After a snakebitten 2024, things are hopefully starting to get better for Anthony Henry.
Henry suffered two major injuries last year, breaking his jaw in March and then suffering a torn biceps in October. The latter injury happened in a match against Gabe Kidd for Ring of Honor. Henry is currently recovering from biceps surgery and going through the rehab process as he works his way back to the ring. He appeared on AEW Unrestricted this week and spoke about last year’s injuries.
“So 2024 was not kind to me, obviously. Also hasn’t been kind to [JD] Drake, unfortunately. It’s weird because in the 22 years that I’ve done this, I’ve never really had a substantial injury,” Henry said. “The closest thing I had to a real injury was when I herniated my disc at the other place with my neck, but I had no time off. Like, I went through the process of getting things done but I wrestled the whole time through. So the first one, when I broke my jaw, [it was] one of those things where I didn’t think that my jaw was broken. It didn’t hurt. I didn’t even know what was going on and then they’re like, ‘Hey, you have this clean break in your jaw and you’re out.’ And I didn’t even know what to think.
“Fast forward however many months and I come back and everything’s good, I’m happy to be back, I’m excited. And then this happened. Again, one of those things — and if you watch the match, which I have several times, you can’t really tell that it happens. But there’s a part of the match where I go and I dive out of the ring onto Gabe Kidd and his back was turned to me, so kind of like fly over his back. And my arm goes kind of like over his shoulder and I guess I catch myself on the ramp. And when I did that, I guess it kind of like did this number [hyperextended] and that popped the tendon right there. It was a clean pop, like it was off the bone. But I didn’t feel it, that’s the weird thing. It’s crazy. Neither one of my injuries — they didn’t hurt.”
Though it wasn’t painful, Henry could see that he was injured and could feel his arm cramping. He finished the match before being evaluated backstage. After some initial hope that he would be fine, an MRI confirmed that Henry needed surgery.
Henry noted that, the day before the podcast was recorded, he did some light work in the ring for the first time since tearing his biceps.
“I got in the ring for the first time yesterday, just kind of playing around,” Henry said. “I just wanted to see what would happen with that. And nothing crazy, we were just kind of like doing some, you know, rolling around and chain wrestling and things like that. And it was fine, so realistically if I wanted to be in the ring right now and I was actually cleared, I’d be fine I think.”
Henry & JD Drake are tag team partners in AEW/ROH as The WorkHorsemen. The two are also aligned with Beef (the former Gnarls Garvin).
On AEW Unrestricted, the 41-year-old Henry said he believes he and Drake can hang with any tag team in the world. He wants to show everyone what they can do in the ring once they are both back in action. Henry mentioned Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson, and FTR as some of the people who have supported The WorkHorsemen backstage.
Henry had tweeted near the end of October that he was ahead of schedule in his recovery and was hoping that he could be cleared to return six weeks from then.
