Bowens recounts occasions when he’s wrestled through injuries.
Guest appearing on episode #131 of the Chrissy Chaos podcast was former AEW World Tag Team Champion Anthony Bowens.
A conversation was held about injuries, dealing with that as a wrestler and how much longer can one continue going. Bowens then recounted several occasions when he’s worked through injuries and finished matches. He brought up the match him and Max Caster had against Chris Jericho and MJF in 2021. Bowens suffered a torn meniscus in the match and the injury happened two months after he was signed to AEW.
Another instance from Bowens was when he competed in a match while dealing with a bulging disc in his back. He went on to have a 15-minute bout.
I think about it all the time (how much longer can I continue wrestling). It f*cking hurts (Bowens laughed). There was one match two years ago, I was at the gym and I was doing rows and I basically threw my back out. I had a bulging disc. I couldn’t get up off the couch. I had a match two days later. This was a Monday, I was at my parents’ house here in Jersey. The most debilitating — I couldn’t get up. My mom had to pull me up off the couch gingerly and I’d slowly walk, couldn’t bend over. I waddle through the airport and I got in the ring, couldn’t bend over again. This was before the show, and I’m like, I gotta figure out how to get through this, and I somehow wrestled 15 minutes, had an incredible tag match and I guess the adrenaline just kicked in. There was another time when I tore my meniscus mid-match. This was against Chris Jericho and MJF. I had been battling knee pain. I didn’t know what it was but I didn’t tell the doctors which was probably the wrong thing to do. This was legitimately maybe two months after I got signed so, I can’t go to these people and be like, I need surgery. So it was terrible knee pain. I was like, I just need to get through one more match. It’ll be okay. Tape the hell out of it and I got the hot tag, I started punching everybody and I took one step to punch MJF in the face and I felt it pop and as I’m beating them up, within the first couple of seconds, I’m trying to figure out in my head, can I finish this match? Because my knee is blowing up, it’s in pain and I finished the match probably another three minutes after that. It’s funny, I was going to dive onto Max at the end of the match. Jump over the top rope all the way to the floor. When I jumped, I couldn’t get up off my leg so almost like when Spongebob trips over something, his toe clips it. My toe clips the top rope and I just darted face-first into the mat and the second I landed, I was like, f*ck this. I just rolled over and I laid there. I didn’t move for the rest of the — I was shot and then I had to get surgery on it and then stuff like that happens all the time and people have no idea.
The Acclaimed are going to be back in action on the 8/12 episode of AEW Collision.
After Caster, Bowens and Billy Gunn unsuccessfully challenged House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King & Buddy Matthews) for the AEW World Trios Championships, members of the group whispered into Gunn’s ear and he proceeded to take his boots off and leave them in the ring.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Chrissy Chaos with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
