AEW: Ricky Starks & Swerve Strickland had Backstage Scuffle in 2022, Kyle O’Reilly Injury Update, Samoa Joe

Feb 5, 2023

Ricky Starks & Swerve Strickland Reportedly Had Backstage Scuffle in 2022

Besides the much publicized backstage fight incident between The Elite and CM Punk at AEW’s All Out 2022 event this past September and lesser incidents involving Andrade El Idolo with Sammy Guevara and some of AEW’s women’s locker room with Thunder Rosa, another notable incident reportedly took place backstage in AEW last year as well.

Fightful Select reported that Ricky Starks and Swerve Strickland also had a backstage scuffle last year. This incident was first mentioned on a recent episode of the Swerve City Podcast and revolved around an unplanned spot involving the two during the AEW World Tag Team Championship Three-way match at AEW’s Double or Nothing 2022 event.

It was reported that this unplanned spot involved Swerve attacking Starks after he had tried to pin Jungle Boy. Starks reportedly was originally planned to hit his finisher on someone but Strickland had nothing to do and thought it would be better to improvise something on the spot leading to him getting tossed out of the ring instead of just standing around and doing nothing.

This reportedly led to a physical scuffle between the two backstage following the match and AEW’s plans for a follow-up segment on Dynamite featuring the two being nixed as a result.

It was reported that both Starks and Strickland quickly buried this issue and hold no ill will towards each other over it to this day.

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 him suffering a neck-related and other injuries.

A recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio featured Adam Cole as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Cole providing an update on the status of his friend O’Reilly’s recovery from injury.

“I talk to him every day. He’s doing good. He’s doing really well. He’s in a situation now where he’s working so hard to make sure that he gets healthy as soon as he possibly can, but at the same time making sure that he doesn’t rush back. Kyle was really banged up and it got to a point where he kind of couldn’t take it anymore. I’m so glad that he got fixed and got healthy and is recovering day by day, every day. Early on in the process, I think he was so discouraged because there was so little that he was able to do, but now as time goes on and he’s starting to be able to do more and more in therapy and rehab, you see the excitement and wheels turning of him already thinking about how he can’t wait to get back. He’s in good spirits and he has a lot of people around him that love him a lot.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Samoa Joe Comments on His Releases from WWE & Considered Retirement Prior to AEW Signing

A recent episode of The Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast had Samoa Joe as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Joe’s thoughts on his releases from WWE in 2021, rehiring a couple months later, and second release in 2022.

“Being released from WWE the first time… I deign to say that initially, as I understand it, unconfirmed, there is issues between the two upper echelons in management and they were planning out their war with the careers and contracts of the people underneath them. So, after the initial one, I didn’t have much of a chance to grieve because essentially, I was hired back within hours.
And then the second time (I was released from WWE), I just kind of chuckled because I realized it was very much the same situation but at the same time, I wasn’t bitter or mad. The truth of it is… this is to really give WWE some credence I guess was that I was expensive. I was expensive to keep around and if cutting my contract, if they said that saved the company money, trust me, I believe it did so, I wasn’t hot about that. It was more of just the silliness of the situation, what they were doing and the reasoning why they were doing it but, which you can never officially confirm but I’ve heard from enough people, I have a pretty good idea of what went down, so including many of the people involved so, after that, I think I’d spent a day kind of pissed and like you said, more at the situation than the actual firing and then all these super awesome opportunities literally materialized out of nowhere.”

Joe also revealed that he had considered the idea of retiring from wrestling prior to his decision to sign with AEW.

“Oh, all the money they threw at me (Joe joked about why he was attracted to AEW). I mean, immediately threw all my morals away and — no.
I was legitimately thinking about hanging it up, for health reasons. You know, obviously still coming off the concussion and still dealing with the very hidden effects of that and getting back in the ring healthy and transitioning back to a physical state where it’s like, I could do something for a good period of time and not wanna pass out.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com