WWE Hall of Famer Adam Copeland suffered a severe injury during his steel cage match against Malakai Black for the TNT Championship. Recently, Beth Phoenix shared her thoughts on the match and the dive from the cage that resulted in the injury.
While speaking to Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast, Beth Phoenix reflected on Adam Copeland’s match. Phoenix shared that everything seemed to be set up well but accidents happen. She mentioned that no matter how well wrestlers practice, accidents happen.
“When he began climbing up to the top of the cage, which I wasn’t aware was going to happen, I had kind of pit in my stomach and dread which I do with all high-risk things. I’m his wife, wife first wrestler second. So everything was set up to go well, I could see everybody was in their place and it was just one of those things, unpredictable. Sometimes things happen in wrestling and no matter how well-trained we are, how well we try to minimize risk and minimize injury, crap happens.
Beth Phoenix was certain that something was off the moment Adam Copeland landed
“So when he landed, I was pretty sure something was up just from the way he landed. I was like, I don’t think that’s kind of how he wanted it to go. Then the rest of the match I could see he was a little heavy-footed on that left foot so I was like, oh, something’s up. We always text after the match and he texted me and said, I think I tweaked my ankle. And I was like, okay, and I just kind of was like, we’ll see what happens.
“He had to go to the hospital to get looked at so I got more information. Then we were wrapping our minds around, okay, it’s tough news to get that MRI or that X-ray back and show, okay, I’m injured. I’m not just hurt and I can’t work through it, I’m injured. So like I said, it was a bit life-changing in that way, especially having an injury this late in the game in his career. What does that recovery look like? It’s entirely different. We’re finding this out, all brand new one step at a time. Because we’ve never wrestled at these ages before. So when things come up, this is a learning curve. So yeah, I had a lot of mixed emotions watching that live. It was a tough thing to see.”
Beth Phoenix watched the match while her kids were asleep
“I barely talked to Adam that day. And I assumed, you know, any sort of gimmick match like that there’s a lot of inner workings going on. So I didn’t assume I would talk to him with any length of detail before the match. We happened to have my family with us and my family was like, Oh, we want to watch Adam’s match. This might not be the one to show the kids because I knew there was a level of violence and barbed wire and all those things. I just didn’t want to traumatise them any more than we do with watching wrestling. But there was a brief opportunity. I think it aired at 11:30 at night or whatever. I had it on my little cell phone and I was watching it while the kids were asleep kind of in bed quietly,” Beth Phoenix said.
What was your reaction to Copeland’s Steel Cage match?
