AEW World Champion reveals injury that forced title relinquishment
The newly crowned AEW Women’s World Champion Willow Nightingale opened up about her absence and the injury that sidelined her since May.
In the AEW Redemption post-show media scrum, Nightingale was asked about her decision to relinquish the TBS Championship. On top of that, she had to withdraw from the Owen Hart Cup Tournament due to an injury, the specifics of which were not confirmed. In the media interactions after the PPV, the new AEW Women’s Champion revealed she suffered an AC sprain in her right shoulder during a TBS Title defense against Red Velvet in May.
“For transparency’s sake, I had an AC sprain, which is something that I have experienced in my other shoulder a few times, and it wasn’t as bad,” stated Nightingale. “So, in my head, I think that’s also why I was like, ‘I’ll be good for Double or Nothing!’ But an AC sprain, an AC injury is also something, I mean, I don’t know if what I’m gonna say is gonna violate HIPAA or anything.”
“I was going to talk about one of my good friends who works here had an AC injury and they had to get surgery and were out for like months and months and months. So, it is, depending on the grade or the severity of it, something that could be, ‘Alright, you’re out for a few weeks’ or, ‘You’re out for almost a whole year,’ and ultimately, even if I get to a place where I’m like, I’m feeling better as a human being, cleaning my house, or driving, because I had to drive home after I hurt it. That was terrible. I was like, ‘I’m convinced I can drive back from Maryland to New York’ which is like a five-hour drive. I’m like, ‘I can do that.’ I got like 30 minutes in and I was like, ‘I have to get a hotel right now. This is impossible.’”
“So, it was really just kind of like, how do we get to wrestling? How do we rehab this and make sure we’re good for this? And we were really fortunate where it wasn’t the level of my friend who needed surgery. But it was kind of one of those, like, we’ll play it by ear and see how it goes but, there’s no way you’re gonna be able to do the Owen (Hart Cup). For me, I was like, ‘If I’m TBS Champ, I wanna be defending this whenever an opportunity comes up, whenever there’s a challenger.’ I was like, ‘If I can’t do that, I shouldn’t be champion.’ But, things went well fortunately, and so, I was like, if the opportunity’s there, get me back in. I want it. I want to be there, and I missed the Owen, so this is my chance to get to All In and here we are. Here we are, almost. I was like, we’re a month away, August 30th.”
In AEW’s first PPV held in Montreal, Canada, Nightingale defeated Thekla for the Women’s World Championship.
Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling.
Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.
When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.