Former WWE Star Reportedly Heading to AEW
AEW has another big star coming in, according to a new report from Fightful Select on Wednesday. According to Sean Ross Sapp, Buddy Matthews (fka Buddy Murphy in WWE) is on his way into the company according to a number of sources. Sapp noted that sources told him about a growing interest in him signing, "with some even heard that there were creative pitches made, with another source going as far as to say that creative is already decided. We've not confirmed the latter." The former Cruiserweight and Raw Tag Team Champion was let go on June 2, 2021, the same round of cuts that saw Aleister Black (now Malakai Black in AEW), Braun Strowman and Lana depart from the promotion.
Matthews has wrestled 15 matches since leaving WWE, most notably for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, MLW and this year's Battle of Los Angeles for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. Stay tuned for more updates on his situation as they become available.
The Australian star released a short film in August of him being released from prison which seemed to have some continuity connections to Black's "The Devil Made Me Do It" film that premiered just before his AEW arrival. Black addressed that potential connection in an interview with ComicBook last year.
"No, that kind of grew that way, but he did ask me about it," Black said. "He said, it's like funny to create this universe where there's multiple things happening. Even when we did that, I spoke to EC3 for a while, because obviously he was running his Control Your Narrative thing and we [though of] ways to kind of tie that in. Who knows, we might still do that. It's just fun how a lot of people are a lot more creative than you think they are and have a lot more to present you than what has been presented through the lens of WWE or like perhaps even a lens of AEW."
AEW's latest episode of Dynamite takes place tonight in Nashville, TN. Check out the updated lineup for the show below:
- TNT Championship: Sammy Guevara vs. Darby Allin
- Chris Jericho & Jake Hager vs. Santana & Ortiz
- Thunder Rosa vs. Mercedes Martinez
- Bryan Danielson vs. Lee Moriarty
- Face of the Revolution Qualifier: Wardlow vs. Max Caster
- CM Punk picks date for rematch with MJF