Report: WWE Talents Not Surprised By Injury Rate In AEW

According to a report from Mike Johnson of PWInsider, WWE talents are not surprised by the perceived high injury rate in All Elite Wrestling, with wrestlers in WWE crediting the injuries to wrestling at most once or twice per week. 

During a long discussion about WWE cutting back on live events this Summer, Johnson noted that WWE talents found it difficult when they were performing less regularly during the ThunderDome era of WWE TV. 

"One thing that was regularly privately complained about during the ThunderDome era was that they found it a lot harder to perform when they were only competing on Mondays or Fridays or doing the SmackDown and the Raw tapings because they could not callus their bodies to the ring. I had numerous top talents in WWE tell me they were actually very relieved when they were able to get back into the touring situation because it's actually easier on their body, because their body would never get a chance to sort of heal from the weekly beatings that they would get and they would just get into the groove and be used to it. That was actually easier on the body than wrestling, having five-six days to heal, and then wrestling again. They could get into the ring and take bumps, they could get in the ring and do drills and do repetition and things of that nature but performing is a completely different animal," Mike Johnson said.

"Many of them felt they were off quite a few steps in the beginning of the touring process because they had not been doing it. They actually relayed to me that they felt it was easier to be wrestling full-time than it would be to wrestle once and then be off a week and wrestle again. I don't know if there is anything scientific to this but there have been WWE talents who have told me they are not surprised at the high injury rate that sometimes happens at All Elite Wrestling because those talents are not consistently wrestling all the time in comparison to a WWE talent. They are wrestling on Wednesday and then maybe they're wrestling on a Saturday, and unless they're choosing to do independents they're not doing anything else."

All Elite Wrestling talents do pick up high-profile injuries, with the likes of Eddie Kingston, Adam Copeland, and Adam Cole all currently out of action. The injury rate between WWE and AEW isn't too different, however, with reports in May noting that 14.9 per cent of the AEW roster was out injured, while 12.9 per cent of the WWE roster was on the shelf. 

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