Chris Jericho has mentioned that AEW has been told not to have any more surprise debuts on their show as TNT want to publicise them beforehand.
Jericho was talking to Christian Cage on his Talk Is Jericho podcast about Cage’s recent arrival in AEW. Cage himself was a surprise but a ‘hall of fame worthy’ debut was promised at AEW Revolution in February.
The announcement of that debut was made by another new face in the company, Paul Wight. Wight signing with the company in a shock move and his debut were both advertised in advance.
According to Jericho, this is a directive handed down to the company from the network that airs AEW Dynamite, TNT. Jericho noted that it was the surprise return to wrestling of ‘The Icon’ Sting that was the catalyst for this change.
Chris Jericho told Cage:
“I know when Sting was a surprise and the network was like ‘don’t do that again’. That’s why Paul Wight was announced on social media because TNT said we don’t want surprises, we want to take advantage of the rating. So I think we had a big surprise then we had a big announcement and we used that big announcement to announce the next big surprise.”
Sting arrived unannounced in AEW on the December 2nd ‘Winter Is Coming’ edition of Dynamite. The WWE Hall Of Famer last appeared on TNT in 2001 as part of WCW’s last ever match on Nitro.
Sting appeared in AEW to assist Darby Allin and Cody Rhodes when they were attacked by Team Taz. This led to Sting’s first wrestling match since losing to Seth Rollins in WWE in 2015. A Street Fight between himself and Allin against Brian Cage and Ricky Starks.
Sting and Allin won the cinematically filmed match at Revolution when Sting finished off Starks with a Scorpion Death Drop.
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