AEW promoted appearances by Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat on Nov. 12’s Blood & Guts edition of Dynamite. It made sense to bring the linked legends back for a big show in Flair Country (North Carolina), and the Greensboro Coliseum, the site of several matches between them over the years.
But while Steamboat worked a segment with his old pals FTR that built to their AEW Tag title shot against Brodido next Saturday at Full Gear, Flair was nowhere to be found.
Or so we thought…
Wrestling Observer is reporting that after the above brief appearance for the live crowd in Carolina, the 76-year-old left because he was “in ‘a ton of pain’ due to a recent rotator cuff tear.” The Observer’s Dave Meltzer hasn’t heard how or when Naitch hurt his shoulder, but was told that “AEW had to change the show around as Flair was originally booked to do something which is assumed to be the aforementioned Steamboat/FTR segment”.
Prior to this news, the last health update we had on Flair was positive. He’d announced in July that he was cancer-free after being diagnosed with skin cancer a couple months earlier.
We’ll keep you posted with any news on Flair’s shoulder that he shares, or anything else that comes out about his altered Dynamite appearance.
