AEW: Kyle O’Reilly Injury Update, Tony Khan on Mercedes Mone for Forbidden Door II, Orange Cassidy

Kyle O’Reilly Injury Status Update

As noted before, Kyle O’Reilly has been out of action for AEW since this past June due to a neck-related and other injuries.

A recent episode of the Barstool Rasslin’ podcast featured Adam Cole as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Cole providing an update on the status of O’Reilly’s recovery from his injuries.

“He’s doing good. He’s in good spirits, he’s on the right track. There is nothing that Kyle wants to do more than come back to work, especially now that Roderick Strong is here and things like that. Again, he is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met for sure. Everyone keep your fingers and toes crossed, Kyle’s doing awesome, he’s seeing great great progress and hopefully we’ll see him very very soon.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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Tony Khan on Potential of Mercedes Mone Appearing at Forbidden Door II

AEW CEO Tony Khan held a media call this past Thursday to promote this Sunday’s Double or Nothing 2023 event in Las Vegas, Nevada.

One of the topics discussed included Khan’s thoughts on if he currently has any potential plans for Mercedes Mone to make an appearance at AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling’s co-promoted Forbidden Door II event next month in Toronto, Canada.

“Going forward, it does make things interesting because nobody really knows, besides Mercedes and myself what was going to happen there and what the future would hold for her, whether that was competing exclusively for New Japan or potentially also whether she would be at Forbidden Door. Frankly, now, even going forward, I don’t think anybody but her knows when she’ll be ready to come back to the ring. I have so much respect for Mercedes and I think she’s been a great champion all over the world, including New Japan. She would have been a great first-ever STRONG Women’s Champion, but I think we have a great champion in Willow and we’ll look to utilize Willow in AEW and possibly ROH, and take advantage of that new beautiful belt she’s holding.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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Orange Cassidy Comments on Criticisms of His Work “Insulting Pro Wrestling”

A recent episode of the Casual Conversations with The Wrestling Classic podcast featured Orange Cassidy as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Cassidy’s thoughts about his match with NJPW’s Katsuyori Shibata this past November and the online criticisms of those who feel that his style of work is “insulting pro wrestling.”

“As you know, there are a lot of people that don’t care for me, that don’t care about what I’m doing, they don’t like what I’m doing, they don’t appreciate it. They think I’m insulting professional wrestling or whatever you wanna call it, and then there is a living legend and a phenomenal professional wrestler in (Katsuyori) Shibata. He said he wanted, on his return, because he actually almost died doing what he does in the ring and when he came back and was able to wrestle, he mentioned two people and one of them was Bryan Danielson and the other one was me and I don’t think people understand that. I never thought that a person of that stature would even consider me for something like that and it was truly an honor and I barely beat him. I was terrified because he is Shibata. But because of that, Shibata and I actually played Roulette last night so, we’re friends.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com