What’s the story?
Darren Young may be out with a series elbow injury for the time being but Mr No Days Off is still keeping himself in the public eye, garnering WWE some mainstream attention along the way.
Young acted as NHL team the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Bud Light Social Captain during their game against the Calgary Flames as the franchise celebrated Pride Night, but he was unable to inspire the team to victory as Calgary left Tampa with a 3-2 victory.
In case you didn’t know...
Young has been a WWE employee since 2009 and competed in the first season of NXT, but it wasn’t until forming a team with Titus O’Neill in 2012 that things started to come together for the man from New Jersey.
The Prime Time Players went on to capture the WWE Tag Team Championships in 2015 before losing them to The New Day as the trio embarked on their record-breaking run.
Young experienced a singles push of sorts in 2016 alongside Bob Backlund but his hopes of building on that in 2017 were dashed when he suffered a serious elbow injury during a match on WWE Main Event, and he has since confirmed that he will be out of action for up to six months.
The heart of the matter
Young likes to refer to himself as Mr No Days Off but in this instance, it seems he has managed to combine work with the pleasures of a day off, enjoying a top level hockey game from the comfort of a luxury suite and performing social duties for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Lightning are in dire need of an upswing in fortunes, as one of the pre-season favourites for the Eastern Conference find themselves outside the play-off places with just a quarter of the regular season to go.
Tampa Bay are currently six points outside of the play-off places and would have been hoping that the former WWE Tag Team Champion could inspire them to victory against the Flames, who are clinging on to a playoff spot in the Western Conference.
It wasn’t to be, however, as Tampa fell to two second period goals, one of which was Sean Monahan’s 100th NHL goal.
What’s next?
With no return to the ring in sight, Young would be well-advised to stay in the eye of the media as much as possible in order to stay in WWE’s good books. He wasn’t able to turn Tampa Bay’s fortunes around, but the coverage will almost certainly be regarded as a plus on his side.
Tampa Bay have the weekend off before hosting the Ottawa Senators on Monday night.
Sportskeeda’s take
There is never a good time to get injured in pro wrestling but the run-up to WrestleMania must be considered particularly unlucky. Young is a valuable performer in the middle of the card for WWE, and the sooner he is back in action the better.
As for Tampa Bay, it would be surprising to see last year’s conference finalists miss out on the playoffs, but the table does not lie.
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