Darby Allin recently spoke with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com to promote the AEW Double Or Nothing 2024 pay-per-view this Sunday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he will be part of Team AEW, who collides against The Elite in the return of the violent Anarchy in the Arena match.
During the discussion, the charismatic and wildly popular AEW star spoke about how his early return from injuries came about, his physical status heading into the big PPV event this weekend.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On how he's feeling heading into his early in-ring return this Sunday: "I’m not feeling great. I’m feeling horrible. Honestly, I was on a cross-country road trip with my dad and mom because I was going to help my dad retire and finally move him into the house that I got him in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s a cross-country road trip, we’re driving and halfway through the country. We’re in Montana at this point. I hear that Eddie Kingston can’t make it. I pull over, I call Tony Khan and I say, ‘I don’t know what it’s going to take, but if I can get cleared from my doctor, it’s my foot doctor and my nose doctor, to be in this match, can we make it happen?’ He said, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ I’m on the road trip. I start in Seattle, I’m 12 hours into it, I flip a bitch, and I start driving back to Seattle because that’s where Dynamite was on Wednesday. I’m driving 12 hours back the opposite way and I’m trying to get cleared while I'm going. At the same time, I’m thinking, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Enjoy your time off. There is literally no rush. Move your parents in. Enjoy your time off.’
"No, I felt so compelled to have to be there. It was weird. I drove 12 hours, literally no sleep, showed up, and got cleared right when I was getting to the building. I was still in my walking boot. That was the first day I took it off, when I got to Dynamite. I was literally coming right down to the wire to see what the hell was going to happen. I still don’t know what’s going to happen. I haven’t bumped. I haven’t ran the ropes. I have a limp. My nose is killing me. I got medically cleared, alright, cool, I don’t have to do any of these tests. Let’s just find out what’s going to happen Sunday at the pay-per-view," he continued. "Going into Anarchy in the Arena, which is a psychotic match, to find out how I’m feeling Sunday, it’s going to be an interesting ride. The mental pain of sitting by and watching these shows, knowing I couldn’t do anything to be part of them, it was killing me. If I have 1% chance to be there on Sunday, that’s all I need. It was coming down to the wire. I could’ve shown up to Seattle and not been medically cleared, but we got it. I called my nose doctor in Atlanta and my foot doctor in California and everything was good to go. They told me to be careful. They don’t know anything about wrestling. If I showed them a clip of Anarchy in the Arena, they probably shift things."
On how anyone who's surprised by his early return should be because he wouldn't have believed that he was heading to Seattle for his surprise Dynamite appearance on the morning prior to his call with Tony: "Tuesday night. I was in Yellowstone National Park with my dad for 12 hours doing a tour. I was there for 12 hours and then I said, ‘Okay, I’m coming to Seattle, we’re driving right now.’ I got no sleep. I was up for 24 hours doing this trip to get there. There were no flights out of Bozeman, Montana that would get me to Seattle in time. What do you do? You just drive it. It was rough, but I got through. If anybody is surprised, that’s reasonable, because I was surprised. If you told me Tuesday morning I was going to be going to Seattle, I would have been like, ‘No, I’m not. I’m at Yellowstone National Park enjoying my time off.’ Next thing I know, ‘Let’s go.’ I’m so sporadic, I’ll literally jump in a car and drive wherever to make something happen. It was definitely crazy."
Check out the complete interview via the YouTube player embedded below, and make sure to join us here this Sunday night for live AEW Double Or Nothing 2024 results coverage from Las Vegas, NV.
