Willow Nightingale Opens Up About AC Sprain That Took Her Out Of AEW Owen Hart Cup Tournament

The injury prevented Willow Nightingale from competing in the tournament.

Willow Nightingale had been scheduled to compete in the 2026 women’s Owen Hart Foundation tournament, but due to injury, she had to be pulled, and she relinquished the TBS Championship.

Nightingale returned to in-ring action in July and earned a shot at the AEW Women’s World Title. She got her title shot at the Redemption pay-per-view and bested Thekla to capture the title.

At the post-event media scrum, Nightingale told Fightful’s Joel Pearl about not being able to compete in the Owen and shared that the injury was an AC sprain.

“For transparency’s sake, I had an AC sprain, which is something that I have experienced in my other shoulder a few times, and it wasn’t as bad. So, in my head, I think that’s also why I was like, ‘I’ll be good for Double or Nothing!’ But an AC sprain, an AC injury is also something — I mean, I don’t know if what I’m gonna say is gonna violate HIPAA or anything,” she laughed. “One of my good friends who works here had an AC injury and they had to get surgery and were out for like months and months and months. So, it is, depending on the grade or the severity of it, something that could be, ‘Alright, you’re out for a few weeks’ or, ‘You’re out for almost a whole year,’ and ultimately, even if I get to a place where I’m like, I’m feeling better as a human being, cleaning my house, or driving, because I had to drive home after I hurt it. That was terrible. I was like, ‘Um, I’m convinced I can drive back from Maryland to New York’ which is like a five-hour drive. I’m like, ‘I can do that.’ I got like 30 minutes in and I was like, ‘I have to get a hotel right now. This is impossible.’ So, it was really just kind of like, how do we get to wrestling? How do we rehab this and make sure we’re good for this? And we were really fortunate where it wasn’t the level of my friend who needed surgery. But it was kind of one of those, like, we’ll play it by ear and see how it goes but, there’s no way you’re gonna be able to do the Owen (Hart Cup). For me, I was like, ‘If I’m TBS Champ, I wanna be defending this whenever an opportunity comes up, whenever there’s a challenger.’ I was like, ‘If I can’t do that, I shouldn’t be champion.’ But, things went well fortunately, and so, I was like, if the opportunity’s there, get me back in. I want it. I want to be there, and I missed the Owen, so this is my chance to get to All In and… here we are. Here we are, almost. I was like, we’re a month away,” Nightingale smiled. “August 30th…”

Nightingale is scheduled to defend the AEW Women’s World Championship against Mercedes Moné at All In 2026.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit Fightful for the transcription.