AEW Star Reveals Wrestling World Title Match Right After Recovering From COVID
The Butcher (Andy Williams) and The Blade (Pepper Parks) were on a recent episode of Talk Is Jericho where Butcher and Chris Jericho shared stories from their bands, Every Time I Die and Fozzy respectively. Butcher also talked about his singles match against Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship. He admits he shouldn't have wrestled the match because he was still recovering from COVID, and he recalled when he found out about the match.
"I just came back from COVID. I got cleared the day before, so my lungs were still messed up," Butcher admitted. "I shouldn't have wrestled that match. I've never felt anything like that in my life. If it was a 10-minute match, oh, that's awesome. It was a 20-minute match. I had no plane ticket. I was sitting at home.
"Mox had just wrestled Eddie [Kingston] on Dynamite. It was 2:00 in the morning. I wake up to take a piss, and there's a text from Mox that says, 'I think it's you and I Friday,' and this is Wednesday. Dynamite had just aired. 'I think it's us Friday,' and I'm like, what? This dude's gotta be drunk. That's all I thought is, he's got to be drunk, and he's texting someone.
"He doesn't know that he's texting me, and then I wake up that morning. And [Chris] Harrington was like, 'Hey, can you be in Jacksonville on Friday?' And I was like, oh my God. 'Am I clear?' And then Doc Samson texts me, and he goes, 'Yeah, you're clear right now.' I was like, okay. He's like, 'soon as you get here, you have to get tested.' So I get there. I test negative. I had antibodies, but I still had COVID (the after-effects)."
Butcher continued and described the conditions that he wrestled in. He revealed The Young Bucks' reaction after the match, and he revealed what his mindset was after the match.
"It was 98 degrees that night," Butcher stated. "My two singles matches with AEW, one was against Mox. It was 98 degrees with a 100% humidity. Then my match with PAC, it was 27 degrees that night. Two different extremes but here's the thing, I got frustrated in a whole other way with that Mox match because I really wanted it, and I know that me and Mox would have great chemistry. And it was so easy to call the match. I didn't take anything into consideration. I didn't take the heat into consideration. I didn't take the fact that even though I didn't have symptoms of COVID, it still affected me. I was still fatigued, and I'm not making excuses, but it was a rough one.
"And I remember The Bucks, which The Bucks kind of have this weird, sinister care. Their care for you comes 'The Young Bucks' way, so they came up to me like, Dude, oh my God, we thought you were having a heart attack,' and they were kind of laughing about it. 'There was a shot where we were overhead, and you were holding your heart and you were purple.' And I was like, 'Well, first, I take Niacin before I go out. So I'm just beat red and angry looking.' They were concerned, and I remember just after that match, I was so frustrated with the match that I was like, that's never going to happen to me again. And then I remember Tully [Blanchard] telling me about this crazy conditioning workout that he did, and I was like, tell me the conditioning workout because I'm going to do it every day."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.