NJPW’s Robbie Eagles appeared on Keepin It Strong Style for an in-depth conversation about his career, where the Aussie star revealed a minor injury he sustained during a recent showdown with Claudio Castagnoli on ROH TV.
Eagles battled the Swiss-Superman on the May 4th episode of ROH TV in a losing effort. He says during the interview that he nearly tore his AC joint and had to go into the Best of the Super Juniors tournament slightly banged up.
I just want to point out that I started with tape in the tournament, and then I progressed down to no tape… and that was a mental strategy because I could tell people were eyeing up my shoulder and being like ‘Something’s not right with Robbie on that shoulder.’ They’re correct because I wrestled Claudio Castagnoli for Ring of Honor about a week before I went to Super Juniors, and I actually almost tore my AC joint, so I had a pretty bad injury going into Super Juniors.
Eagles states that he had a team of physiotherapists help rehab his shoulder before the BOSJ tournament and he was able to compete without a problem. He adds that he even used his shoulder being hurt to get inside the minds of his opponents.
I was like, I might have to tap out of the tournament, but physiotherapists in Australia were great, and the trainers in New Japan taped up nice enough, and then it was almost like subterfuge, like I was goading people into thinking that my shoulder was worse than it was. By match three, there was no tape, and people were trying to, ‘Oh, is he still hurt? Should I go after his shoulder? What should I do?’ So it made them start second-guessing their own strategy. So I’m just pulling back the curtain for you a little bit there.
Master Wato would go on to win the 2023 BOSJ tournament. Check out Eagles’ full interview here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)