The Blade continues to be on the road to recovery.
Have you wondered what happened to The Butcher & The Blade? The good news is that they’re still with AEW. However, The Blade was injured in early 2024. It’s not known which match he got the back injury, but the AEW star did undergo back surgery and has been recovering since.
The Blade has been rather quiet since, but the 45-year-old has finally spoken about his journey to recovery on the Talk’N Shop podcast, and the AEW star recalls when he had the surgery (Transcript courtesy of Ringside News).
“I had a back fusion, spinal fusion, on September 10th, 2024. So, it’s been about a year now, and I’m getting close to going back to the doctors, getting cleared, the whole thing.”
The Blade notes how it’s been over a year since he’s been in the ring and how excited he to get into it.
“Is it weird thinking about taking a back bump after that? Yeah, the thought of like—you know, I haven’t been in… doctors don’t want me in a ring, so like it’s been over a year. Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. I’m nervous. Like, I want you to be careful when we’re walking.. I mean, I’ve been wrestling 25 years and to not be in a ring for over a year now—weird, right? But now it’s to the point where I’m excited. Yeah. Like the scary stuff is over and now it’s just get excited.”
The Blade continued to explain that getting back surgery was his only option at this point. He’s been doing physical therapy and shots for years, but the nature of the injury meant he couldn’t prolong the surgery anymore.
“Yeah, ‘cause with back stuff, surgery is the last option. So they’ll do physical therapy, they’ll give you a round of shots. They tried a whole bunch of different stuff, but it just got… it just got—what was the actual, like, what’s the nature of the injury? Yeah, it’s my L5-S1, which is the very last vertebrae, but that’s like the… when people get back [injuries], that’s usually the major one. It’s the bottom, right? Yeah. Yes, it’s the bottom. So, they fused that one.
I mean, you know, there were definitely some highs and lows that year where you don’t know what’s going to happen, but it feels really good that now it’s—that’s at the excitement.”
The Blade never gives a time table for his return. It sounds like he’s still months away from being able to get back into the ring, but that’s just pure speculation on my end.