Adam Cole is taking an extended absence from AEW, and now we know why.
Cole was pulled from his TNT Championship defense at AEW All In on Saturday morning. During the Zero Hour preshow broadcast, it was announced that Tony Khan could not clear Adam Cole to wrestle. Instead, Cole was vacating the title and a new champion would be crowned on the show in a four-way match.
During the All In broadcast, Adam Cole came to the ring to address the crowd. Cole said he has some health issues that are keeping him out of the ring, and he’ll be gone for a while. Cole teased a retirement announcement and said he doesn’t want to think about that now, but wanted to address the fans if this was the last time he’d see them. He was visibly tearing up as he delivered his remarks, and thanked everyone there for being part of his career.
Tony Khan addressed Cole’s status during his post-show media scrum, but did not go into specifics about Cole. He said that he spoke with Cole after this week’s episode of Collision, and Cole said he wasn’t feeling great. They spoke in the late hours of Friday night into Saturday morning, and it was decided that Cole would be pulled from his All In match and take some time away from AEW.
What is going on with Adam Cole?
Now, a new report from Fightful (via Fightful Select) shares more details about why Cole is taking a hiatus. According to the outlet, Cole is dealing with concussion issues. It was reiterated that he “wasn’t feeling very good,” and they decided to sideline him early Saturday morning. It was noted that All In was very emotional for obvious reasons.
It’s still unknown how exactly the injury happened, but it’s believed that Cole sustained the injury sometime this week.
The four-way match to crown a new TNT Champion took place after Adam Cole’s in-ring speech. Dustin Rhodes won the vacant title, winning a match that also included Sammy Guevara, Kyle Fletcher and Daniel Garcia. Catch up on everything that went down at AEW All In here.
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