Coming off All Out, AEW has come under fire for their medical protocols due to incidents involving Matt Hardy and Alex Reynolds.
Hardy hit the back of his head hard on the concrete after taking a spear from Sammy Guevara off a scissor lift at All Out and looked to be knocked out from the spot. He had trouble getting to his feet and standing, and the match was initially stopped, but resumed shortly after. Reynolds was recently knocked out on an episode of AEW Dynamite, but instead of him being attended to, he was dragged to the corner to be tagged out while the match continued around his prone body until he regained consciousness.
Hardy and Reynolds have not said anything bad publicly regarding AEW's handling of their respective incidents, but AEW President Tony Khan knows changes need to be made.
"We've been recently doing everything we can to work on our protocols and make this as safe as possible work environment. I've added another independent neurologist to the staff. We've added an independent doctor at all the shows in addition to our staff medical team and we're adding extra support. I've added a two-way feature where the referees can talk back to us if there are injuries so that the referee, you know, not all communication is going one way, and I've encouraged the referees to let us know what's going on," Khan told PWInsider. "Speaking of Chris [Nowinski]- Chris is actually coming back this weekend, so Chris will be at Full Gear and I'm going to have Chris talk to all the staff and all the talent and me. It's been over a year since Chris came and saw us last and I think it's probably overdue for Chris to come in and give us his thoughts and his critiques and it's important that we listen to that. So I'm excited to have Chris come back because I think he's the world's leading expert on head trauma. As to other injuries outside of head trauma, I think we oughta do our best there too but I think that's probably the area we're the most concerned about, being...make sure we're doing everything safe."
Reynolds took to social media after the incident and said he believed the referee and doctor handled the situation well. Hardy was evaluated at a hospital following All Out and reportedly didn't suffer a concussion but has not wrestled since.
Hardy is scheduled to face Guevara in an Elite Deletion match at AEW Full Gear on Saturday.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Full Gear beginning at 7 pm ET.
