Chuck Taylor Gives Injury Update, Hopeful He Can Return After Surgery

Chuck Taylor has provided an injury update, noting that he has hope he can return after surgery. Taylor was written out of in-ring competition via a Parking Lot Fight with Trent Baretta on the April 27th episode of AEW Rampage due to his injury, and he spoke with Renee Paquette for a new AEW video discussing his status.

Taylor noted that he has not scheduled surgery and is taking the summer to keep learning production in AEW. You can see some other highlights below, per Fightful:

On his initial injury: “In October, I believe, I injured my ankle originally. My foot was down, it was in a match on Rampage, we were tagging with the Hardys. I took a dropkick in the ropes and as I was going out, I left my ankle out, and Angelo Parker fell on my ankle. It was honestly my fault. I went to the doctor and they told me I had a bruised talus, which is a bone inside your foot that connects [other bones] to your foot. I had some ligament damage and they thought I could rehab it. I did rehab, it didn’t get better, and I went back and they believed I needed surgery.”

On what his time off has been like: “I’ve been wrestling for 23 years and the longest I had off was the beginning of COVID. The longest I had gone without taking a bump was the five weeks when COVID started, before we came back. It was the first time I had off. You never want it for an injury. It was interesting because I’m so used to, ‘Okay, time to go wrestle.’ To not do that is weird. Finding out, ‘Now your career might be over,’ was an odd feeling.”

On his career future: “I can get surgery, and once I heal from that, I can hopefully reassess… Maybe it is me hoping. We’ve seen a lot of guys and gals come back from a ‘career ending injury.”

On how his perspective has changed: “Wrestling, as a verb, I didn’t love it as much as I used to.. Just getting old and beat up. It just hurts. Knowing you’re reaching the end of your career kind of puts things into perspective. I don’t want to be a broken down guy just because I wanted another couple of years.”