It’s been nine difficult months since Adam Cole laced up his boots and stepped inside the squared circle. For a time, there was a real fear that he might never be able to wrestle again.
A shoulder injury was the least of his concerns, because suffering two consecutive head injuries that made day-to-day activities like sleeping or riding in the car difficult. He met with doctors multiple times a week and wondered at one point whether or not he could ever drive again, much less wrestle.
He would attempt to watch wrestling, but his passion for the business is so strong that he says it would break his heart not to be out there doing what he loves. As he recovered, messages continued to pour in from fans, and he used that as motivation to continue pressing forward. In the months that followed, Cole passed test after test, overcoming both mental and physical hurdles to climb inside the ring and begin training again.
That lengthy process will reach its conclusion on March 29, when Cole’s journey culminates in two milestone moments. He’ll first face off against Daniel Garcia in his highly-anticipated return match, before a behind-the-scenes look at his long journey back airs on the debut episode of AEW All Access.
“I have a huge amount of emotions going through my body, both physically and mentally as far as excitement, as far as nervousness goes. My journey coming back was an incredibly difficult one. There was a real fear for a long time of me wondering if I was ever going to be able to wrestle again,” Cole told Uproxx Sports. “I just remind myself constantly how lucky and fortunate I am that I’ve been able to recover and get to a point where I’m able to get back to doing what I love to do. Of course there are nerves. I have never in 15 years not wrestled for nine months. That has never happened to me before. So that part of me is nervous. But generally speaking, I am so excited and ready to get back to work.”
The process of managing many months of fear and anxiety that came with his injuries was difficult for Cole. He credits his girlfriend, Britt Baker, for the love and support that has helped him get back to this point. He also worked with others within the industry like Bryan Danielson and Christian as he navigated his recovery, managing emotions, and eventually returning to training.
Cole also makes a point to reiterate his gratitude toward Tony Khan and the AEW medical staff as the ones responsible for getting him to see multiple doctors, going to brain physical therapy, and ensuring he was taking the right steps to recover with no sense of urgency or push to get him back in the ring.
“We’re not invincible. For the longest time it was like, oh my God, yeah, I’ll do anything and I’ll fall on the concrete, or I’ll take this move, or I’ll fall off the top of this,” Cole says. “I certainly am more in tune and I’m going to listen to my body better. Because there are times where you have to find that difference between I’m banged up and something’s wrong. As far as I’m concerned, this feels like a second chance. I want to come back and have the best run of my entire career. That doesn’t necessarily mean I have to do a ton of death defying stuff every single night. But at the end of the day, wrestling is a high risk, high reward type of profession anyway. I guess the best way for me to put it is I’m aware now of making sure that I listen to my body, but at the same time I want to go out and just be the best version of myself.”
The best version of Adam Cole has been prominently displayed throughout his career, highlighted by runs through Ring of Honor and most recently NXT. Cole reflects on his time in NXT fondly, with his proudest accomplishment being his 403-day reign atop the promotion.
Cole was known for his run with Undisputed Era and the classics he put on, but his promo with Karrion Kross has been elevated from simply a moment on weekly episodic television to being a viral classic that the internet goes nuts over every few months. Cole laughed and acknowledged he sees the clip pop up here and there.
“It’s wild. I’m incredibly flattered and I think it’s so cool that so many people are interested still in that promo that we had. When we did the promo, I remember thinking like, oh, that went well. But not in a million years did I expect people to still be talking about it so much,” Cole said. “I think the world of (Kross). I’m so happy for him and glad he is doing great, but I had so much fun doing the segment and I would love to work with him again in the future. He’s great.”
As for other memorable moments in NXT, Cole points to his time working under Shawn Michaels and Triple H as significant learning moments in his career.
“There’s a lot of things that I’m really proud of and really thankful for. I’m incredibly thankful for the knowledge and the things that I learned from Triple H and Shawn Michaels. They were two of the smartest guys I’ve ever met and so helpful,” Cole said. “Shawn helped me in various ways, but the one thing that really sticks out to me was his ability and his sense of gauging the cadence of a match. For the most part, I had a general idea of how I wanted to build a match and when I wanted to do my moves and things like that. But as far as the speed at which I did it, it was one of those things that I just did. Sometimes I went faster, sometimes I went slower.
“Shawn has such an incredible ability to be able to listen to an audience while it’s happening and determine whether he wants to go super quick or slow down a little bit and let the audience process everything that’s happening. So his attention to that detail is something I didn’t pay attention to near as much as I do now and I’m incredibly thankful to him for that.”
While it was the in-ring work Cole praises Michaels for helping him with, it was the passion Triple H brings to the table that stands out to him.
“As far as Triple H goes, this guy’s one of the busiest guys that I know. He would always show up to NXT with incredible ideas and incredible thoughts, but most importantly, incredible passion. He had this incredible ability of making everyone that was around want to just put on the best possible show and you really feel like you’re a part of a team and something you’re working towards. And I think as a leader, that’s an incredibly important quality to have,” Cole says. “That’s something I learned, as far as the way that I wanted to approach matches, the way I approach talking about angles or storylines. It’s that passion and excitement that he had and also opening up the floor when it came to discussion or thoughts or ideas about different directions that we could go. It felt like such a fun, awesome process to talk creatively with him.”
When he left NXT, Cole looked forward to traveling and spending more time on the road with Baker, working with some of his close friends, and more consistently streaming on Twitch. As he approaches his return to the ring, those priorities remain the same. He’s also got some unfinished business in the squared circle, beginning with March 29 going as smoothly as possible against Garcia, and hopefully building to another world title.
“Short term, I just want to feel good and I want to perform, and I want to do well on March 29th. That’s the biggest thing. Once I get that out of the way, I’m going to feel like a million bucks. I’m so excited to have that match and have that moment,” Cole said. “As far as long-term goes, it’s the same as when I first came to AEW, and that is to be the AEW World Champion. Every company that I’ve ever worked for, whether it be Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Gorilla, NXT, I’ve been fortunate enough to be put in a situation where I’ve had record breaking reigns as champion. I have that exact same goal, that exact same mentality when it comes to AEW, and at the end of the day, I think if you don’t want to be AEW World Champion then what are you doing? So that is 100 percent my goal and my focus going forward.”