Isaiah Broner returned to the ring at AIW Gauntlet for the Gold 16, winning the rumble-style gauntlet to earn a shot at the AIW Absolute Championship.
Broner suffered an injury at AIW 2-1-SYXX on March 24 in a four-way bout against Cardona, Matthew Justice, and Joshua Bishop.
Speaking to Jeremy Lambert & Joel Pearl on In The Weeds, Broner revealed that he was originally thought to be sidelined until the end of the year, but managed to return in less than two months.
"It sucked," he said about the feeling of being injury and the rehab process. "I had ruptured my right Achilles in '21, twice. When the injury happened, it felt the same, the pop. I couldn't feel my heel, I couldn't feel my foot. I still had to catch Cardona. It was right before I caught him. I couldn't feel my foot, I caught him, and I couldn't get up after that. Immediately, I didn't want to go through the process over again. After the first week, I went right back to the gym. I had the walking boot on for a couple of weeks and I just went through it. I watched the same Adrian Peterson and Kobe Bryant videos every day. Every day I went to the gym, I watched the same two videos for the last eight weeks, just to try and find different motivation. My girlfriend, Joseline Navarro, she was huge part in my rehab process. The first couple of weeks was really rough and she was there speaking motivation into me and telling me I can do it. Probably the third or fourth week, it started trending better, it healed a lot faster than I thought. Still rehabbing. I wasn't supposed to come back until December. I got lucky with it."
He continued, "I had an evaluation two weeks after the injury. They did an ultrasound on the back of my calf and heel. They couldn't see where the tear was, so they couldn't give me a concrete answer on exactly what was going on. After two weeks, I was out of the boot and walking with a heel lift in my shoes. After another week, I took one out, and after the fourth week, I was out of heel lift and walking. I had a little limp. Each rehab session, it got better and stronger. My balance got better. A week ago, everything felt kind of back to normal. I'm going to keep going to rehab just to be on the safe side, but it healed a lot faster than I thought."
Broner said he was a little nervous getting back into the ring, but after a few movements, he felt normal. He noted will be a bit selective with his bookings early in his return.
Broner will challenge Cardona for the AIW Absolute Championships at AIW Absolution. Fans can keep up with Broner by clicking here.
Fans can check out the full interview with Isaiah in the video above.
