All Elite Wrestling has said goodbye to its top legend. Multi-decade veteran Sting officially retired from in-ring competition earlier this month at AEW Revolution, bringing a close to a historic three-year career renaissance with AEW. While Sting made his name in WCW and spent the bulk of the 21st century competing for TNA, an ill-timed injury during his short WWE stint forced The Icon into an earlier-than-anticipated retirement in 2015. Wanting to go out on his terms, Sting opted to join AEW in December 2020 and, against all odds, return to active competition three months later. Despite being in his 60s, Sting wrestled 28 matches for AEW and went out as AEW Tag Team Champion.
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Tony Khan Names Hypothetical AEW Hall of Fame’s First Class
While AEW has “never talked” about creating a Hall of Fame up to this point in its five-year history, AEW President Tony Khan told ComicBook.com that Sting and the late Brodie Lee would be among the first headlining class.
“If we ever do an AEW Hall of Fame, certainly the first two people that come to mind that we would have to honor would be Sting and Mr. Brodie Lee,” Khan said. “Two of the greatest champions and two of the greatest people we’ve ever had in AEW, and in very different circumstances. Sting and Mr. Brodie Lee would be great people to build any Hall of Fame class around.”
Beyond those two former AEW competitors, Khan pointed to Ring of Honor legend Jay Briscoe, who passed away in 2023, as another talent he would want to immortalize. While Jay didn’t compete inside an AEW ring, he did wrestle multiple Ring of Honor matches during the first year of Khan’s ownership of that promotion.
“Somebody that never got to wrestle in AEW that I also feel very strongly about, who needs to be talked about and honored, is Jay Briscoe,” Khan continued. “I always wanted to bring Jay into AEW. He was my friend and was friends with a lot of people in the locker room. He was one of the greatest wrestlers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with and producing for. Jay Briscoe is somebody else who is very important to all of us even though he never actually got the chance to wrestle in AEW.”
AEW Dynamite airs tonight at 8 PM ET on TBS, immediately followed by a live edition of AEW Rampage at 10 PM ET.
