Southside Wrestling in the UK are running their final show on 26th October and had agreed with WWE to bring in some locally known talent to make the event memorable. The wrestlers booked were El Liger, Joseph Conners, Kay Lee Ray, Ilja Dragunov, Saxon Hurley, and Xia Brookside. All part of WWE’s NXT UK brand and some of whom had a significant history with Southside Wrestling.
Shockingly, less than one month before the scheduled show WWE pulled the 6 booked talents despite Southside meeting all WWE’s conditions.
We are truly broken hearted 🙁 pic.twitter.com/Em7UMoYmhS
— Southside Wrestling (@SouthsideWE) September 25, 2019
The speculated reason for the pulling the talent is Southside Wrestling is merging/being purchased by another UK promotion RevPro, who have a connection with New Japan Pro Wrestling and that is a problem for WWE.
Once this news broke on social media, word got to Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks who said they would look into what AEW could do to help Southside Wrestling.
Well, earlier today Southside announced via their Twitter account that AEW would be sending both Shawn Spears and MJF to the event.
THANK YOU @AEWrestling@Perfec10n and @The_MJF will be at 9AS , more news coming soon. pic.twitter.com/fXZ6pry7sY
— Southside Wrestling (@SouthsideWE) September 27, 2019
So while not a perfect solution, and I’m sure Southside would have preferred to have had the homegrown talent they had previously booked, AEW have delivered ensuring that Southside can still run their show, and hopefully go out in a blaze of glory.
This incident has made WWE look petty and vindictive, especially as it was Southside’s final show. AEW now having saved the day will be seen as the babyfaces to WWE’s heels in the UK.
