"I wanted to give the fans a nice surprise" - Tony Khan comments on top AEW star's return after six months

AEW recently brought a couple of top stars back to action, but the surprises were met with some criticism. Tony Khan has just addressed the complaints and revealed why the returns went down the way they did.

Saturday's AEW Collision episode featured the returns of Rush and Rey Fenix. Early on in the show it was announced that Rush would be returning, while the second match of the night saw Fenix make his surprise return, defeating The Beast Mortos fka Black Taurus in a 15-minute match. The next bout saw Rush make his return with a 2-minute win over Martin Stone.

There was immediate criticism behind the returns of El Toro Blanco and The Man Of A Thousand Lives, with fans wondering why the company didn't do more to promote the anticipated returns ahead of time. Speaking to Josh Martinez of Superstar Crossover, Tony Khan was asked about Saturday's returns and his approach to promoting wrestler comebacks.

He noted that he only recently found out Fenix was medically cleared, but he also wanted to give the fans a surprise in the form of the La Facción Ingobernable leader.

"I wanted to give the fans a nice surprise on Saturday and I thought that it would be great to have Rush come back. I thought this was a really cool surprise for the fans in Jacksonville, just like we've given some fun surprises on Wednesday with the match-up in the Casino Gauntlet match," Tony Khan said.

Khan continued and said he didn't learn of Fenix getting cleared until after Dynamite was over. The return was finalized right before Collision began. He said:

"When he came in for the medical check and he was cleared, he really wanted to wrestle for the fans in Jacksonville... I thought it was great. It was something else that I moved around, and made some changes, to make sure we got this great match on the show for the fans. I was pleasantly surprised when Rey Fenix came in and said he got cleared for this week because it was not something I went in expecting, and it was a nice thing to get Rey Fenix back, and a nice surprise for the fans," Tony Khan said. [H/T to WrestlingNews]

Collision marked Fenix's first match since dropping the TNT Championship to Orange Cassidy on October 10 during the Title Tuesday edition of Dynamite. This was Rush's first AEW match since the 8-man tag team match at Worlds End on December 30.

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AEW announces Samoa Joe DLC

Samoa Joe is set to arrive in the AEW Fight Forever video game later this month. The World War Joe DLC Pack will be released on Wednesday, May 8.

AEW Games released the trailer for The Samoan Submission Machine's DLC pack today, as seen below.

"JOE! JOE! JOE! Brace for impact! [collision symbol emoji] @SamoaJoe is unleashed in the World War Joe DLC Pack! Coming to #AEWFightForever for Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and PC on May 8th!," they wrote with the video below.

Joe has not wrestled since losing the World Championship to Swerve Strickland at Dynasty last month. He will return to the ring on tonight's loaded Dynamite episode against Isiah Kassidy.