A few months removed from surgery.
This past June, Adam Copeland underwent successful surgery for the fractured tibia injury he suffered at AEW Double or Nothing. Copeland jumped off the top of a steel cage and landed leg first.
Sports Illustrated’s Steven Muelhausen caught up with Copeland and he reflected on the cage dive. Copeland stated that when he felt something was off, he did not want to switch up anything that was planned for the match.
He added that he did not want to drift away from the moment with Gangrel. Copeland would add that afterwards, Darby Allin went to the hospital with him.
No (I did not think of changing the match around after suffering leg injury at Double or Nothing). Once I realized I could run and move, I was like, this would be fine. I knew what we had planned too. We had worked hard to make that moment with Gangrel happen. I didn’t want to call an audible and throw that away. I was like, I can see this through. No big deal. Once I got to the E.R. that night, Darby (Allin) and I walked in together. He’s wearing his oversized faux fur coat with his face all smashed up with thumbtacks in his nose, and I’m limping in, and I go, ‘Look at us.’
In regards to an update on his leg, Copeland said it feels good but he does not have a time frame for a comeback. He shared that he can get in a ring and move around a little bit, but he can still feel things are not how they were pre-injury.
It (my leg) feels really good. I got the surgery. I guess it was June 1st, by the time I finally got the surgery done. So I guess yesterday was three months. I’ve never broken my leg before, so I didn’t know what that entails or what that entailed. With my Achilles, it was a process. This is not that which is good, because the Achilles, I was working eight hours a day on that thing. It became a full-time job and I got back in six months. But it was a lot of grinding of teeth. This isn’t that more than anything. It’s trying to get the power back and flexibility from bringing your toes to your knee. That’s the last area that doesn’t want to go yet because the plate goes down to the ankle because it was a lower fracture. It was a lower tibia fracture, so the plate butts up against that ankle bone. I think that’ll be what I need to get through in order to be able to get all of that power back. I don’t know what a time frame is. I don’t know any of that. I know that now I can walk, get in the ring, and move around a little bit, but I still feel the deficiency. So, I know I still have some work to do to return to where I need to be.
Throughout Copeland’s first stretch of his run in All Elite Wrestling, he held the TNT Championship on two occasions.
Copeland is turning 51 in October. It’ll mark the one-year anniversary of his arrival to AEW.
