How Chaos Engulfed Adam Cole’s WWE SmackDown Debut
Adam Cole has detailed the “unbelievably wild day” leading to his SmackDown debut.
After the 2019 edition of Crown Jewel, WWE stars were prevented from travelling back to the US from Saudi Arabia as planned, instead staying in the kingdom for another night. This led to a scramble to rewrite SmackDown as many of the delayed stars would no longer be able to appear on the show.
Instead of the planned show, WWE brought in multiple members of the NXT roster who launched an onscreen invasion. One match on the show saw Adam Cole defeating Bryan Danielson in the pair’s only singles match.
During an appearance on the Stick To Wrestling podcast, Cole explained his day leading up to the unexpected match.
“So it’s a Friday, it’s around noon. I’m just walking around. I’m having a cup of coffee. I’m actually at home in Orlando, Florida at the time. I’m like, Okay, I got a chill Friday. I’ll go to the gym at some point, just kick back, relax. We’ll see what happens.
“I get a call saying, ‘Hey, you’re needed for SmackDown, and you need to go to this airport where there’s a plane to take you and some of the NXT guys to SmackDown. You need to be there in an hour, I’ll send you the address.’ They sent me the address, it’s 50 minutes away, so I had 10 minutes to throw all my stuff in a bag, get in my car, go as fast as I can safely to this airport.
“I get there, I’m on this plane. Shawn Michaels is there, Roderick Strong is there, a bunch of the NXT crew is there. I’m putting boots on [while I am] on the plane, and we’re all trying to figure out what exactly is going on when we land. It’s eight o’clock, so the show has started already.”
The NXT stars arrived at the building at 8:30, leaving little time for Cole to prepare. In fact, the star says he and Danielson didn’t discuss it at all beforehand.
“We get into a car. We got a police escort to the building. I arrived there, around 8:30 when I entered the building. Me and Bryan went on at 9:30. I had never wrestled Bryan before. We had no discussion. Didn’t talk about the match. It was one of those. It was one of the most wild, crazy experiences ever, and it was so wild that almost you didn’t have time to be nervous. There was just no other option. You had to just go, go, go.
“So, just an unbelievably wild day, but so happy that it turned into such a special show, because people still regard that one as a really, really special one, and it certainly was for me. But yeah, just an unbelievable day.”
Adam Cole Competes In AEW For First Time In Over 1 Year
On Fright Night Dynamite, Adam Cole took on Buddy Matthews in his first AEW match since returning from injury. Cole defeated the House of Black star, getting himself one step closer to getting his hands on MJF, who says Cole needs to win three matches to earn the right to face him at Full Gear.
Following the win against Murphy, Cole was confronted by Malakai Black, with it later being confirmed he will be the next challenge he needs to overcome.
H/T to ITR Wrestling for the above transcription.