Professional wrestlers sacrifice a lot to get where they want to be, but for AEW’s Stephen Borden, he literally sacrificed his entire life to follow in his father Sting’s footsteps. Borden is only a year into his wrestling career originally set to debut in October 2025but with the help of Darby Allyn, he’s already made the jump to AEW’s main roster. However, in the latest edition of “AEW Close-up,” Borden detailed the life he left behind to become a full-time wrestler.
“I was running a sports technology company for a long time and we were growing pretty fast and I wasn’t running away from wrestling again for that long. So, obviously, I wasn’t planning on feeling the pull, but when I got pulled over, it was probably the worst moment, if you just look at my life objectively. And I was talking on the way to Blood and Guts in Greensboro, I was telling him it was killing me, like I was working 80-90 hours a week and I just realized I couldn’t be good at both and I just walked away from it.
Since then, Borden has learned the hard way what it means to be a top AEW performer, as at AEW All Out 2026. he suffered a severe concussion this forced him and Darby’s match with Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight to end. However, he has since made a full recovery and is doing very wellalthough at the time of writing there is no word on when he will return to the ring to continue what is shaping up to be a promising career.
Please credit “AEW Close-Up” when using quotes from this article and give H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.