Buddy Matthews Suffers Setback In Injury Recovery (AEW News)

AEW's Buddy Matthews has been out of action since February.

by Andrew Pollard
Buddy Matthews
AEW

Having been out of action since suffering an ankle injury in February, AEW's Buddy Matthews has unfortunately had a setback on his road to recovery.

Speaking on Instagram Live (via Ringside News), Matthews revealed that he's currently got no mobility in his ankle, which has impacted his initial plan to be back in action by April.

As Buddy explained:

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"The ankle is not recovering as well as I thought it would be. There’s no mobility to it. If I can’t have mobility, I can’t move properly. Once it hits three months without healing, it becomes chronic. So yeah, I have to deal with that. It sucks, but if I can’t do the things I want to do at 100%, then health has to come first. I thought I’d be back in the ring in April.”

The injury itself occurred at AEW Grand Slam Australia earlier this year, where Buddy Matthews challenged Kazuchika Okada for the Continental Championship.

While the match itself was great, what fans didn't realise at the time was that Buddy worked the entire bout hurt, with the Australian having injured his ankle during his entrance. To be specific, the injury happened when Matthews hopped down from the turnbuckle after he'd entered the ring, which was a freak accident that resulted in a partial ligament tear and cartilage damage for the 36-year-old.

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Prior to that injury, Buddy and Brody King had started going by the Hounds of Hell name, breaking away from Malakai Black and the House of Black as Malakai was granted his AEW release. Since then, Aleister Black resurfaced in WWE immediately after WrestleMania 41. In Matthews' absence, Brody has continued to establish himself as one of AEW's most consistent performers of the year, most recently competing in a mammoth 14-man tag match at Grand Slam Mexico last week.

Here's hoping that it's not too long before Buddy Matthews is able to return to the ring - be that alongside Brody King or as a singles act - for in Buddy, AEW has one of the very best in-ring workers in the business.

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Senior Writer
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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.