Backstage Reaction to Satnam Singh’s AEW Debut & Dynamite Ending

This past Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite featured the official AEW debut of Satnam Singh. Following the end of the ROH World Television Championship match between Samoa Joe and Minoru Suzuki, Singh made his surprise debut alongside Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt and proceeded to attack Joe to close out the show. Following the show, the general online reception was one of flatness and underwhelming over Singh’s debut and ending to the show.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that the general backstage reaction to Singh’s debut was similar to the online reaction after the show. Several talent spoken to stated that they felt Singh’s debut could have been executed better but still viewed it as a positive business decision to help the company in India. Those same talents spoken to stated that they felt doing the lights off and back on strategy for an unknown talent’s debut “isn’t optimal” and should have been done another way instead for his debut.

It was also reported that while Singh might be relatively unknown to fans, he has been known to members of AEW’s locker room for some time. Those spoken to stated that they have been aware of how hard he has been training and praised his work ethic, positive attitude, and willingness to learn. One person spoken to stated that Singh has been training daily for the past eight months and “has some tricks up his sleeve that will surprise some people.”

Besides AEW’s locker room, AEW CEO Tony Khan stated in a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio that he also felt that Singh’s debut could have been handled better.

“I could have done it better [Satnam Singh’s AEW debut]. It’s like — it’s one of those things, I wish I had done it a little differently because the fans are always gonna be right so if the fans don’t like something, sometimes there’s some things about it that where you’re trying to get heat which this was a trying to get heat situation, people aren’t always gonna love it. But there were things about it I probably should have done differently now I see in hindsight and to be honest, it wasn’t my idea to turn the lights out. But I am the ultimate filter, I am the person who everything goes through. I put the outline of the show together and I came in Wednesday, I thought it was the best outline I’ve ever put together, one of them at least. As much strong wrestling as you could possibly fit into the program and I thought up until that point, the show was excellent and that was the one thing we went off on. People might not have liked it. Satnam’s an important person for us, it was important to debut him in a meaningful way and to show that with Jay Lethal, he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. At the same time, turning the lights out for somebody people didn’t recognize, it’s a great point and to be honest, when — well the person who brought up turning the lights off has over 30 years of experience in pro wrestling and when they brought it up to me, I was only looking at the pros and I should have thought about the cons because that is my job as the person who decides what goes in and who filters out these ideas. We had all these people in the room and somehow not one person, when that idea came up, brought out the negatives and then when we did it, all of a sudden, all of the negatives were very obvious. So, look, if I list — I’m not gonna say who it was and I don’t need to list all the credentials. Mark [Henry] included all the great wrestling people around me and in the production meeting but you know, it was a lot of veteran people and to be honest, nobody said that but then when it happened, I agreed with the fans completely.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com