Jack Perry opens up about Luchasaurus 2024 health battle: ‘He could have just died’
Luchasaurus’ battle with pneumonia was a scary situation that could have had a fatal ending if he didn’t get treatment in time.
While speaking with TV Insider, Jack Perry — Luchasaurus’ tag team partner — opened up about the health struggles his friend went through. That battle saw Luchasaurus (40-year-old Austin Matelson) hospitalized with pneumonia in both lungs in September 2024. He was away from TV for a year until returning this summer at Forbidden Door 2025.
Perry told TV Insider that, before the September 2024 hospitalization, Luchasaurus thought he was just dealing with a cold. Things could have been much worse if Luchasaurus avoided getting treatment any longer.
“I remember talking to him on the phone a lot during that time,” Perry said. “He said, ‘I have this cold and can’t seem to get rid of it. I’d say for the past two or three weeks.’ He didn’t think much of it. People were saying he was tough. That it was a cold. ‘You’ll get over this.’ It turned out it wasn’t a cold but pneumonia.
“Thankfully, he went to the hospital when he did. He ended up collapsing and [it] was this whole thing. They said to him, ‘if you didn’t come in right about now, there is a good chance you could have died.’ Hearing that puts things in perspective a little bit. He is one of my best friends, not just in wrestling, but the entire world. He could have just died and that would have been it. I don’t know. It was one of those things that makes you look at your own life and think about it.”
When Luchsaurus’ situation improved, he and Perry started talking about reuniting their Jurassic Express team. The former tag champs are set to make their return to Dynamite tonight on tonight’s sixth anniversary episode.
“It turned out to be hell on earth making it happen,” Perry told TV Insider about the reunion. “It was the hardest thing in the world to get all the pieces together to finally do it. There were medical things, physical things, people getting in the way trying to make it not happen, but it eventually came together. It felt like it was the perfect moment when it finally did. I’m super grateful to be back and get that sort of reaction and do it with my best friend. I’m happy he is healthy now and seeing it all come together the way it did.”
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.