Summary

Wardlow said he went through filming for the new American Gladiators series with a fully torn left bicep, an injury he suffered just days before production began.

Speaking on BCP+, Wardlow said the opportunity came together after a series of Zoom calls and a combine in Los Angeles, which took place not long after he resumed training following the car accident that sidelined him in April 2024. He said the experience became even more daunting when he was paired with Eric Boogs, who he described as the first person to truly match his strength in a physical setting.

The premiere date for the reboot is April 17, and Wardlow appears on the show as Fang. The launch also lands on a busy day for wrestling-adjacent coverage after Stardom revealed the full card for American Dream 2026.

How Wardlow got the role

Wardlow said he initially wondered whether the combine was effectively a direct comparison between him and Boogs, since the two biggest competitors were paired together for drills that included push-ups, pull-ups, rope climbing, tire flips and wrestling. Even so, he later got the call that he had made the cast.

He also said he tore his left bicep while overtraining for the show. According to Wardlow, a surgeon told him he could either have the injury repaired immediately and miss six months, or push through filming if he could tolerate the pain and accept a 10 to 15 percent loss of strength in the arm.

Wardlow said he hid the discoloration in his arm by wearing long sleeves during filming and avoided certain events by telling people his shoulder was bothering him. He added that Boogs and Jessie Godderz were also dealing with injuries, and that the three wound up supporting each other through the shoot.

Wardlow's injury and his road back

For AEW fans, the injury detail adds another setback to a stretch that has already included Wardlow's 2024 car accident and a torn pec in 2025. He said elsewhere in the same interview that he is very close to being recovered from that pec injury, so this latest story helps explain just how much physical damage he was working through while off television.

It also gives more context to why Wardlow's next move matters. If he is nearly ready to return from the torn pec, this interview positions him as someone trying to re-establish momentum after multiple interruptions, not just another name waiting to cycle back onto the roster.

Quote from Wardlow

"Oh man, it was quite a fun process. Bit of a rollercoaster. Nothing in the past couple years of my life hasn’t come with some controversy and some, a little bit of roadblocks here and there, and this was no different. So the opportunity came about. They were looking for somebody like myself. They saw me, they said, ‘Let’s see what this guy’s about,’ so we do a couple Zoom calls, just like this. Just talking about myself, and I, at one point, I’m standing right here ripping my shirt off, screaming and flexing. Doing the whole little audition type thing just to show ’em what I’m all about, and they immediately loved me, and wanted to take the next step. So we had to go out to L.A. to do a combine. There were many of these with large groups of athletes… For the most part, very confident in myself and my abilities, okay? So this came about after being away from wrestling for a while. So I had a car accident that took me out of wrestling for a while. So I had been rehabbing that, and I had just really started to start training again at this point. So I went to this combine, just starting training again. So, as confident as I am, I was a little bit skeptical, like, okay, I could have used a few more months of rehab and stuff but, we’re gonna go for it, and the elevator door opens and we’re all sitting there and I’m scoping out the competition and I’m like, yeah, I got this. There’s not one guy here that I’m worried about, and then the elevator door opens and out walks Eric Boogs. Not only is it him but, lo and behold, he is decked out head to toe in 90s American flag, singlet, just the whole nine, and I’m like, well, as confident as I am, if it’s me versus this guy, I’m gonna have a run for my money here. So, of course we ended up getting paired up together for this combine. They basically paired you up with the person you’re closest to in age and size and we were the two biggest guys there, and we were curious the whole time. We were like, ‘Do you think they just wanna see us? Or is it like me versus you right now?’ So, we ended up building a little bit of a relationship through the course of this day… we’re questioning whether they were trying to choose between the two of us, or we were just basically being put on display. But we had to do this physical challenge. Push-ups, pull-ups, rope climb, tire flip, wrestling, and gosh, not to put the guy over too much, but, I will say I’ve been on the mat with a lot of guys, wrestling, jiu-jitsu. I’ve never felt overpowered, even remotely. I’m pretty strong fella. First time in my life I’ve ever felt somebody match my strength, and I will say, Boogs is the real deal, and he is a collegiate Division I wrestler, which I never was. So he should be very skillful. But, we were neck and neck the whole time and we had a fun day and then that was it, and part of me was like, ah, I don’t think I got it. If it’s coming down to me and Boogs, he’s so charismatic, so over the top. I was like, ‘Yeah, if they have to choose, they’re probably gonna go with him,’ and I was at dinner with my sister for her birthday, and it was just her and I having a nice little sit-down dinner… Time had passed. I didn’t even really think about it at this point, and I get a phone call from my agent, and he goes, ‘Hey, you’re an American Gladiator,’ and it was just like, ‘Well, I guess we’re gonna get a glass of wine and celebrate right now because I’m officially an American Gladiator.’ So, that was a very long way of telling you how I got the role."

Wardlow later went on to say:

"Right before, and this goes back to what I said, there’s always some controversy, there’s always some sort of hill I have to climb. The past couple of years, it’s just been the theme. Right before flying out, like days before flying out to film this show, I fully tore my left bicep. So, and I did it training for, the mistake I always make, I overtrain, always. When there’s something big, I just go balls to the wall and I destroyed my body a little too much in preparation for the show, because you would have thought I was going into the Olympics. That’s how I was training, and so I trained all night long and I made the mistake of waking up the next morning and getting right back to training on the rings. I don’t know if you remember where you swing across the rings and you gotta wrap your legs around ’em, so I was training for that a lot because I’m a wizard on the monkey bars so, I’m like, ‘I really wanna do this event.’ So dude, I was training all morning, swinging, swinging and then my last round, it’s always the last one. Don’t ever say, ‘Alright, one more.’ Because that’s when it happens, and I went to swing to the next ring and just felt it pop, and I fell to the ground and I just knew right away. I was just like, ‘I just tore my bicep,’ and I’ve never torn a muscle. I’ve never torn a muscle. So I went to my surgeon, and he said, ‘We can either fix this, it’d be super easy and you’d be out six months.’ He’s like, ‘I know you really wanna go do the show.’ He’s like, ‘If you can deal with the pain, and you can accept the fact you’re gonna lose 10 to 15 percent strength, and it’s gonna be wildly uncomfortable, but if you wanna go, go,’ and I was like, ‘That’s all I needed to hear.’ So, the first few days we were just training. So I wore a long-sleeve shirt, because my whole arm was black and blue. So I just wore a long-sleeve shirt and hid it from everybody, and just kind of bit the bullet and did what I could. Obviously, there were some events I couldn’t do, which was a total bummer. I couldn’t do some things and I just said, ‘Oh, yeah, my shoulder’s a little messed up. I can’t do that.’ So I went into this very defeated. I flew in, like, I don’t know if I should be here. It was rough, and then (Eric) Boogs and Steel (Jessie Godderz)… The Bull (Boogs) and Steel, other wrestlers, The Bull came in with a little tweak. Steel tweaked a little something during training, and talking to The Bull about this because we came in kind of not liking each other. It’s just that big man heat, where it’s like we’re so similar, we have to hate each other. Until we have an actual conversation and realize we’re brothers. We’re literally the same person. It was exactly one of those moments, where I ended up telling him what I was dealing with. He told me what he was dealing with, and we’re like, ‘You know what? We’re both hurting. We’re gonna be each other’s support system and we’re gonna get through this together, and we’re gonna just gas each other up.’ Well, I see Steel after doing the rock climbing training. He’s sitting by himself with his head down, and I’m like, oh, that’s me. That’s me. Something’s off. So I went up to him, I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And he’s like, ‘Man, I just found a little pop in my arm.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know. This is rough,’ and I was like, ‘Do not tell anybody this,’ and I lifted my sleeve up and I showed him the purple and yellow and he’s like, ‘Dude, what is that?’ I was like, ‘I just fully tore my bicep.’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t tell anybody.’ I’m like, ‘Whatever you got going on, even if you tore something, you can get through this,’ and dude, his whole attitude changed, and next thing you know, the three of us, brothers forever. I talk to those guys almost every day of my life and I don’t think to (talk to) anybody every day of my life. Even my mother which she would probably have some things to say about that. We ended up being each other’s support system over the course of this month and we really helped each other get through it…"

Sources

Wardlow while speaking on BCP+