AEW: Bandido Yet to Sign Contract, Jeff Hardy Update, Backstage Reaction to Andrade & Guevara’s Fight

Bandido AEW Contract Status Update

As noted before, Bandido is currently believed to have signed an official contract with AEW. AEW had offered a deal to Bandido following his match against Chris Jericho for the ROH World Championship during last week’s AEW Dynamite show.

Mas Lucha held a recent interview with Bandido. One of the topics discussed included Bandido revealing that he has yet to sign an official contract with AEW but is currently in talks with the company. Bandido also stated that he recently also received an offer from WWE for a potential deal with them instead.

English translation via F4WOnline.com

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Jeff Hardy DUI Arrest Update

As noted before, Jeff Hardy was arrested this past June in Volusia County, Florida following a drunk driving incident. Hardy has been out of action for AEW since that time due to his current suspension over his DUI arrest.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Hardy has a pre-trial hearing for his DUI-related charges in Florida currently scheduled to take place on October 19th. Johnson reported that this trial was originally scheduled to be held this past July but Hardy had waived his rights to a speedy trial at the time.

In regards to his AEW status, Johnson reported that his sources stated that Hardy still remains in the company but his suspension is currently not expected to be lifted until after his legal issues are resolved and he shows that he can maintain sobriety.

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Backstage Reaction to Andrade & Sammy Guevara Backstage Altercation Incident

As noted before, Andrade El Idolo and Sammy Guevara were involved in a backstage altercation incident prior to the start of this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show. This incident resulted in Andrade’s scheduled match for Friday’s Rampage show being called off and him being sent home while Guevara was allowed to stay and competed in his advertised tag team match for the main event.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that several staff and talent spoken to stated that they are under the belief that this was not a worked incident and instead a real fight but also were not entirely certain about it.

One veteran talent spoken to reportedly stated that they believed that if the recent tweets and comments made by Andrade and Guevara were meant to be a work, then it was a bad one since it involved mentioning that wrestling was not real and defeated the purpose of doing a storyline between the two.

Another talent spoken to reportedly stated that they were frustrated over the way things had played out regardless if it was a work or not since it painted a poor picture of AEW’s locker room.

It was reported that prior to the incident, AEW’s locker room had been more cohesive following the backstage fight involving CM Punk at All Out 2022 this past September.

Another talent spoken to reportedly stated that they viewed Andrade and Guevara’s backstage fight as being disrespectful to the recent work by Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, and Bryan Danielson trying to improve AEW’s backstage locker room issues.

Several other talents spoken to reportedly were of the view of “if it doesn’t involve me, I’m not going to pay attention to it or concern myself with it.” These talents reportedly also stated that AEW’s locker room had been more cohesive in recent weeks.