Eddie Edwards has been through a transformation, and a baseball bat to the face was a big part of that.
In 2018, Eddie Edwards and Sami Callihan made a gruesome scene, and buzz followed. Callihan was setting up a spot with Edwards where he'd slam a baseball bat onto a chair laid across Edwards' throat. The bat skipped off the seat of the chair and cracked Edwards in the face. In speaking with Fightful, Edwards looked back at the moment. Edwards admitted that the baseball bat to the eye could have been the catalyst to him accepting more damage in the ring.
"That was a pretty big mistake, I guess. Or maybe it was on purpose, but mistake that once in happened—I was at the tapings the next day, I had bumps and black and blue, I had a broken face and broken nose, but the fact there was no long term damage, that made things a hell of a lot easier to come back and be able to try to see what we can do with it and turn it into what me and Sami were able to turn it into. At this point that happened, I was able to get up and walk away. I tried not to push my luck too much, knowing that, but it is something I know, ‘Hey, at least I’m not getting hit in the face with a baseball bat.’"
Although nobody wants to eat a baseball bat to the dome, Edwards doesn't kid himself -- he knows that the attention that emerged from that was good in the long run.
"For sure. Completely. Honestly, yeah. Once my eye didn’t fall out of my head, once that I knew that didn’t happen, it would have been a mistake for that to happen and for me to just come back and have a wrestling match the next time I’m in the ring, you know? It was a chance, ‘Alright, let’s try something different.’ If that hadn’t happened, I probably wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have the confidence and be as comfortable as I am doing anything I do now because that forced me to do it and I had no choice but to grow and adapt."
Eddie Edwards is in action this Saturday, April 25 at IMPACT Wrestling's Rebellion, when he, Chris Sabin, James Storm and Willie Mack take on the team of Violent by Design. Fightful will have full coverage of the show.
