Top AEW Star Secretly Suspended, WWE Warned About Contract Tampering, Major Changes To All Out – News Bulletin – August 25, 2022

AEW

A top AEW star was secretly suspended, WWE has been sent a warning about alleged contract tampering, major changes made to All Out, and more.

It’s Thursday morning and what better way to start the day than getting caught up on all the latest wrestling news (and boy, there’s a lot of it today) – I’m Liam Winnard for WrestleTalk.com, and this is our news bulletin for August 25, 2022.

Eddie Kingston Suspended By AEW

A lot has been made about the backstage issues going on in AEW recently, but what we didn’t know was that one of the promotion’s most popular stars, Eddie Kingston, had been suspended.

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer was first to report that Kingston had been suspended following a legitimate dispute backstage with Sammy Guevara. The suspension has already been served and is now over.

Kingston was said to have taken exception to something Guevara said about his appearance/physique in a promo taped on August 10 intended for the August 12 edition of Rampage, and Kingston confronted Guevara about it when he got backstage.

The promo actually ended up not airing on TV.

According to Fightful Select, it’s believed that Kingston “took a swing” at Guevara during the altercation.

When asked for a comment on the situation, Kingston told PWInsider:

“You know the truth. I wouldn’t lie. I was wrong for being unprofessional. That is the blind fact. He did what he did and the public can judge that but I know for a fact I was wrong.”

The status of the planned pay-per-view match between Kingston and Guevara is unclear, but it wasn’t officially announced during the rundown of the card on last night’s Dynamite.

The feud as a whole doesn’t appear to have been called off though, as evidenced by the fact Guevara and real-life wife Tay Melo have a match against Kingston’s allies Ortiz and Ruby Soho on Rampage this week.

PWInsider noted that Kingston is expected to be back next week.

Tony Khan Leads Mandatory AEW Talent Meeting

In the continuation of details on the backstage issues in AEW, there was a mandatory talent meeting led by Tony Khan ahead of last night’s Dynamite.

According to Fightful, Khan was “fired up” during the meeting, and the topics addressed included: “working as a team, the lines of communication, and who the talent can talk to if they have concerns”.

PWInsider added that Khan “broke down a lot of the new systems and structures recently implemented (such as the expansion of talent relations and development) and how they are in place to make things better for the talents”.

Other people who spoke during the meeting included Executive Vice Presidents Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, who “made it clear” their door is always open for anyone who has concerns.

Chris Jericho and Tony Schiavone also spoke in the meeting. You may recall Schiavone was recently appointed as AEW’s Senior Producer and Special Advisor to Talent. On a recent edition of the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Schiavone himself explained that his new role means he ‘walks around during the day and asks people how they’re doing and asks them if they’re happy, and if there’s anything AEW can do to make it better’.

Another big thing that was brought up were the recent allegations of ‘contract tampering’, after it emerged that a contracted AEW talent had told management that WWE had approached them about potentially signing them, which isn’t supposed to be allowed when they’re under contract with AEW.

Khan said in the meeting that, right before the meeting began, AEW’s Chief Legal Officer Megah Parekh sent an email to WWE co-CEOs Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon warning them not to tamper with talent. PWInsider described Parekh as “effectively #2 in the promotion’s hierarchy”.

Major Changes Made To AEW All Out

While the backstage happenings in AEW are very newsworthy, it turns out the actual show last night was just as interesting.

In a shock result, Jon Moxley dominantly beat CM Punk in about three minutes to become undisputed AEW World Champion. Punk had hinted in media interviews leading up to the match that he wasn’t 100% coming back from his injury, and his previously broken foot did play a big part in the story of the match.

Fightful reported that Jon Moxley was in favor of the match being held on Dynamite rather than saving it for All Out. One source even said it was Moxley’s idea and he’s the one that pitched it – the same source said Punk “eventually” agreed to it.

Interestingly, AEW has uploaded the full match to YouTube which is very rare.

However, after just getting rid of one interim championship, AEW will now have another.

It was announced that Thunder Rosa is out with an injury and will be unable to defend the AEW Women’s World Championship at All Out – the previously announced match was Rosa defending against Toni Storm, and it looked like the direction was that Britt Baker would be added to make it a three-way.

Well, with Rosa out, AEW will crown an interim champion at All Out in a four-way between Storm, Baker, Jamie Hayter and Hikaru Shida.

There have been rumors flying around that Rosa was also caught up in some backstage dispute issues recently, but nothing backed up by reliable sources as of yet.

One of those rumors was that Rosa had been suspended, which PWInsider reported there’s “zero truth” to, and the injury keeping her out of All Out is legitimate.

In other notes from Dynamite, Daniel Garcia had to make a decision whether to side with Chris Jericho or Bryan Danielson, and when all was said and done, Garcia shoved Jericho down and left through the babyface tunnel, but no ‘official’ decision was made.

After Jay Lethal beat Dax Harwood, a change was announced for the trios match at All Out which was set to be FTR & Wardlow vs Lethal, Satnam Singh & Sonjay Dutt. Instead of Lethal teaming with Singh and Dutt, he will now be teaming with the Motor City Machine Guns.

Ricky Starks cut an impassioned promo after his recent babyface turn, which garnered a response from WWE’s Happy Corbin, who tweeted: “Dude is money!” and a Bryan Cranston ‘mic drop’ gif.

In the show’s main event, which was Death Triangle vs Will Ospreay & Aussie Open, Kip Sabian – who has been in the crowd with a cardboard box on his head for months – finally ‘officially’ returned to AEW TV.

AEW had done a mini storyline on Dark recently where Sabian was in the crowd for international matches where Pac was defending his All-Atlantic Championship, and basically, Pac was getting annoyed that Sabian was following him around the world.

What happened on Dynamite last night was Pac unboxed the person sat in the crowd thinking it was Sabian, but it was actually a decoy so Sabian could attack Pac from behind.

Ospreay & Aussie Open won the match so they’ll face Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks in the semi-final of the Trios Championship tournament.

After everything that went down on Dynamite, the card for All Out is now as follows:

• Britt Baker vs. Hikaru Shida vs. Jamie Hayter vs. Toni Storm – Interim AEW Women’s World Championship
• Swerve In Our Glory (c) vs. The Acclaimed – AEW World Tag Team Championship
• TBD vs. TBD – AEW Trios Championship
• Christian Cage vs. Jungle Boy
• Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Ricky Starks
• Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Jericho
• Participants TBA – Casino Ladder Match
• FTR & Wardlow vs. Jay Lethal & Motor City Machine Guns

Other Stuff

In other little bits of news…

Mustafa Ali tweeted that it was the plan at one point for him to use Hulk Hogan’s iconic ‘Real American’ entrance music as part of a new gimmick.

New gameplay emerged for AEW Fight Forever from the Gamescom convention, confirming Paul Wight is in the game. William Regal featured as part of the tutorial but it isn’t known yet whether he’ll be a regular playable character as there was only a very small roster available for people trying the game since it was just a demo version.

John Morrison told NBC Sports Boston that, after WWE released his wife Taya Valkyrie (Franky Monet), he “didn’t want to be there anymore”, and he said there was a “litany of poor decision making” by the company.

Morrison also added there was a plan for him to feud with The Miz, but Miz missed a couple of weeks of Raw, which the reason for apparently isn’t public, and was then out even longer for Dancing With The Stars, so Morrison was left in limbo.

Andrew Zarian of the Wrestling Observer reported that there’s interest from people in WWE in bringing back former NXT North American Champion Bronson Reed (JONAH) after his impressive outings in the NJPW G1 Climax tournament.

And tickets for WWE Survivor Series 2022 on Saturday, November 26 at the TD Garden in Boston sold very quickly in pre-sale, so the belief is they will definitely sell out after Friday’s official on-sale.

Be sure to stay tuned to WrestleTalk.com throughout the day to keep up with all the news from the world of pro-wrestling, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning for another round-up.

Check out WrestleShop.com for all your favorite WrestleTalk merch, the WrestleTalk Magazine, wrestling shirts for grown-ups, and more!

• audio news bulletin
• eddie kingston
• tony khan
• AEW

Share this article with friends