


This was something Britt Baker couldn’t magically will to be better as she watched long-time boyfriend Adam Cole go through one of the most “terrifying” times of his life and career.
Cole, 33, spent the past six-plus months working his way back from the severe effects of two head injuries in about a three-month span.
He suffered the second during a triple-threat match for the IWGP world heavyweight title at the Forbidden Door pay-per-view in June and wasn’t seen on AEW TV again until his surprise return at the Kia Forum in January.
“All I could do was be there for him,” said Baker, a former AEW women’s world champion and a real life dentist. “I’m a fixer. I like to try to fix things, solve the problems. This was just something where we had to wait and as impatient as I felt the whole time I had to just put on a front like everything was gonna be OK no matter what happened and that was really, really hard. That was one of the hardest things I even seen him go through.”
There was even a few weeks where it was uncertain if Cole would ever wrestling again.
Baker called that time “really scary” because pro wrestling is all Cole knows, having skipped college to start training.
When Cole returned he talked about constantly going through tests, having headaches, dizzy spells, often vomiting if spending more than 15 minutes in a car and his heart racing as he had trouble sleeping at night.
“Dealing with very bad head injuries there are so many factors,” Baker said. “There’s anxiety and panic attacks and nausea and miserable headaches. When you have that on top of, ‘Am I going to be able to do the only thing I truly love doing for the rest of my life,’ I mean that was really hard.”
Baker said most fans didn’t know how seriously Cole had been hurt or that he was even injured at all. She said she would be at autograph signings and fans would be asking where Cole was.
Mostly during that time he was homebound because he was unable to fly or go for extended car rides and was going for brain therapy.
“As sad as it sounds, he didn’t want to leave home,” Baker said. “He just wanted to stay home where he knew he was safe and it was like his safe space. I didn’t even try to pressure him to test the limits.”
Cole and Baker did push their limits about how open they are about their lives outside wrestling in the new one-hour “AEW” All Access” show that will debut in March after Dynamite.
It will also coincide with Cole’s return to the ring against an opponent to still be announced.
The follow-doc will also feature the likes of The Young Bucks, Eddie Kingston, Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo.
Baker said she and Cole filmed a lot for it.
The show caught up with them about halfway through his recovery journey.
She believe it will give fans a “new taste of who he is as a human being, who he is as a wrestler and everything he’s gone through”
“For him, it was really different because it was telling such deep personal war that you’re going through,” Baker said. “I was really surprised. He’s a really private guy and there are a lot of people that really don’t know much about him outside Adam Cole ‘Bay, Bay.'”
A lot of the process was celebrating the small victories that slowly made a return to the ring for Cole possible.
That included being able to drive in car again, fly and regaining full peripheral vision in one of his eyes.
“It was things that you really take for granted but when you are on this type of a very intense road to recovery you have to take those little victories and celebrate like you just won the Super Bowl,” Baker said.
She is excited for fans and even the “trolls on Twitter” who “just need to shut the hell up” to get an honest look at AEW and the lives of the wrestlers through the show.
“I’m really excited for the fan to see it just so they can get such a realistic taste of how scary professional wrestling is,” Baker said. “It’s not just lights camera action.”