Adam Cole pulled from NXT tour, has cast on right arm

Adam Cole’s reported arm injury could factor into the outcome of his NXT Championship defense against Matt Riddle on Wednesday.

On Wednesday’s edition of WWE NXT, Matt Riddle defeated Killian Dain in a street fight to become the No. 1 contender to Adam Cole’s NXT Championship. The two are scheduled to meet this Wednesday, October 2, in the full two-hour debut of NXT on USA Network.

But after Riddle’s defeat of Dain, Cole confronted Riddle, leading to the King of Bros putting Cole into an arm submission, hoping it would serve as a harbinger of things to come. And, it apparently has also injured the NXT Champion. Or “injured.”

But either way, Cole has been pulled from the currently-running NXT tour of the midwest, according to the Wrestling Observer. He is also sporting a cast on his right arm, which can be seen both in a video on WWE’s YouTube page and in a promo Cole cut on Twitter.

WWE also released an “official injury report” YouTube update on Cole earlier in the week, in which they revealed that Cole has a fracture in his right arm.

Cageside Seats’ Sean Rueter points out that Cole hasn’t appeared in a match since an August 24 house show, so it’s completely possible that Cole has been dealing with a legitimate injury that dates from before the attack by Riddle on Wednesday.

But it is equally as believable that, in an era in which WWE is trying to up the sports factor of its product, that this is an elaborate injury storyline created to build both interest in this week’s match as well as the possibility that Riddle could upset Cole and become NXT Champion.

It could also be a little of column A — Cole has been managing something relatively minor for the past month or so — and column B — that WWE and NXT want to build intrigue in Wednesday’s championship match ahead of what will be a pivotal night for the black and gold brand.

But most notably, there has been no indication that the match will be called off or that Cole won’t be able to participate. Either way, this is a clever and believable method for NXT to add intrigue to interest in what will be one of the company’s most important matches of the year.