Top AEW star's serious injury and Eddie Kingston's demand to Tony Khan force major change - Report
AEW star Eddie Kingston is currently taking part in the annual G1 Climax tournament for NJPW, but his desire to compete in Japan, combined with a serious injury to someone else, forced Tony Khan to make a big change to an upcoming title match.
Over the past few weeks on Ring of Honor TV, people have been curious as to who would challenge Claudio Castagnoli for the ROH World Championship due to Eddie Kingston being in Japan for the Death Before Dishonor event on July 21st.
The challenge to face Claudio was answered by ROH legend Mark Briscoe, who wanted to win the first singles world title of his career in honor of his late brother Jay. However, Mark has since been forced to pull out of the bout due to a series of injuries that have deemed him medically unclear to step into the ring.
Instead, PAC will be the man to take on Claudio Castagnoli at Death Before Dishonor, a decision that Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio was very last minute due to Kingston's commitments and Briscoe's injury.
“That’s very short notice but Tony Khan went through the whole thing. I mean the original opponent was Eddie Kingston, then it was Mark Briscoe, and this is how it ended up because Mark Briscoe was hurting way worse than he had let on and finally had to admit he was hurt really bad and needed time off. Eddie Kingston asked to go to the G1 and Tony said that he didn’t want to get in his way and New Japan wanted him in the G1, but Eddie Kingston was the original opponent for this show.” [7:27-7:59]
The match between PAC and Claudio was set up during the recent 'Blood & Guts' match, where the ROH World Championship accidentally hit his teammate, leading to the Englishman abandoning the match and leaving the Blackpool Combat Club at the mercy of The Golden Elite.
Tony Khan has announced some huge matches for ROH Death Before Dishonor
Despite a rough build-up due to various different things getting in the way, Tony Khan has managed to put together a card for the upcoming ROH Death Before Dishonor event that is sure to be one that gets people talking.
Besides the ROH World Championship match between Claudio Castagnoli and PAC, Tony Khan also announced that Aussie Open would be returning to the ring to be part of a four-way match for the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championship. The other three teams in the match are the champions, The Lucha Brothers, The Kingdom, and Best Friends.
The AEW President also held a press conference to officially announce that Daniel Garcia would be challenging Katsuyori Shibata for the ROH Pure Championship, and following her victory over Athena in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, Willow Nightingale will challenge the 'Fallen Goddess' for the ROH Women's Championship.
Are you looking forward to Death Before Dishonor? Let us know in the comments section below!
Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling when using quotes from this article.