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Recent AEW Dynamite “Very Chaotic Backstage”

Posted: Feb 23rd 2024 By: Alex Hunt - ITRWrestling.com

AEW had to deal with a number of last-minute changes at a recent Dynamite taping.

Compared to previous line-ups of Dynamite, the February 21st broadcast was more sparse with their announced matches ahead of time. With a 6-man tag featuring the top contenders, Blackpool Combat Club vs. FTR and 2 women’s matches announced ahead of time, the line-up lacked that big angle or match. According to a recent report and a social media address from Tony Khan, there is a reason for this.

Due to a number of unfortunate circumstances, many names were unable to be a part of the show. Firstly, everyone at Inside The Ropes would like to send condolences to the family and friends of Sting, who announced that his father recently passed away. Sting did not appear live on Dynamite, instead appearing in a pre-taped promo with Darby Allin.

Other absences include Trent Beretta, who was sent home due to illness and Jeff Hardy, who suffered an injury scare on the February 16th broadcast of AEW Rampage. Khan provided an update on the day of Dynamite, noting that it had been “one of the most hectic weeks for injuries + unexpected unavailability that I can recall in AEW, especially since the pandemic era.”

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that a lot of segments were changed due to unforeseen absences:

By the way, there’s a lot of stuff on the show tonight for various reasons. Sting was supposed to be in the show, but his father died, which we’ll get into in a second. So that’s why Ric Flair was there because Sting was supposed to be there. And then they did whatever they did, we’ll see if that leads in to anything.

There are a couple other people. Jeff Hardy was supposed to be on the show in a key role. One of the reasons that so little was announced was because they didn’t know if Sting would be able to come, the Jeff Hardy [injury], and Trent Beretta was supposed to do singles match with Orange Cassidy. I have no idea why, but it had been built up.

[It was] Not announced, because they announced that Trent Beretta was injured and they had done an injury thing on the show. But he was actually ill. And they were waiting until, you know, basically today. And that’s when they put Mike Bennett in that spot.

Meltzer continued, noting that the AEW Dynamite taping was chaotic backstage and the lack of announcements was due to the promotion not wanting to falsely advertise something that they knew they could not deliver:

I was told that it was very chaotic backstage, and the reason they didn’t announce anything is because so much of what they wanted to do, they didn’t know if they’d be able to do. So they didn’t want to false advertise unlike, you know, other things where if you don’t know, you just advertise it, and then well, you didn’t get cleared. So that’s why like so little was advertised compared to most. And the show had a disorganised feeling because it really was.

Major Injury Scare On AEW Dynamite

One of the pre-advertised matches that took place on the show was a 6-man tag team match that saw World Champion Samoa Joe team up with Swerve Strickland and Brian Cage to face the trio of Adam Page, Rob Van Dam and Hook. Unfortunately, Adam Page did not complete the match unscathed and is suspected to have suffered a major injury, putting his involvement in the title match at Revolution in doubt.