Ricky Starks looks insanely jacked amidst his strange AEW absence; WWE legend reacts
Former AEW World Tag Team Champion Ricky Starks has been absent from Tony Khan's promotion for some time now. During his time away from the ring, the 34-year-old pushed himself hard in the gym and is now looking completely jacked in a photo he recently posted. Even WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry seems impressed with Ricky's new physique.
Ricky Starks and his tag team partner, Big Bill, lost the AEW World Tag Team Championship to Sting and Darby Allin on the February 7, 2024, episode of Dynamite. The duo locked horns with Top Flight (Dante and Darius Martin) in the AEW World Tag Team Title Tournament Quarter Final on the March 30, 2024, edition of Collison in a losing cause. This was the last time Stroke Daddy was seen on AEW's TV programming.
Amid his absence from the Jacksonville-based promotion, the former FTW Champion recently took to X (Twitter) to post a mirror selfie. In the photo, he looks quite shredded.
"IG saw it first," he wrote.
The post caught Mark Henry's attention, and the former AEW star reacted by saying:
"OK, I see you!"
Why did Ricky Starks split up with Big Bill?
In a recent edition of Fightful Select's Q&A session, Sean Ross Sapp opened up about Ricky Starks and Big Bill parting ways as a tag team in the Jacksonville-based promotion.
The journalist stated that the two stars wanted to focus on their respective singles careers in the company after losing the AEW World Tag Team Title to The Icon and Darby Allin earlier this year.
“I’m sure we’ll see Ricky [Starks] in AEW again. I know that both of these men [Big Bill and Ricky Starks] were ready to move on from this team as soon as they lost the tag title. I don’t even know; I don’t wanna say they did or didn’t want to do the tag tournament as well, but I know that both guys are ready to move on. Nothing against one another that I’ve heard; it’s just that I don’t think that either one really wanted to do that,” he said.
Following the end of his partnership with Stroke Daddy, Big Bill joined Chris Jericho's faction, The Learning Tree. It will be interesting to see if the Absolute star returns to AEW TV in the coming weeks.