Given what’s happened since, discussion of Sting’s son Steven Borden getting knocked out at All Out hasn’t gotten as heated as it seemed it might after AEW’s PPV this past Saturday night (Sept. 26).
Borden was wrestling his first PPV match, a tag with his mentor Darby Allin against The Don Callis Family’s Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight. About 13 minutes into the match, Borden and Knight leapt at one another from opposing ringposts. As Cain Knight put it in our original post about the match, it was “supposed
to be a spectacular mid-air collision, similar to the viral spot Logan Paul and Ricochet did in the WWE Royal Rumble a few years ago.”
That 2023 spot with Paul and Ricochet came off without a hitch, but at All Out the back of Borden’s head hit the mat hard. Cameras cut away as he began to display the fencing response in his extremities that can occur with brain injuries. Referees stopped the match immediately and the 34-year-old newcomer was taken to the back, and then to the hospital. Thankfully, by the end of the night we’d heard that Borden was conscious and able to rememember and talk about the match he was injured in.
Former WWE referee-turned-podcaster Jimmy Korderas was among those turning the heat up on the conversation about Borden’s injury, tweeting that Steven should “learn how to work before trying crazy shit in the ring” and that AEW officials “failed him” by allowing Borden and Knight to even attempt it.
Some were agreeing with Korderas and others pointing out that injuries happen in pro wrestling on all kinds of spots regardless of how well trained and prepared the people executing the moves are. Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer was in that second camp, and reposted Korderas asking if he’d made the same criticism of the 2023 Rumble spot with Paul and Ricochet. That led to Korderas explaining the Paul/Ricochet spot was a springboard into the middle of the ring, and not as difficult as the Borden/Knight one.
It also led to fans arguing that Paul and Ricochet had “rehearsed” their move more, and that was where Ricochet — who is now with AEW — chimed in:
No, we tried it once and that was basically it.
But it doesn’t matter if we practiced it once or 100 times. People have been hurt in wrestling doing high risk and low risk moves. It unfortunately is an aspect we face every time we step into the ring.
No one is at fault here. Its just an unfortunate situation. So lets just hope that Steven continues to get better. 🙏🏽
I usually argue that fans have every right to offer their opinions on things even if they’ve never trained to do those things professionally, but I have no problem throwing my hands up here and saying, “I don’t know.” Contrasting the spots the way Korderas did makes sense, but I also think it’s likely that Knight and Borden you do their spot a million times, both men land safely more than 90% of the time, and if Ricochet and Logan Paul did theirs as much, one of them would end up concussed something like 10% of the time.
Let us know what you think below, and if you can do so without disparaging anyone else that would be great!
