Amazing Red Recalls Injury That Took Him Out of the WWE Cruiserweight Classic

During a recent interview with Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former TNA X-Division Champion Amazing Red spoke about his career and more. During the interview, Amazing Red explained that he nearly took part in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic Tournament in 2016. Unfortunately, an injury prevented him from doing it.

According to Amazing Red, he suffered a bad leg injury while doing motion capture (mocap) work for a WWE 2K video game, and it ended badly. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Amazing Red on Nearly Competing in the Cruiserweight Classic in 2016

“I’m super hyped. This is it. This is finally what this whole thing paid off for. I knew as soon as I stepped foot in any of these matches, confidently, I’m getting signed. That was just a thing, and maybe it probably was the idea for them also. So it’s about to show up, the Cruiserweight Classic, and I get hit up about doing the 2K video game, and that was one of my dreams at the at the time to be in the video game and do mocap. I thought that was one of my dreams. Doing this job sucks so bad. I would never do mocap for anything.”

On Getting Injured During a Mocap Session for a WWE 2K Video Game

“Mocap is trash. Anybody that tells you otherwise is a liar. Anybody you had on the show that told you mocap was good, they’re lying. That’s like doing five matches at once. You’re not bumping on the pillow. You’re bumping in the ring. Everything’s legit real, and you’re bumping constantly. I’m hyped. I’m seeing the 2K stuff. Cool. I get dressed. I got the little balls everywhere, right? Real early in the morning, they’re super excited to work with me. I do a couple of moves, then they go up there. They go right into AJ Styles stuff, Spiral Tap. ‘ You could do that?’ Yeah. Let me see. Go up there. Went up there, Spiral Tap. ‘All right, so look, we’re gonna have you do it a couple of times.’ So in mocap, for this kind of game, you have to like do it and miss and sell; do it and hit someone and sell; do it and if there’s a ladder or a chair there, different sell. But you always have to get up a certain way so they can clip it and put it up there, so I had to do this move like seven or eight times, and a spiral tap is a move I don’t like because I’m looking at the ground; I’m looking at the ring instead of the infrared. I’m kind of like backwards, so I don’t see what I’m doing. I just throw myself. But with Spiral Tap, you can see everything, and I’m not a gymnast. I just learned this jumping on the beds, so I’m not really professional doing this. I’m up to like eighth, ninth at this point.

I get up there, and I just had a gut feeling, I gotta stop. Low Ki was there with me, and the guy goes, ‘Can you just do one more, man?’ I’m so sorry.’ Can you do just one more? And we’re gonna have you do this, and then we’ll go into a whole set of moves after this.’ I’m like, damn, my body’s killing me. I go up there. There’s two crash pads, just for this jump, right? And in the middle of the crash pad, it connects. So I go up there. I’m like, all right. For some reason, I just jump, and everything just blacks out for me, and I don’t know where I’m at. So I just jump, instant darkness, and I hear this [crack]. I wake up, and I’m on the crash pads, and my leg is backwards. So what happened is that whatever flip I did, my one foot went in between the crash pads that connected, and I went the other way, and I heard the loudest [snap], but I didn’t feel nothing. So I’m there. I’m hanging out. I’m just laying down, and everyone’s looking at me. And Low Ki screams at the top of his lungs, ‘Is anybody gonna effing help him? He broke his leg!’ Then they’re like, ‘Oh, call somebody!’

“Then everybody started panicking. He said that when he took my leg out, it was backwards. Once I saw that, instant pain, heat everywhere, all of my body, and then I started screaming. And now, at this point, I’m bitter about the CM Punk situation. I’m bitter about the No Way Out situation, and this to me was like my last-ditch effort of being a part of WWE, doing a WWE game, no less. Broke my leg in half, and I’m screaming. I remember that at this point I think I was cursing God out, and I blamed it on him, and I was like, why don’t you want me to make it? Why don’t you want me to be great? All this stuff I did, paid my dues. I helped so many House of Glory guys. We gave them superstars to wrestle, and I felt like not in a genie kind of way, but in a way where it was like, man, I did all this good stuff, and I felt like this was my time. Why not now? Why do this to me now? To fast-forward all that, I know why it happened. And that was a blessing in disguise. As weird as that may sound, as that may sound, breaking my leg was the best thing that happened to me.”

On Why It Turned Out To Be a Good Thing for Him

“My family. My family and God. I got cool and closer to my family and God, and it was more like you’re not ready. I don’t know God’s plans, but he definitely knows it, and it’s literally like you’re not ready. If I would have made it after the 2K game in the Cruiserweight Classic, I would have lost my family completely, and that, to me, don’t go together.”

As noted, Amazing Red was announced for the TNA Hall of Fame Class of 2026. His induction will take place at Bound for Glory 2026 in October.