AEW: Tony Khan Debunks Invalid Tag Titles Change, Dustin Rhodes Illness, Jim Ross on Commentary Hours Change

Tony Khan Debunks Rumors Over AEW Tag Team Titles Change Being Invalid

This past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite Fyter Fest 2022 Week 1 special featured an AEW World Tag Team Championship Triple or Nothing match, which was won by Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee.

Following the show, WrestleInc.com reported that they believed Strickland and Lee’s title win was not valid due to the ref had counted Strickland’s pin of Ricky Starks to end the match despite him not being the legal man. It was reported that they speculated this could have either been a mistake by the referee or something done on purpose to setup a future rematch.

AEW CEO Tony Khan recently responded on Twitter stating that any rumors or speculation of Strickland and Lee’s tag team title win being invalid is not true. Khan stated that AEW’s rules state that the referee’s decision is final for all matches in the company.

That speculation’s BS!
As always in @AEW + per generally accepted pro wrestling practices:
the referee’s decision is FINAL!

Congratulations to the new World Tag Team Champions@swerveconfident & @RealKeithLee!

See you all for Friday #AEWRampage
TOMORROW
@ 10pm ET/9pm CT/10pm PT https://t.co/rBSOhRN3Rf

— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) July 15, 2022

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Dustin Rhodes Missed Fyter Fest Week 1 Due to Illness

Prior to the start of this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite Fyter Fest Week 1 show, Dustin Rhodes announced on Twitter that he did not travel for the show nor would he be making any sort of appearance due to him recently falling very ill.

Not at #AEWDynamite #FyterFest tonight as I am super sick at home. Y’all tune in to @TBSNetwork at 8/7 central. @AEW

— Dustin Rhodes (@dustinrhodes) July 13, 2022

While responding to a fan question on Twitter, Rhodes stated that he believes he might have contracted COVID-19 again due to the similar symptoms he was experiencing.

Think it is. Feel like last time I got

— Dustin Rhodes (@dustinrhodes) July 13, 2022

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Jim Ross Comments on Reason for Why AEW Recently Changed His Commentary Hours for Shows

A recent episode of the Grilling JR podcast had co-host Jim Ross discuss a variety of wrestling related topics. One topic discussed included Ross revealing the reason why AEW recently made changes to his commentary hours schedule was to help provide a ratings boost for Rampage and the latter half of Dynamite shows.

“That was a Tony Khan decision. Creatively, I was coming out before the show and doing all of Dynamite. The reception was humbling, fans were glad to see me and they expressed themselves. The reception I was getting was really good. He thought the middle of the show, Dynamite, needed a boost. So JR became the booster. I come out in the middle of the show, still going to call the main events. Then we all take a bathroom break and go right into taping Rampage. It’s only an hour, it’s kind of like an old school hour wrestling show. I like that deal. I didn’t have any issues with at all. I’m very Mariano Rivera, go in for long relief and get results for you. That’s the deal there. Just keeping me fresh and ‘special,’ and try to give Rampage a little boost commentary wise, selling wise. We need to, obviously, get the ratings up, which we are. That’s the reason for that. No problem whatsoever. I get more exposure now than I did before.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com