AEW: Wardlow Suffered Injury, Kenny Omega Visa Issues, Changed Plans for Wed. Dynamite Show

Wardlow Reportedly Suffered Unknown Injury

Wardlow has been absent from AEW programming since his loss to Samoa Joe for the TNT Championship on AEW’s New Year’s Smash 2022 Dynamite special.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the reason for Wardlow’s recent absence from AEW is due to an injury-related issue. The nature nor severity of Warlow’s injury was not given but Meltzer reported that it is currently believed to not be a serious injury.

AEW officials reportedly currently do not expect Wardlow to be out of action for a long period of time.

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Kenny Omega Reportedly Dealing with Visa Issues

Kenny Omega reportedly is currently dealing with a work visa issue, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Fightful Select reported on Thursday that their sources stated that Omega’s recent absence from AEW television is due to a visa-related issue, which Meltzer’s sources also confirmed.

Meltzer reported that Omega has told others that he is currently hopeful of being able to resolve his visa issues in time for next week’s Dynamite show in Dayton, Ohio but that is currently not a lock.

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AEW Reportedly Made Several Changes to Their Plans for This Past Wednesday’s Dynamite Show

This past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Lexington, Kentucky featured the main event match between Mark Briscoe and Jay Lethal that was held in tribute to the late Jay Briscoe.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that AEW officials made several changes to their original plans for this past Wednesday’s show. It was reported that prior to this past Tuesday, AEW officials were under the belief that a tribute match for Briscoe would likely not be possible but had moved around several of their plans for the show to make it a reality.

Ring of Honor commentator Ian Riccaboni reportedly was booked on Tuesday to make an appearance on the show for the Briscoe tribute match and flew into Lexington just a few hours before the start of Wednesday’s show.

It was reported that AEW’s original plans were for the TNT Championship match of Buddy Matthews vs. Darby Allin (c) to main event the show but this was changed once AEW was able to get approval for the Briscoe tribute match. It was also reported that AEW officials also cut back on the amount of time previously allocated for the TNT title match in order to make room for the tribute match.

One source spoken to within AEW stated that they were impressed with how the company was able to provide enough time for Mark Briscoe and Jay Lethal to be able to hold their match in tribute without compromising any of the other stuff that had been originally planned for the show.

In regards to the general backstage reception, it was reported that those spoken to were very happy over how the show went down.