Apparently, Wardlow is injured. Again.
The former TNT Champion finally made his return after a year-long hiatus. Originally, Wardlow was forced onto the sidelines in 2024 because he suffered a knee injury. But for the last couple of months, the 37-year-old was out filming the American Gladiators reboot.
Wardlow came back and attacked Swerve Strickland at Forbidden Door following his match against Kazuchika Okada. AEW set up Wardlow’s next feud perfectly, but sadly, it doesn’t seem that he’ll be getting back into the ring anytime soon.
According to Fightful Select, Wardlow likely suffered a torn pectoral muscle. The injury reportedly took place during his return angle, though the exact spot is unknown. This means that Wardlow could be out for several more months. Nothing has been confirmed as of yet, so there’s no word on how severe the injury is right now.
This sucks because another injury holds Wardlow back and there’s a possibility that Tony Khan may be hesitant to push him due to the number of injuries he’s had. The Fightful report never states that Tony Khan is nervous about using Wardlow in prominent positions going forward, that’s just pure speculation.
This isn’t Wardlow’s fault as the man can’t control when he gets injured or not. Hopefully, it’s not too serious and he’ll be out for a couple of weeks. It’s not exactly clear what the plans were for Wardlow coming out of Forbidden Door. The purpose of the attack was to explain why Swerve was off of television for a good period of time, so those two weren’t going to feud immediately. It’s likely the former TNT Champion was going to be built up strong before his big match against the former AEW World Champion.
Wardlow hasn’t commented on the situation. There’s also no telling when more details are coming to light. As of now, Wardlow is back on the sidelines as the Don Callis family is starting to dominate AEW television. Kyle Fletcher seems to be next in line for an AEW World title match against Adam “Hangman” Page at All Out. Was Wardlow supposed to be in that position? Given that it seemed that Mark Briscoe was in the works to challenge Fletcher for the TNT Championship, that’s certainly a possibility. But again, that’s speculation as there’s no reports stating that Wardlow was next in line for an AEW World title match. Hopefully, the injury isn’t too bad and Wardlow can come back wrestle regularly again.