The injury bug continues to plague All Elite Wrestling. Top star Eddie Kingston is currently on the shelf with an undisclosed injury, forcing him to be pulled from his scheduled appearance at this weekend’s NJPW Collision. Kingston’s last contest came two weeks ago at ROH Supercard of Honor, Ring of Honor’s WWE WrestleMania 39 weekend show. At that event, Kingston challenged ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli, ultimately falling short to his long-time rival. That recent challenge came in the midst of a storyline between Kingston, AEW and ROH, as Kingston “quit” AEW before showing up on ROH TV earlier this year.
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As a result of his injury, Kingston has been replaced by AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy for NJPW Collision. Cassidy is scheduled to defend his title this Wednesday against Buddy Matthews on AEW Dynamite. If he successfully retains, his NJPW Collision match against Gabriel Kidd will have the AEW International Title on the line. Cassidy has technically reigned with his championship since October 2022, as he bested Pac for the AEW All-Atlantic Title on an episode of AEW Dynamite. The title was rebranded as the AEW International Title this past March in a bout between Cassidy and Jeff Jarrett, which Cassidy won. He has defended this iteration of the gold against The Butcher and Dralistico since.
Kingston is the latest name to be put on the shelf within AEW. Other top talent like CM Punk, Kyle O’Reilly, Thunder Rosa, Danhausen, Matt Jackson, Kris Statlander and others have been out of action for varying periods of time. Kingston himself has had a couple of injuries during his AEW tenure, notably suffering an orbital bone injury in January 2022 that kept him sidelined for just about one month.
The full card for NJPW Collision can be seen below…
- Hiroshi Tanahashi, Lio Rush & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Aussie Open & TJP
- IWGP United States Championship No.1 Contender’s Tournament: Lance Archer vs. Juice Robinson
- Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi vs. KENTA & Chase Owens
- AEW International Championship*: Orange Cassidy (c) vs. Gabriel Kidd
- Fred Rosser & Rocky Romero vs. SANADA & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
- Zack Sabre Jr., Shane Haste & Bad Dude Tito vs. “Filthy” Tom Lawlor, Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs
- ROH Pure Rules match: Alex Coughlin vs. Tracy Williams
- El Desperado & Volador Jr. vs. Delirious & Kevin Knight
NJPW Collision goes down this Saturday, April 15th in Washington DC before holding the second half of the event on Sunday, April 16th in Philadelphia.
