Josh Alexander did everything in his power to make sure he figure into IMPACT Wrestling’s plans this summer.
WrestleZone spoke with Josh Alexander ahead of IMPACT Wrestling’s Victory Road event. Alexander will face off with Steve Maclin, who he was originally scheduled to defend his title against at IMPACT Rebellion.
Alexander was pulled from the match due to injury that kept him out several months. He spoke about his mindset leading to his comeback last month.
“I’m doing good, man, since coming back at Multiverse United 2 and last weekend at Emergence. I had hesitations coming back from injury,” he explained. “[Because] you always have those things linger in the back of your mind. But after getting in the ring at Multiverse United 2, I came to the back afterward like I didn’t miss a day. It couldn’t have gone better.”
Overcoming Hurdles
Alexander said there are some things he did switch up to avoid putting stress on his surgically-repaired arm. Despite some changes, he said getting back in the ring was like riding a bike.
“Yeah, there’s obvious moments that involve my tricep that would be more strenuous on it that I planned to avoid. But then once you get in the mix of everything,” Alexander explained, “you just kind of fall into those old habits of how it happened. Like they say, it’s like riding a bike. All those things got thrown to the wayside and I just ended up doing them anyway and it all felt fine.
“It was just [getting over] the mental hurdles of wanting to avoid these things, being afraid of these things happening again. I learned with my neck — it was eight years ago when I came back from my neck injury — you can’t really go in with any hesitations,” Alexander said. “Or any of those mind blocks in there because you’re just going to injure yourself elsewhere. You’re gonna compromise yourself somehow. I just threw it all out there. It’s been fine with all the rehab and steps I needed to.”
Alexander said he had about 72 hours notice before he knew he’d be at Slammiversary. Pritchard noted how it was expected that Alexander would be out much longer. Alexander was asked what he did to get ready to return. Was there was any overexaggerations about his return timeframe to make it seem more like a surprise?
Maybe Not Super Cena, But Super Close
“When I initially got the surgery the third week of March, I flew straight to TVs to hand over the title belt and all that stuff. The original prognosis from the doctor was, ‘You know, everybody’s different. Four to eight months is usually the window there.’ And I was [thinking] that four-month window [between] month four to month eight seems really, really long. But Punk recently did the exact same injury as me. He tore his tricep. It took him something like the better part of eight to nine months to come back.
“That four to eight-month window, I just wanted to do as much as I could to make sure it was closer to four than it was to eight. Luckily all I had to do at home was be a dad, take care of my kids, and then go to the gym and do rehab,” Alexander said. “I just dug myself into that the best I could. Slammiversary is the big weekend, usually the weekend where there’s always some big surprises. I’m really happy to be figured into that and to be one of the marquee surprises to come back. I don’t know if it’s quite on ‘Super Cena’ levels, but I was pretty close. I definitely made sure I was closer to that four month window than I was to eight months.”
Pritchard joked how it probably wasn’t too easy being at home, given their passion for wrestling.
“Once the cast came off after the first four weeks. I started moving my arm around a little bit more,” Alexander quipped. “All the sympathy when out the window for me from my children.”
IMPACT Victory Road takes place on Saturday, September 8. Watch our full interview with Josh Alexander below:
