Ex-TNA Star Missed Major Career Opportunity After Breaking Leg During WWE 2K Work
Ex-TNA Star Missed Major Career Opportunity After Breaking Leg During WWE 2K Work
bibonsinhaFri, August 14, 2026 at 12:42 AM UTC
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Amazing Red was seemingly close to getting another big opportunity with WWE in 2016. However, a leg break accident during motion-capture work for the WWE 2K video game series changed his plans.
The former TNA star was set to compete in WWE’s first-ever Cruiserweight Classic. But just one week before the tournament started, Red suffered a serious leg injury while working on the video game.
Years later, Red has opened up about what happened. He also claimed that both WWE and 2K asked him to keep the injury private.
Amazing Red broke his leg while performing the spiral tap
The 2016 Cruiserweight Classic was a huge opportunity for wrestlers hoping to make a name for themselves in WWE. The 32-man tournament featured stars such as Zack Sabre Jr., Johnny Gargano, Cedric Alexander, Tommaso Ciampa, Mustafa Ali, and Kota Ibushi. Red believed the tournament could eventually help him earn a WWE contract.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Amazing Red recalled how excited he was to finally get a chance to show WWE what he could do.
“I’m super hyped. This is it. This is finally what this whole thing paid off for. I knew as soon as I stepped foot in any of these matches confidently like I’m getting signed,” Red said.
Around the same time, he received an invitation to work on motion-capture footage for a WWE 2K game.
Getting the chance to appear in a WWE video game was another dream for Amazing Red. Unfortunately, the experience ended up becoming a nightmare.
Red said the motion-capture work was much harder physically than he had expected. He compared it to wrestling several matches because the performers had to repeatedly perform moves, take bumps, and execute different versions of the same action.
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During the session, Red was asked to perform AJ Styles’ Spiral Tap several times. The move required him to jump from an elevated position and land on crash pads. After several attempts, Red said he was already exhausted. He even had a feeling that he should stop. But he was asked to do one more take.
That final attempt went badly.
“I go up there. There’s two crash pads, just for this jump, right? And in the middle of the crash pad, it connects. So I go up there. I’m like, all right. For some reason, I just jump, and everything just blacks out for me, and I don’t know where I’m at. So I just jump, instant darkness, and I hear this [snap]. I wake up, and I’m on the crash pads, and my leg is backwards. So what happened is that whatever flip I did, my one foot went in between the crash pads that connected, and I went the other way, and I heard the loudest [snap], but I didn’t feel nothing. So I’m there. I’m hanging out. I’m just laying down, and everyone’s looking at me. And Low Ki screams at the top of his lungs, ‘Is anybody gonna effing help him? He broke his leg!’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, call somebody!’ Then everybody started panicking. Once he said that, when he took my leg out, it was backwards. Once I saw that, instant pain, heat everywhere, all of my body, and then I started screaming,” Red said.
The injury was especially painful for Red because he believed the Cruiserweight Classic could finally lead to a WWE contract.
“I remember that at this point I think I was cursing God out, and I blamed it on him, and I was like, why don’t you want me to make it? Why don’t you want me to be great? All this stuff I did, paid my dues. I helped so many House of Glory guys. We gave them superstars to wrestle, and I felt like not in a genie kind of way, but in a way where it was like, man, I did all this good stuff, and I felt like this was my time. Why not now? Why do this to me now?” Red said.
Red also claimed that both 2K and WWE asked him not to speak publicly about the accident. He added that WWE executive Canyon Ceman told him that another opportunity could come his way. He was reportedly told that he could be involved if there was a second season of the Cruiserweight Classic. However, that opportunity never came.
“The week after. 2K told me to be quiet about it, WWE told me to be quiet about it. He [Canyon Ceman] said, ‘Don’t worry because we’re gonna plan to do a season two and you’ll be right on board for it.’ Ain’t no season two, I think it ended up being 205 Live, which I never got a call for either,” Red said.
At the time, the injury felt like another major setback in his wrestling career. Looking back now, though, Red sees things differently. He explained that the injury eventually brought him closer to his family and faith. After undergoing surgery, he spent more time focusing on school and helping younger wrestlers.
Read More: Former TNA Star Admits He Blamed CM Punk For Ruining His WWE Opportunity
The post Ex-TNA Star Missed Major Career Opportunity After Breaking Leg During WWE 2K Work appeared first on Wrestlezone.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
