Jade Cargill successfully defended her TBS Championship once last night against Taya Valkyrie.
However, that would not be it as Mark Sterling called for an open challenge, with it being immediately answered by Kris Statlander, returning from a long lay off. After a brief back and forth, Kris hit a tombstone on Jade and pinned her to capture the TBS Championship.
During the AEW Double or Nothing media scrum, Statlander was asked about the timetable for her recovery.
“The timetable went about as expected. I had mentioned it was six to eight months of recovery, but people were forgetting it was six to eight months post-op. It’s a very long process, it takes a long time for these types of injuries to heal. It gives you a lot of time to mentally prepare the comeback and do something as crazy as this. A lot of ups and downs on a recovery like this, a lot of self-doubt, but then you get moments like this and nights like tonight and it makes it all worth it,”
If you guys had only seen the things that I have been doing leading up to today, you’d be like, ‘she’s been ready for this.’ I know I kept it under wraps, but I really wanted my return to be a special moment. Not just for me, but for every body else. It is just jumping off into the deep end, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel prepared for it,”
“This time, it was a lot easier of a journey, having gone through it before. Originally, we thought it was an ACL and a meniscus tear, but it was just an ACL. What that means with recovery is that I was in my leg brace walking around two days after surgery, not on crutches. With a meniscus tear, you would not be able to do that. Mentally, I felt like the progress was a lot more upward (trajectory). It was a lot easier because I had been through this, and I remember we thought maybe it was a hyper-extension, and then I got the MRI, got the results, and I cried for three hours straight. I told myself I did not want to go through this again, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I cried it out, got myself together, and told myself, ‘I just have to come back from this.’ Not that it’s not a big deal, but if you want something and work hard for it, it will payoff,”
I was miserable the whole time. I went through it once, and it was a totally different world because it was during COVID, we didn’t have any fans. ‘I already came back coming out of the claw machine, how am I going to top that?’ There was a lot of thinking about that, ‘what could I do to top that?’ This did a pretty good job. There was a lot of misery because of how much I love being here and being on the road and being part of something. It really sucks when you can’t do something you love and having it taken away from you. I would be here as much as I could just to be part of it and support everyone. At first, I felt I was in the way, ‘why did I even bother to come here? I can’t do anything.’ Everyone was like, ‘No, we love you, we want you here.’ Now, seeing everyone backstage and the reaction, ‘Wow, they do love me.’ It’s very special. Even when it’s sad, there is always light at the end of the tunnel,”
Kris Statlander
We will have to wait and see how long the new TBS Champion can hold onto the TBS title but for now, she is back and seems to be better than ever.
H/T to Fightful
Follow Corey at @CoreyBrennanBS on Twitter
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