Watching his Twitch stream and he announced that he's actually scheduled to undergo 2 surgeries on his ankle. He's set to have 4 screws and a plate inserted as part of the recovery. No mention of how long he's expected to be out, but he said it's the most painful injury he's ever had and that it'll be quite a while for him to make a full recovery and comeback.

“WWE sources have indicated that Cole is scheduled to be backstage at tonight's episode of WWE Smackdown for what is being called a "high level meeting" with Vince McMahon. We have not been told that Cole is planned to appear on the show.”

“There was an assumption internally that Cole's WWE contract expired in December, but WWE sources have reached out and noted that they became aware that the deal was actually up in early July. Despite that, we're told that Adam Cole expressed to WWE that he was willing to work through Summerslam weekend and re-evaluate things.

There was once word within WWE that Cole had actually signed a new deal when the USA Network agreement came to be, but that was not the case, despite the internal rumors.”

I know, years ago he broke a chair in PWG or whatever and it became a meme. But I only know that because people on reddit explained it; I've never heard Cole acknowledge or participate in the jokes. Not on BTE (at least since his return), not on Dynamite, not on his twitch channel. None of his friends have either, nor his girlfriend, at least since he joined AEW. For something that's such a widely accepted joke, it doesn't seem like Cole is laughing along. It just seems cruel.

Dax Harwood spoke recently about how having body image issues led to his bulimia, and people on this sub seemed supportive. How do people not read that and think twice about their years-old fat "jokes" that the punchline never participates in?

Edit: People have pointed out that actually, they are body shaming Adam Cole for being too small and not too big, which is the kind of body shaming which is perfectly acceptable and not cruel. Previously, I had thought that if a wrestler was in good enough shape to wrestle an entertaining match, it didn't matter if other wrestlers were larger, or if they themselves used to be larger. I can see now that I still have a lot to learn about being a wrestling fan.

Edit 2: Yall reporting me for self-harm, where were you in high school when I needed you

Edit 3: Because it's led to misunderstanding a couple of times now - edit 1 is sarcasm. Shaming someone for being too small is just as harmful as shaming them for being too big, and there's no one way that a wrestler "should" look. To the people saying that Adam Cole (or anyone else on the roster) should "look more like a professional athlete" - he is a professional athlete. Maybe you should just revise your ideas of what a professional athlete looks like.

Adam Cole had both ankle surgeries, with the second one being on October 12. There is no word on how long he will be out of action.

Source:

According to people from WWE, Adam Cole was very adamant about keeping his Twitch channel. WWE people called this problem "non-negotiable" for him and higher ups were not thrilled to talk about it in general because they had zero leverage on this situation

I remember seeing Adam Cole for the first time at Final Battle 2016 and being really impressed. When he debuted for NXT with the Undisputed Era I LOVED him. He was one of my favorites in 2017-2018 and I thought he was a huge future star for sure.

I've cooled off on him a lot the past few years. Part of that is I don't like the way his matches are so over the top with the kickouts, don't like the panama sunrise, and the constant superkicks. But I still think the guy is very charismatic.

That being said, since I've been watching him for five years, he hasn't really changed his schtick at all. He hasn't really added anything to the character or tried anything new. He seems to have just settled on what works (ADAM COLE BAY BAY, Boom!, etc) and his whole vibe and attitude and even the things he does in the ring...it just doesn't feel like anything has changed at all since then. And now in AEW I barely even like him anymore.

He's only 32 years old, it seems sort of too early for him to have peaked. Seeing Jericho ONCE AGAIN reinventing himself in his 50s, I sort of wish Adam Cole would try new things. Looking at careers I've really enjoyed like CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, those guys were constantly trying new things, tweaks to their character, etc. Adam Cole really hasn't done anything to keep himself fresh, and maybe that's part of why some people are cooling on him? He's obviously still very over with the crowds but I dunno...I wish he'd try something new.

I noticed it while watching through Coles latest Twitch vod. Cole is clearly bothered after he receives the text message. He doesn't address it on stream.

Fuck these releases fucking suck and must be sapping the moral backstage like crazy :(

Timestamped link:

it's 2:01:57 in if the timestamp doesn't work.