– AEW star Powerhouse Hobbs was the guest on the latest edition of Up Close with Renee Paquette, and he discussed battling his way back to the ring after suffering a ruptured patellar tendon. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):
Powerhouse Hobbs on how his injury felt: “When the injury happened, it was a pop. I was shot over ten years ago and it felt just like that. We were in Daily’s Place and I was like, ‘Okay, nobody has a gun in here.’ I didn’t get shot, but I couldn’t extend my leg. I’m in the main event, national TV, IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Jon Moxley. The ref is checking on me. I’ve survived a lot of shit and I’m not going to die from this injury, so I tried my best to continue. It was one of those things where I look back at it, and for me personally I did the right thing. Maybe from a medical standpoint I should have said no, but my grandma and grandpa didn’t raise no punks. People paid to see me in action. I felt like I disappointed a lot of people.
On what went through his mind after tearing his patellar tendon: “I was on a roll. Once the injury happened and I found out I was going to need surgery, the depression sunk in. I’ve been depressed before. When my brother got murdered, he pushed me out of the way and took six bullets to the chest. I took one to the forearm. All these feelings start coming back. All these ‘what ifs’ and ‘what am I going to do now?’ I didn’t know what I was going to do. Obviously, in our sport, people get injured, and things happen. For me, I’m greedy. I didn’t want to give up anything.”
On the emotions he felt after suffering the injury: “If I could have taped my knee up and went, I would have done that. It’s one of those things where everyone is telling me that things happen for a reason. I didn’t want to hear anything. I didn’t give a s*** about anybody, didn’t want to hear what they had to say. I knew where this could have taken my career. Watching my brother get murdered, it brought back all the feelings of ‘what if. what’s going to happen now?’ It brings a lot of anger in my heart.”
Hobbs recently teamed with Mark Davis, Will Ospreay, and Ricochet on last week’s AEW Dynamite in a losing effort against The Don Callis Family’s Brian Cage, Konosuke Takeshita, Kyle Fletcher, and Lance Archer.
