. I was able to compete in a deadlift competition in order to like have a goal to like, strengthen my back. Thankfully that wasn’t too big of a issue, by April. I felt good.”
Though Exo felt okay physically, the mental side effects began taking a toll on her. “What did suck was the PTSD that I got from being in the accident and anxiety is something that, like a lot of people talk about with small things of social situations. But for me, I couldn’t picture myself going somewhere. If I had to go to work, I started getting really suffocated. The suffocated feeling at the idea of like, ‘okay, I have to walk here to catch the bus to then go here.’ It just felt so weird.”
“If I was in a moving vehicle, I would start holding on turns and stuff like that. If I saw the driver who was driving, they’re good drivers, but if I was just in a car and I could feel them braking, I just could not look at the road. And I honestly was ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to drive again,’ because before the accident, I was already getting overwhelmed with travel, with wrestling and feeling like I don’t want to be in a car, I don’t want to be traveling.”
After struggling for a while, Delmi Exo’s mental health finally got “significantly better.” When asked how she had been coping with the PTSD and anxiety, Exo revealed that she’s been navigating it at a slower pace and taking one car ride at a time.
“I just got a car in December, so since then, I’ve been, trying to practice driving places that I’m not used to. Thursday I went to five different places in one day, which I know that sounds crazy I was comfortable driving to and from work and I was comfortable driving to Rhode Island because I know that route. But if I have to drive somewhere where I don’t know where the parking lot looks like, that can be an overwhelming issue. But Thursday I was able to drive to five different places, so that’s progress.”
In addition to driving again, Exo started running and hiking, which she said felt “very therapeutic” to her health. “Going outside and getting vitamin D helps a lot. They say a lot of people who are vitamin D deficient suffer from depression, so if you or someone you know does have that issue, I definitely recommend, putting the phone down, put the screens away and go outside and, even if it’s just like ten minutes, do something outside, it’s really rewarding.”
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If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
