One long-absent AEW star is in New York City ahead of ROH Final Battle at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
Bandido has been out of action since suffering a broken wrist in a match against Konosuke Takeshita in June of 2023. The break required surgery, and the star underwent a second surgery last December.
Vignettes promoting the star’s return recently began airing on television, and now, Fightful Select reports that Bandido is in New York City ahead of ROH Final Battle and All Elite Wrestling tapings at the Hammerstein Ballroom. After a long battle with his injury, he’s been cleared to return to action and was recently backstage at a Dynamite taping. There is no confirmation on when exactly he’s planned to return to television.
Chris Jericho Encouraged Tony Khan To Sign Bandido To AEW
Bandido officially signed with AEW in November of 2022, and in a December 2022 edition of Talk is Jericho, Chris Jericho revealed that he encouraged Tony Khan to sign the star after they wrestled each other on Dynamite the previous September.
“Going out there with this guy and not knowing anything about him, he’s such a great flier and he has such power. He held me up for the standing Suplex, I think for like 60 seconds, and the blood was rushing to my head and I could barely hold on. He was so strong and when he finally brought me down, the people started going nuts.
That’s when we had them. We did a whole bunch of crazy stuff. I took the Hurricanrana off the apron, I took the jumping backwards Moonsault powerslam, and I took his German Suplex off the ropes. It’s one of those matches where everything was going too well.
I spun his mask around and had him tap out to the walls, and as soon as we got back through the curtain, I said to Tony (Khan), ‘We need to sign this guy.’ That’s what we did. It took a while to actually get him to commit, but man, we signed him and I see big things in the future for Bandido.” (h/t Fightful)
Chris Jericho is set to defend his ROH World Championship against Matt Cardona at Final Battle.