During a recent interview with Inside The Ropes’ Kenny McIntosh, AEW star Adam Copeland opened up about his brutal barbed wire steel cage match against Malakai Black at Double or Nothing 2024 — and the moment that left him with a fractured tibia.
The match garnered headlines for Copeland’s jaw-dropping dive off the top of the cage, a high-risk maneuver that ultimately led to a broken leg. Speaking on what went through his mind in that split second, Copeland admitted that even with his decades of experience, hesitation crept in.
“In my last run with WWE, I was in two Hell in a Cell matches — against Finn Bálor and Seth Rollins — so I’d still occasionally do those,” Copeland shared. “But this one, it was probably upped a little bit with the barbed wire and everything like that. With that, it was one of those deals where my mind didn’t remind me I’m 51.”
He continued:
“This time though, I will say I got to the top of the cage and I went, ‘Huh?’ And I never do that. I usually just get up and do the move. Now, I took a second to look at what was ahead of me. Then I went. There was a half a second of thinking, ‘This should be interesting.’ I contemplated a splash, but then I thought, well, [Malakai] might not survive that. An elbow he can survive. I just assumed I would, because I do. So it just ended up being a broken leg.”
Despite the injury, the WWE Hall of Famer finished the match and didn’t realize the full extent of the damage until much later.
“I walked to the back, I walked to the trainer’s room, I walked out of the arena, I walked into the emergency room, and then they took X-rays and said, ‘Why are you walking dumb ass? You have a broken leg,’” he recalled with a laugh. “You just get in there and you try and put on a good show, and adrenaline can do amazing things.”
Adam Copeland has since undergone surgery and is currently recovering, with no official timetable yet for his return to AEW programming.
Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more updates on Adam Copeland’s recovery and all things AEW.
