AEW: Sting Suffers Injury, Tony Khan on Double or Nothing 2022 Plans, Killer Kross, News & Notes

AEW

May 26, 2022

Sting Suffers Leg Injury, Pulled from AEW’s Double or Nothing Fan Fest

AEW recently announced that they have pulled Sting from this Saturday’s AEW Double or Nothing Fan Fest Meet & Greet event in Las Vegas, Necada due to Sting suffering a leg injury during last week’s AEW Dynamite show in Houston, Texas.

It was announced that due to Sting’s injury, he has not been medically cleared to travel and had to be pulled from their upcoming Fan Fest as a result.

Due to injury last week, @Sting has not been cleared to travel & will unfortunately not be at this Saturday’s #AEWDoN Fan Fest Meet & Greets. For fans who purchased tickets to see #TheIcon, Watch your inbox for information on refunds
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) May 26, 2022

It is currently not known if Sting’s injury is legit or just for storyline purposes.

Tony Khan Comments on His Tentative Planning for Double or Nothing 2022

A recent episode of the Sports Media podcast had AEW CEO Tony Khan as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Khan’s tentative plans to delay the main event of AEW’s Double or Nothing 2022 event this Sunday should a potential Game 7 of Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat take place that same night. Khan stated that the inspiration for this idea came from the Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley boxing match in 2012 that was delayed for similar reasons at the time.

“It made sense that, not only for Pacquiao, who is a big Celtics fan, was watching the game, but also for the fans at home who might be trying to watch both events. Nowadays, a lot of people who are buying the event might pick up a UFC or AEW show — My good friend Dana White, I don’t know their business, I would imagine that, on a Saturday, if there’s a big college football game, they might get people buying that weren’t watching the prelims that come in for the big matches at the end of their big fights. I don’t think that’s type of AEW, but there is a chance now, ten years later, that the Heat and Celtics are going to have a Game 7 and this time, the big ticket in Vegas, instead of Pacquiao-Bradley, is going to be Double or Nothing 2022.
If there is a Game 7, I’ve actually planned ahead, it’s a scenario I was hoping wouldn’t play out, but it will payoff. We’re starting very early on west coast time. The pre-show (at AEW Revolution), there was a lot of action for free. You got three great matches and it was a good one-hour wrestling show and then we did our second biggest buyrate we’ve ever done. I promise, there will not be any long gap, I’m not going to hold it up, I planned to where we’re going to start a little later in terms of when the action is going to start and we have a little more in the window. I expect a total night of wrestling, it’ll be similar to Revolution, but I planned ahead in case there was a Game 7, I didn’t know it would be Heat and Celtics again, but I had a feeling I would go back to Vegas ten years later and it would be something similar. I hope one of these teams can finish it off. One of them, it would be great if they could end it in six games and it doesn’t come to where we need to take advantage of it, but I have put it in play to where we have later, we’ve never needed to take advantage of that before, going longer on pay-per-view. For the live fans, it’s very early and it’s similar to UFC and boxing do all the time as far as when they put the big fight in the ring. I’m not going to have a long gap, we have plenty of action, it’s going to be a great night. I promise, if there is a Game 7, a lot of the best action will be at the very end. There is so much on the card and I plan to leave a lot late, also, the show would start before Game 7, so there would be great action before the game and after. I’m trying to plan around it and the pay-per-view window. The Buy-In, will maybe not have as much action as the last show, but I plan to put more in the pay-per-view. It’ll be the same total amount of wrestling we’ve been doing.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

AEW Reportedly Had Plans for Killer Kross to be Wardlow’s Mystery Opponent

The May 4th episode of AEW Dynamite featured Wardlow facing off and defeating a mystery opponent, who was revealed to be Impact Wrestling talent W. Morrissey.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that AEW officials had originally held talks with Killer Kross over the potential idea of him being Wardlow’s mystery opponent. It was reported that both sides were unable to come to terms for a deal for Kross’ appearance which led to AEW contacting Impact Wrestling asking for W. Morrissey instead.

It was reported that AEW’s plans for Kross did not include Scarlett Bordeaux being booked for the show. This reportedly led to Kross being concerned that “his introduction to the AEW audience would mimic that of his WWE debut against Jeff Hardy as opposed to the successful NXT formula that helped lead him to two NXT Championships.”

AEW News & Notes

Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite in Las Vegas, Nevada featured the surprise appearances of New Japan Pro Wrestling talents Great-O-Khan and Jeff Cobb. Khan and Cobb made their surprise appearance during the ROH World Tag Team Championship match between FTR and Roppongi Vice causing the match to be thrown out after they attacked both teams. Following their attack, Khan and Cobb teased at wanting to go after FTR’s ROH World Tag Team titles as their reason for why they decided to show up.

WrestlingInc.com reported that Rey Fenix’s status for AEW and NJPW’s upcoming Forbidden Door event on June 26th is currently in doubt due to scheduling related issues. It was reported that Lucha Libre AAA recently announced that Fenix would be making an appearance for the company at their event that same day in Monterrey, Mexico.

AEW CEO Tony Khan recently announced on Twitter that members of the media who will be participating at AEW’s Double or Nothing 2022 post-show scrum will be allowed to stream and record the scrum onsite. Khan stated that AEW’s rule preventing outside recordings of AEW’s post-show scrums will be lifted going forward.

Sports clothing retailer Champs Sports announced that they recently signed a collaboration deal with AEW for the sale of AEW themed Diadora brand sneakers at their official website starting today. It was also announced that these special edition sneakers are being released in honor of this year’s Pride Month and the company will be donating $25,000 to The Trevor Project suicide prevention charity.