Rhea Ripley Provides Update on Buddy Matthews’ Ankle Injury Recovery & In-Ring Return Plans

As noted before, Buddy Matthews has been out of action for AEW since the Grand Slam Australia 2025 event in February of 2025 due to an ankle injury and surgery. Matthews made a surprise appearance earlier this month for an event for World Series Wrestling in Australia and announced that he is currently expecting to be medically cleared from his injury by this October.

A recent episode of the What’s Your Story? with Stephanie McMahon podcast featured Matthews’ wife and WWE talent Rhea Ripely as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Ripley providing an update on Matthews’ recovery from his ankle injury and in-ring return plans.

“He’s still starting to get back into the ring stuff because he got injured over a year ago in February when they [AEW] went to Australia. So he got injured then, so he’s just started getting back into the ring now, and just trying to rehab it and see what he can do. He’ll get in, and we’ll run the ropes.

I’ve been teaching him some rolls, since the boys’ class didn’t do as many rolls as the girls ‘class, apparently… We’ve been getting in a little bit. Also, I get nervous about getting hurt, especially these days, because I’m always on the road, I’m always doing stuff. I want to stay sharp, but I also don’t want to get beat up more than I get beat up. So I go a little bit easier. He’s definitely going harder than me right now because he’s trying to get back into that mode.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful