Former AEW TNT Champion Adam Copeland suffered a fractured tibia while wrestling Malakai Black in a Barbed Wire Steel Cage Match at the AEW Double Or Nothing 2024 pay-per-view event.
While appearing on the latest edition of the “Busted Open Radio” podcast, Copeland spoke about the injury and undergoing surgery.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the injury: “You’re welcome for my stupidity [laughs] It was less a leap and more a fall [laughs]. It’s part of the albatross of the pro wrestler, and you go, ‘No, I got this.’ Your brain tells you, ‘Yeah, got it, no problem. Sure, 15 feet? Yeah.’ Then, once I land, and I go, ‘Oh, but I’m 50. Huh.’ [Laughs] The good thing was, I landed and truly, I was, ‘Okay, it’s not my Achilles because it was the same leg that I tore my Achilles on. I was like, ‘Well, Achilles held. That’s cool. Maybe it’s an ankle sprain, maybe it’s a bone bruise.’ It felt like ankle and tibia or fibia jammed. I got up, finished the match, and I felt a little click. I was like, ‘Okay, I got this.’ Finish the match, get to the back. I was like, ‘Huh. Interesting.’ I started moving it, playing with it. I was like, ‘It doesn’t hurt that much.’ So then I walked out of the building, I walked straight into emergency, and they went, ‘What are you doing? Get off your foot. Dumbass. You have a broken leg.’ I was thinking, ‘Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.’ [Laughs] So here we are. But yeah, I feel like that’s the albatross of the pro wrestler. You get out there, and you want to give them a show, and I think I could have got the same mileage if I’d done it off the top rope. So live and learn. But at the same time, I finished the match. That, more than anything, I was like, okay, I got through it. There was no way, getting that close, knowing what we had coming with Gangrel and everything, it’s like we had to see that through, we had to, and hopefully also, throughout this story, it’s a reminder of what House of Black brings to the table too, and let people understand, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, there’s this group of badasses that have an insane presentation.’ So a few missions accomplished, and a setback.”
On his recovery: “I had the surgery on Monday, and it was a success. I guess it got a little complicated just because of where the break is. It’s kind of right above the ankle joint, which is called a peon fracture, apparently. So the cartilage between your ankle and your Tobia and Fiibia got squished, and then the break. I guess there were shards of it too, so they had to try and compact it all with the plate and the screws. I haven’t looked at an X-ray, I’m not going to. Just because that stuff, I don’t find that helpful [laughs]. But with this injury, I’ve realized DoorDash is pretty cool. I started using DoorDash, I didn’t know how to use it. I had to get Beth to show me how. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, a lot of Dr. Mario.”
