Adam Cole: ‘This is the best I’ve felt in years’

After spending so much time battling injuries over the past few years, Adam Cole now feels better than he’s felt in a long time.

“I feel really, really good,” Cole told Renee Paquette on the latest episode of AEW Close-Up. “I know this sounds incredibly cliche, especially when coming back from a challenging injury or whatever, but I really do mean this — this is the best I’ve felt in years. Like, even before the injury. Both physically [and] mentally, I feel ready to rock and roll.”

Cole battled career-threatening concussion issues in 2022 and had to spend nine months on the shelf. He returned in March 2023 but was again forced out of action with an ankle injury that September. The ankle injury caused him to miss more than a year, but Cole is now back in action after returning in October 2024.

Not being able to wrestle for so long was difficult for Cole, but it’s given him a whole new level of appreciation for the career he has.

“I was thinking about this for quite some time trying to figure out why I am where I am mentally and physically and all that stuff. And, again, I never lost an appreciation for pro wrestling. It’s always meant the world to me,” Cole said. “But after the two incredibly challenging injuries — one of them being career-threatening, the other one just being so, so difficult physically and mentally — it gave me this whole new appreciation of this job and how much I love it. So now coming back from those two things and still being able to do what I love to do, and getting to travel every week and wrestle and be with my friends and stuff like that. Not that I did, but I will absolutely never take this for granted. So that’s kind of the mentality.”

The 35-year-old Cole told Paquette that he feels like the best years of his career are still ahead of him. He “desperately” wants to be AEW World Champion one day and also has his sights set on winning the AEW Trios titles with Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong.

Undisputed Kingdom (Cole, O’Reilly & Strong) teamed with Daniel Garcia to defeat Shane Taylor Promotions in an eight-man tag match on the pre-show for AEW Revolution this past Sunday.

Paquette’s full interview with Cole can be watched below: