As noted earlier, Matt Hardy hit his head on the concrete after a nasty fall through a table at AEW All Out pay-per-view.
The Broken Rules match against Sammy Guevara was paused. Doc Sampson ran over and demanded te match be stopped and officials (?) rang the bell. After few minutes, Justin Roberts said there must be a winner and the match somehow restarted.
They were in an awkward spot because Matt had to win. If not then he would have had to leave AEW, per the stipulations laid out. It is believed they called an audible to continue and go right for their originally planned finish.
During a post-show media scrum, Tony Khan made some opening remarks to address Hardy’s status. He said Matt was doing OK and went into detail on why they chose to allow the match to finish.
“Health and safety of the wrestlers is always the most important thing at AEW. I just wanted to give everybody an update on Matt Hardy. Most importantly, Matt is OK and it looks like Matt is going to be OK. What had happened with Matt was Matt had taken a fall during the match and I stopped the match, paused the match, and sent the doctors to check on him. I was concerned that Matt could be hurt, so I rang the bell to pause the match. When the doctor had checked on him, the doctor had cleared him on the protocol,” Khan explained. “He checked with Matt and then Matt had come back and passed the concussion protocol. He’s doing OK. I spoke to him right after the match and again just now. He went as a precaution just now to the hospital, to check that he’s OK, but it looks like he’s OK which is why the doctor cleared him to continue. It was not something that we enjoyed and it was a scary moment but the most important thing is that Matt is OK and we’re all really glad about that. Thank you very much everybody for giving me a moment to say that.”
As a follow-up, Khan was asked if there was time to clear Hardy and why it appeared that the doctors were overruled after they stopped the match. Khan explained that the doctor had plenty of time to assess and Matt didn’t pressure anyone for the match to continue, adding that the doctor cleared Hardy based on protocol.
“The doctor did clear him. Matt did not pressure him and Dr. Sampson would not be pressured into clearing anybody. He’s pulled people from our shows without hesitation, whether it’s been over something with a blood test or with an injury and he’s really strict about that stuff,” Khan said. “That’s why when people have had injuries that he didn’t feel comfortable about, people do in physicality or wrestling with, we never put those people out there.
“So I never would have gone against the doctor’s decision and most importantly, Matt would not have been able to overrule the doctor’s decision and not with the doctor himself or with me, and so that is what happened. The doctor cleared him, which is the first and foremost important thing. Matt also did want to continue,” Khan explained, “but the doctor cleared him, so at that point when the doctor cleared him to continue, Matt clearly wanted to continue. That’s why we continued.”
Tony was also asked about allowing Matt to climb the scaffolding for the final spot in the match and he said that was a big reason why they initially stopped the match. Khan says he knew what the end of the match would entail, so he made the call to pause the match to make sure Hardy was OK.
“As far as that goes, yes, I was extremely concerned about that because I knew that was going to happen. So, yeah, I was very concerned about that. That’s why I paused it because I didn’t feel good until I got a clearance that this is definitely OK with [Matt] to do that and so that’s why I paused the match. Which again,” Khan noted, “we’ve never done but I thought given what was ahead and what he would probably want to be doing in this match, I would be very cautious by sending the doctor to check. And like I said, it was a nervous moment and a scary moment but that is why I said, knowing what these guys do and what they were thinking, I wanted to be sure that he was cleared to keep going.”
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