Jake Atlas Gives Update On His Torn ACL Injury
Sidelined AEW star Jake Atlas sat down to speak with Highspot Superstore's Turbo Tuesday, discussing things like his time in WWE NXT and how his injured knee is recovering.
As noted, Atlas "blew out his knee" during an AEW Rampage match against Adam Cole. After suffering the injury midway through the match, Atlas had trouble putting weight on his knee and eventually tapped out to a kneebar from Cole. He was later helped out of the ring by AEW officials.
Atlas had originally debuted for the company at the AEW Dark tapings on Tuesday, December 28. He competed against Serpentico during that night, picking up the victory in what was a tryout for him. Atlas was subsequently signed by the company, and his match against Cole was his main television debut.
"I had just a tryout match with them on Dark: Elevation show right before Rampage that week. So I was in Jersey to wrestle Adam Cole and wrestled him in early January," Atlas explained. "Right after the Dynamite show was a Rampage taping. It was going to be my first, that was my, like, nationally televised AEW debut. And unfortunately, somewhere towards the end of the match, just my mechanics weren't there and I actually blew my knee out inward, or caved in, and tore my ACL.
"I didn't know it that night. I didn't know until probably a couple of days after when I flew home," he continued. "But, definitely couldn't walk. The athletic trainers were taking a look at me. Just, they were kind of hopeful and I was positive. I was trying to be positive as well. But when the match aired and I saw it for myself, you know, I was like, 'okay, this is something that is a little bit off,' and then got the MRI done, and unfortunately, it was a torn ACL. So that is quite a bit of a recovery time, as a lot of people know. Yeah, yeah, it's like nine months. I'm trying my best to work, see if I can make a miracle happen."
Before he started making waves in All Elite Wrestling, Atlas was signed by WWE in 2019, appearing with WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon on a 2018 episode of Undercover Boss on CBS. He had worked the indies before that and after signing with WWE, Atlas worked NXT and WWE 205 Live until being released on August 6, 2021, along with other budget cuts.
Looking back on his time with the company, Atlas feels honored that he got to work with veterans of the business like Scotty 2 Hotty and William Regal. Getting a variety of perspectives from each person has allowed Jake Atlas to apply different advice to his work.
"It can be overwhelming but it was also really refreshing. Because I feel like I had gotten to a point in 2019 when I was kind of like, blowing up on the indies, where no one was kind of giving me any more things that like, I could improve on.
"Actually, one of the last people that I can remember that really gave me some honest feedback was Timothy Thatcher. It was right before I got signed, and little did I know he was getting signed with me because he kept it a secret. And then, just getting there and kind of revisiting the learning aspect of wrestling was really, really, cool.
"I mean, you have guys, Scotty 2 Hotty, who was my favorite trainer, just adding a different perspective to it, Steve Corino adding a different perspective to it. And then you have, you know, legends like William Regal who, you know, I was under his wing for a lot of the time. There is this, there are these terms that get thrown out a lot like, what kind of hire you are at WWE, right?
"And I knew I kind of always considered myself a Regal hire, so it was always really, really cool to listen to him and his, kind of, thoughts on where he sees me and what he wants me to do. And again, it can be really overwhelming because there are so many coaches that have different ideas of what wrestling should be."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Highspot Superstore's Turbo Tuesday with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.