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The TNT belt has changed many champions in recent months and lately the public was quite convinced that especially at least Wardlow could keep it for longer, but finally lost it during the Dynamite special episode "New Year's Smash" by the hand of Samoa Joe who, not happy, had also cut off his now famous pigtail.
Since then, the former MJF associate hasn't been seen on AEW screens since, with Samoa Joe moving forward and finding Darby Allin in his way, with the skater challenging him for the TNT title and managing to take it away from him.
though now the Samoan Submission Machine is out for revenge. In a new Wrestling Observer Newsletter update (signup required), with transcript from Inside The Ropes, we learn that AEW has decided to remove the TNT belt from Wardlow's waist due to an injury the wrestler suffered around the challenge date with joe.
It was also specified that it shouldn't be an injury serious enough to keep him out for a long time, exactly like that of Britt Baker, who was largely excluded from the last episode of Dynamite.
New details on Wardlow
During his last interview with Busted Open Radio, which took place before the Rampage episode where he retained his title against Matt Taven in October, the former TNT champion was asked how he prepares before his matches.
"I usually spend the night before with a beautiful woman to keep my mind off everything and I wake up with the right mindset. I'm thinking about everything except my opponent, essentially. I get some serious training […] I treat every workout session like I'm preparing for the biggest pay-per-view title match of my life.
This is what will lead me to that moment. Usually, the night before, I like to have a good dinner, be with a beautiful woman, wake up lucid, have a nice breakfast”. Wardlow recently opened up about his WWE tryout and how it panned out.
He said that he luckily stayed laser-focused and felt grateful after the emergence of All Elite Wrestling: "I aced that tryout [WWE]. I mean, with flying colors, and they didn't want me. So for the first time in my life, I went, Oh, well, maybe this isn't gonna happen," Wardlow said...
"You know, fortunately, I stuck with it, and I was determined to make it happen one way or another, and I thank god every day that AEW came about."