AEW: Britt Baker Injury Update, Tony Khan on Wrestling World Cup Idea, Willow Nightingale

Britt Baker Injury Status Update

As noted before, Britt Baker recently suffered an unknown injury resulting in her removal from her scheduled three-way match on Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show. Despite her injury, Baker still made an appearance on the show distracting Toni Storm and helping Ruby Soho win her match.

Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that while the exact nature of Baker’s injury was not revealed by his sources, it was stated to not be a serious injury. Those spoken to reportedly stated that Baker could have worked at last night’s Dynamite show but AEW officials made the decision to not risk any potential further damage to Baker’s injury.

AEW officials reportedly currently do not expect Baker to be out of action for any length of time.

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Tony Khan Comments on His Interest in Wrestling World Cup Idea

As noted before, New Japan Pro Wrestling talent Kazuchika Okada stated in a recent interview with Tokyo Sports that he is interested in the idea of NJPW holding a wrestling world cup type event with other promotions around the world.

A recent episode of the Battleground podcast featured AEW CEO Tony Khan as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Khan’s thoughts on his interest in the idea of a Wrestling World Cup event and being open to working with anyone to make it a reality in the future.

“I’ve got experience working with different promotions and promoting angles, matches, and storylines across different companies. It can be challenging, but we came together with New Japan Pro Wrestling to put on, I think, the best pay-per-view of the year last year Forbidden Door. There are challenges to putting on an event like that, and getting the matches set, but it’s certainly something I would be open to. I’m open to working with anybody in pro wrestling. You never know.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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Willow Nightingale Comments on Reception to Women’s Street Fight Match

A recent episode of The Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast featured Willow Nightingale as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Nightingale’s thoughts on her women’s Street Fight match with Ruby Soho against Tay Melo and Anna Jay on the January 13th AEW Rampage show.

“Very emotional. The toughest part for me, is that I like to uphold my work and what I do in a wrestling ring to a certain standard. That includes the way I execute moves, the safety of my opponents, and generally if I feel like it clicked. How it flowed, did it feel right? At the end of the match, I definitely knew that it was something very special. Obviously, Ruby was bleeding like crazy. I looked at her and was like, ‘You look awesome,’ right in the middle of the match. I am like, ‘What a badass.’ Then, the table spot with Anna. That has been a big thing. Before getting anybody’s response to it, it was a thing where, when I walked back through the curtain, I was immediately like, ‘Where is Anna? Is she okay?’ She was like, ‘I’m fine. I’m going to the doctor right now, they have to check me out, but I’m okay.’ ‘Are you sure?’ Checking with everyone else, talking to our producer and they take us back and stuff. Those were the two things I was most worried about. It left me very emotional because I felt like I was just worried about the other people I was in the ring with and I don’t think that I had upheld the elements that I expect from myself.

Anytime I’m on Rampage, there is a second wave of anxiety that hits. Yes, there is the show day chaos and you’re wrapped up in everything you’re doing, but before you go out, you get the butterflies. ‘It’s showtime, time do the thing, I don’t know how it’s going to be,’ and then it’s over. Then, you have to wait two more days to wait and see how everybody reacts and it’s gut wrenching, ‘what’s the response?’ That’s a different nerve.”

Nightingale also gave her thoughts about the negative criticisms from some people online over their view that women should not be bleeding during wrestling matches.

“We are honestly all very excited to be given the opportunity to do something like this. Anna and Tay have already done this a year ago on television. They had a lot of fun with it. There are limits on how grotesque it’s allowed to be. I can only speak from my experience, I don’t know if this is the case with other matches, other tag matches, men’s wrestling, I don’t know what those conversations are like. I only know the conversation we had. For us, it was one person from each team was allowed to bleed. We all wanted to get our hands dirty and do crazy stuff, but it was ‘we can’t go overboard.’ ‘Okay, understood.’ We didn’t have to worry about it because Ruby bled enough for everybody. I thought it was awesome. I thought she looked killer, she thought she looked great. She had to get stitched up after. I held her hand as they injected everything. ‘Oh my God, you’re so tough.’ We were really excited about everything. I think if people are getting their panties in their bunch about it, that’s the least of your concern. We bleed every single month, nobody talks about that. I’m sure if that had happened, people would make a big deal about that. If someone were to bleed through their gear. We bleed the same as men do. We take the same bumps, we’re at the same risk as they are. I don’t understand why there has to be a double standard about physically seeing blood.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com