AEW: “Speedball” Mike Bailey on Origin of His “Speedball” Nickname, Shelton Benjamin on Kyle Fletcher Being “A Guy You Wanna Build Your Company Around”, More News

“Speedball” Mike Bailey Comments on Origin of His “Speedball” Nickname

A recent episode of the AEW Hey! (EW) show featured “Speedball” Mike Bailey as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Bailey’s thoughts on the origin of his “Speedball” nickname in wrestling.

“So the man who gave me the nickname was Michael Lacor Ryan. He has passed away. I don’t know if it’s from drug use or other reasons, but he was a writer. He wrote a lot about Montreal wrestling when I started wrestling, so he did a lot for the scene, and he gave me the nickname, and I kind of took it and ran. But also, from the IWS, which is the biggest independent promotion in Montreal, the promoter, who you may or may not know, is called PCP Crazy Manny and he was a big fan of the nickname. But I love the nickname, and again, it’s not Speedball after the drug combo, which is like a silly place to go immediately, right?”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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Shelton Benjamin Comments on Getting “Randy Orton Vibes” from Kyle Fletcher & Fletcher Being “A Guy You Wanna Build Your Company Around”

A recent episode of the HUGE POP! with Donnie DaSilva and Jimmy Korderas podcast featured Shelton Benjamin as the guest. One of the topics discussed included his thoughts about Kyle Fletcher being on the top of his list of people he would like to get in the ring with in AEW and his belief that Fletcher gives off “Randy Orton vibes” and is someone you can build your company round.

“Number one, Kyle Fletcher (is who I’d like to spend one-on-one time with because I see it in him). When I look at Kyle Fletcher, his work, his attitude and even how in the last few weeks… he’s kind of bulked up a little. He doesn’t look like a kid from two years ago. I get Randy Orton vibes from Kyle Fletcher. I think he has that kind of potential and my match with him only solidified that. So he’s number one on my this is a guy you wanna build your company around. Another guy… I’m a huge fan of him. I definitely think he needs to learn more American psychology but for what I’ve done with him, he was amazing. Komander. Komander has the ability to be the next Rey Mysterio, and he has an amazing story that I — again, these are some of my favorite guys to wrestle and when I work with ‘em, I was like, woah, this is really — and mind you, I think everyone has been great. Lio Rush set the tone for me. I can’t thank that kid enough because he set the tone for me and The Hurt Syndicate and I think, he’s another guy, he could probably — there’s some more psychology stuff that he could — but, he’s like right, right there. But yeah, number one on my list, Kyle Fletcher, easily.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

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AEW News & Notes

As noted before, PAC suffered an ankle-related injury during his match against Swerve Strickland at Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Baltimore, Maryland. During Saturday’s AEW Collision show in Springfield, Massachusetts, AEW confirmed that PAC had suffered an injury and will be out of action for the foreseeable future. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that PAC was recently seen in Jacksonville, Florida. Johnson reported that PAC likely was visiting the Jacksonville Jaguars/AEW medical team for medical tests for his injured ankle.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that AEW recently hired Andrew Lynch and Brandon Mazzei to backstage jobs. Lynch reportedly is helping head up AEW’s social media and digital department.

AEW reportedly drew an attendance of 7,921 for their April 6th AEW Dynasty event at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that AEW officials had made many changes to the match order lineup for their AEW Dynasty event leading up to the start of the show itself. Meltzer reported that Will Ospreay and Kevin Knight did not know beforehand that they were going to open the main card of the show until close to its start. Meltzer reported that the only match to not be affected was the AEW World Championship match between Swerve Strickland and Jon Moxley since that had always been planned to main event the show.

As noted before, the Young Bucks made their surprise return from their break at last week’s AEW Dynasty 2025 event in Philadelphia. Dave Meltzer reported that his sources stated that the Young Bucks did not arrive backstage until around 10PM EST that night for the show. Meltzer reported that the idea being if they arrived late enough, then word of them being backstage would not leak out. Meltzer also reported that the Young Bucks did not bother to disguise themselves backstage until around midnight ahead of their surprise return appearance on the show.

This past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Baltimore, Maryland featured The Opps defeating the Death Riders in a tag team match for the main event. Following the match, the Death Riders attacked HOOK leading to Claudio Castagnoli hitting a Neutralizer to HOOK onto a chair with its legs sticking out in the air. HOOK was seen afterwards clutching his stomach and throwing up in the ring. Dave Meltzer reported in Friday’s Daily Update that his sources stated that HOOK did not suffer a concussion to explain his throw up incident. No other details were given regarding why HOOK had thrown up in the ring afterwards.