On AEW Collision, former AEW World Tag Team Champions Ricky Starks and Big Bill competed in the semi-finals of the tag tournament to earn a shot at the titles at AEW Dynasty. During their math against Darius and Dante Martin, it appeared that Starks may have been injured off of the pelé kick. He began holding his neck and he failed to kick out of a pinfall attempt that shouldn’t have been a three-count. The referee stopped counting because of this and Darius DDT’d him to draw the match to a quick finish.
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When the match concluded, the trainer and referee were seen talking to Starks in the ring as he held not the back of his neck. This led fans to incredible worry as he’s dealt with severe neck injuries in the past. In 2021 during a singles match with Hangman Adam Page, Starks took a German Suplex and attempted to kip-up back to his feet. When he did so, he noticed a weird feeling in his neck and it wasn’t until he went to see three doctors that it was determined he had fractured his neck. In an interview with Z100’s Josh Martinez from 2022, Starks went into detail on the injury and the clip that aired on Rhodes To The Top. It’s not something he’s able to go back and watch.
“… I could have lost everything. Doctors said that I was so close to being paralyzed and I couldn’t — man, I couldn’t even fathom that and it’s not even for my own reason but it’s for the fact that I knew my mom and my family were watching and I don’t think I could ever live with them having to witness that on national television to see,” Starks admitted in the interview. “So, yeah man, I’m glad that things worked out a lot better afterwards. I did tell people that a broken anything, it takes much longer to heal and that’s with anything. You can still wrestle and all that but, the bone is still gonna need to heal one hundred percent. Almost like when you have to set some type of concrete that you just poured or whatever the case may be. But yeah, that was insane and scary to think about because I could have lost it all.”
Cameron Hawkins of The Ringer took to his X account shortly after the Collision match to let fans know that Starks was okay and it had just been a stinger. Starks then doubled down on his own social media, posting on his Instagram story that he was being “precautious” writing, “I’m all good; everything checked out fine. Was being precautious.” The match was Big Bill and Starks first appearance since losing the tag team championships to Sting and Darby Allin ahead of AEW Revolution.
