Something clearly went wrong on last night’s (Nov. 19) episode of AEW Dynamite during the finish of the match between “Speedball” Mike Bailey and Shelton Benjamin.
The awkward moment happened after it looked like Speedball was knocked out on a superkick. Bailey did not kick out of the ensuing pin attempt, but Referee Paul Turner stopped his count right before three anyway. The live audience booed, and Hurt Syndicate manager MVP entered the ring as if the match was over. The ref said the match was still
on, however, so Shelton did a couple more moves to Bailey and quickly secured the pin fall victory.
Just a short while ago, Wrestling Observer Live’s Bryan Alvarez put to rest any speculation about Bailey possibly suffering a concussion on the superkick. Here’s what he says really happened to explain why the referee halted his count:
“What essentially happened is, the finish was gonna be a superkick. So Shelton ends up shooting him in, or whatever, and he hits this kick, and Speedball just takes this incredible full-flip bump, and it looks like he’s dead. So Shelton decides it ain’t gonna get better than that, and so Shelton calls the audible, this is the finish. Apparently the ref didn’t hear him, and so the ref stops the count because that wasn’t actually supposed to be the finish.
So you could say it’s the referee’s fault. You could say it’s Shelton’s fault. You can’t say it’s Speedball’s fault; he just laid there like he was supposed to. So, anyway, that’s what happened. It was a miscommunication, and then when the referee stopped, they just went on and did the actual finish. But, no, he did not get concussed by the kick or anything like that. There was no injury involved. It was just, Shelton thought a move looked really cool, and that they should just go to the finish right there, and the ref didn’t hear him.”
Alvarez points out that the match was very close to reaching its allotted time when Benjamin called the audible on the pin, so it’s not like he was trying to end the match way earlier than originally planned.
So, Shelton called an audible after a really cool move that looked better than the planned finish, but the referee didn’t get the message, which led to the botch. Hey, shit happens sometimes in pro wrestling, folks.
Do you think Shelton Benjamin made the right call in this match, Cagesiders?
