Kyle O’Reilly undergoes neck surgery
According to PWInsider on Friday, AEW sources confirmed Kyle O’Reilly recently underwent surgery but would not confirm the nature of it. O’Reilly recently posted on his Instagram Stories, implying that he underwent neck fusion surgery.
Malakai Black reportedly asks for his release
There has been a lot of talk over the last day about the status of Malakai Black. On Friday, reports surfaced that Black asked for his release from AEW, citing personal issues and his mental health, but that his release has not been granted.
PWInsider has indicated they can confirm sources close to Black have said there has been a personal situation weighing heavily on him and he has privately talked about taking a long, possible permanent break from professional wrestling, in order to deal with the issues. It was further noted how Black has been presented has weighed on him. It has been further said AEW does not want to create a precedent where talent who could potentially return to WWE gets a chance, but if something is wrong with Black’s mental or spiritual health, you don’t want to chance him or have someone else getting accidentally hurt, either.
Chris Jericho says “NXT Sucks”
Triple H had a recent interview with Ariel Helwani where he discussed AEW defeating NXT on Wednesday Night’s. Triple H said AEW defeated WWE’s “developmental” system, despite having constantly referring to NXT as the third brand.
In an interview with Inside the Ropes, published on September 2, Chris Jericho responded to Triple H’s comments about AEW, by saying that “NXT Sucks.” Jericho said the following
“Once again it is just changing the narrative and changing the history, which makes me laugh. Because when it started, it was not developmental, it was a third brand, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and all the other bullsh*t that they said, so of course we [AEW] beat the developmental or whatever you want to call it, but who gives a s—? It’s such old news, and the show sucks, NXT sucks, it’s not a good show, and they know it. Whether they were punished or not, they probably were punished. That’s probably why Triple H said those things because he is angry that we beat them, and he is probably angry that we exist. But you know, we don’t care about WWE, we care about our show, we care about putting on the best stories that we can put on, we care about building our fanbase and building our ratings. We will continue to exist and I will tell you this, my boss has a lot more money than his boss does. A lot more. So you want to go to that and, we are not going anywhere, we will continue to grow. That p—– them off and why wouldn’t it? They had a monopoly for so long and don’t like the fact that we exist and that’s fine. We don’t care that they exist, God bless them. They are running a show in front of 50,000 people, why would he care about us? But you know, he should, and he does, and that’s why he said those things.”