Josh Alexander was defeated in his first match in AEW, but Bishop Dyer (fka Baron Corbin) says it won’t hurt the TNA alumnus. Alexander made his debut on AEW Dynamite earlier this month and lost to Hangman Page in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament before he allied with the Don Callis Family and attacked Page.
Dyer spoke on the “Busted Open Radio” podcast about Alexander’s loss and noted that the circumstances around the loss means that Alexander didn’t lose anything other than the match itself. He said,
“For Josh Alexander to take that L…it didn’t hurt him. He’s stepping into a new world, new competitors, and Hangman Page, who is an elite, top level, superstar beat you. He didn’t lose to someone whose name we didn’t know. I think that loss will do more for him, and it also gave him the ability to make that switch and go to work after the match, and throw a little bit of a tantrum, and powerbomb Hangman through the ring, and then join The Don Callis Family.
Like, that did more for him than if he just won, the crowd might have been pissed. They might have turned because they’re like ‘No, Hangman’s our guy dude, you just got here, what is happening?’ They could turn, so I think the way that was done, it was done 100% correctly.”
Since the loss, Alexander has teamed with Konosuke Takeshita and gone 2–0, including a win over Brody King and Will Ospreay on last week’s Dynamite.
In other news, Kenny Omega says he’s made changes to his in-ring style after being diagnosed with diverticulitis. Omega was out of action for over a year after he was diagnosed with the condition, and he spoke on a recent Twitch stream about how the condition made him change how he works matches. He said,
“Yeah, big time. I’ve absolutely had to change how I work. I mean I don’t…It’s probably something I’ll be able get in to a little on down the line in the future. I don’t want to get too much into it now, but wrestling is always a challenge, and what those challenges are will change as time goes by. We do the challenges, and what you see in the ring is sort of a result of how you tackle those challenges, like the match is almost the reward, and of course things can always go wrong in a match.”
When asked about his match with Gabe Kidd at Wrestle Dynasty, he said, “When I felt those pains coming back when I was in Japan, boy was that nerve-wracking. But I think that was just nerves and I was up in my own head…I was worrying about worrying.”
