In news no one wants to hear, one AEW star is less than 100 percent, heading into a fairly important show.
And, when said AEW star is the company’s biggest star? Not good.
In case you have not guessed, the injured talent in question is AEW Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman.
The injury is not yet known. It’s possible that the injury isn’t even real, but just wrestlers being wrestlers…but there may be some truth to it.
As for the news itself, the champ shared the news on Twitter, ahead of his battle with Samoa Joe on Dynamite : Grand Slam.
Pardon me if I take the news with a heavy dose of skepticism, but as a lifelong wrestling fan…a wrestler being “injured” has been an exceptionally common theme.
Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not.
In the grand scheme of things, he may very well be injured. Plenty of talent wind up working banged up all the time.
As the AEW Champion, it seems likely that nothing would prevent MJF from defending on Grand Slam against Samoa Joe.
AEW Star Is Less Than 100 Percent
Part of me wants to say its just part of the storytelling. But part of me is willing to allow for it to be art imitating life.
After all, Friedman has been in some big matches lately. Having him come out of things a bit banged up is not so hard to imagine.
Why I say it is all part of a plan is the discussion of it on social media.
It sounds like part of the plan…it looks like part of the plan.
Meaning, I’d bet it probably is part of the plan, perhaps with just a touch of real life in it.
Either way, going into a big match on Dynamite at less than 100% is far from ideal.