'Key Role' For Popular Talent & More Scrapped On AEW Dynamite

Further details have been revealed about All Elite Wrestling's "hectic" week of injuries.

Dave Meltzer has reported on Wrestling Observer Radio that multiple plans for the February 21 episode of Dynamite had to be changed. Jeff Hardy was planned for a "key role" on Dynamite but that was scrapped due to the broken nose he sustained on last week's Rampage. Trent Beretta was also reportedly scheduled to face his Best Friends faction mate Orange Cassidy but Trent was ill. Sting, meanwhile, was not in the building for Dynamite due to the recent passing of his father. Instead, he appeared in a pre-taped vignette with Darby Allin to address the death of his father.

"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; Sting was supposed to be there. And then they did whatever they did, we'll see if that leads into anything. There are a couple of 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, Jeff Hardy [injury], and Trent Beretta was supposed to do a singles match with Orange Cassidy. I have no idea why, but it's 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 basically today. And that's when they put Mike Bennett in that spot," Meltzer said.

"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 other things where if you don't know, you just advertise it, and then well, you didn't get cleared. So that's why so little was advertised compared to most. And the show had a disorganised feeling because it really was."

AEW did manage to put a two-hour show together but one of their top stars in Hangman Page sustained a suspected broken ankle in the main event.

H/T WrestlingNews.co