AEW celebrated a major milestone on Saturday night. There was also a significant incident involving Buddy Matthews. The multi-time champion has just issued a statement ahead of a potential hiatus.
Saturday's AEW Collision episode marked the 1st anniversary of the show. The 49th episode aired live from the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, and was headlined by a non-title match between Unified World Trios Champions The Bang Bang Gang and The House of Black. The 18-minute main event saw Matthews, Brody King, and Malakai Black earn a future title shot by defeating Juice Robinson, Austin Gunn, and Colten Gunn.
Matthews made a hot tag towards the end of the match and cleaned house, but suffered an apparent knee injury. The Aussie grappler was then helped to the back as Black and King won. The Patriarchy then appeared on the big screen to congratulate the new #1 contenders. Christian Cage then taunted the faction for no longer a trio, as the camera panned down to Matthews, who had been laid out by a Con-Chair-To. Black and King then ran to the back to tend to Matthews as Collision went off the air. AEW has not announced an official injury update, but the 35-year-old has broken his silence.
The Best Kept Secret took to Instagram today to check in with fans. Matthews included several photos from Saturday's Collision and captioned the post with a cryptic five-word message:
New Champs in WWE! More RIGHT HERE
"Riding High, Fall from Grace," Buddy Matthews wrote with the photos below.
Buddy's last singles match came on May 1. He was defeated by then-TNT Champion Adam Copeland on Dynamite that night.
AEW set for special Thursday taping
All Elite Wrestling will tape the next Rampage and Collision episodes on Thursday, June 20 from the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Officials have announced just one match for Collision as of this writing. Chris Jericho and Big Bill will return to tag team action as they go up against Private Party's Marq Quen and Isiah Kassidy.
The match was made after Jericho welcomed Private Party to TV Time with The Learning Tree on AEW Dynamite last week. After the current FTW Champion insulted the rising tag team stars, they attacked Jericho, Bill, and Bryan Keith.