Dave Herro On Recent AEW Injuries: "Maybe They Give The Talent Too Much Leniency"

Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman sat down with wrestling promoter Dave Herro on today's episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast where the two chatted about AEW and Herro's annual Blizzard Brawl show. At one point they discussed the incident on a recent episode of Dynamite that seemingly saw Dark Order's Alex Reynolds get knocked out after taking Private Party's double-team move. Herro gave his thoughts on how AEW handled the situation.

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"It's hard to say because I talked about it with Shane Helms, and Shane said, 'who knows if the spot that was called there was a dead sell on his part' because he was hit with somebody's finish, so maybe they thought that's what he was doing," Herro said. "My only thing is, for me, if somebody in the back knew that was the spot called, or not, somebody could have gone on a headset and said, 'hey, there's something wrong.' You've been back there. You know how it goes.

"From A to Z, everything is figured out. Very seldom do they call anything in the ring, especially in a multi-team match like that. AEW has done a great job on a lot of things, but coming off the heels of the Matt Hardy concussion and now this, it's like, well, maybe they give the talent too much leniency back and forth."

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Herro recalled an incident where he thought a wrestler working on one of his shows was legitimately injured. However, it was him getting worked, and he noted that you never truly know what can happen in the ring. Pointing out that it is easy for him to critique the situation watching it at home.

"There was one time I had Haystacks Ross, God rest his soul, 650-pound Haystacks Ross against WWE's favorite backstage agent, 'Scrap Iron' Adam Pearce on one of my shows, and Haystacks gave Pearce the bear hug slam," Herro recalled. "I was at ringside and Pearce looked at me and goes, 'oh my God, he broke my ribs!' I immediately called 911 to get an ambulance, and also, he rolls out of the ring.

"He goes, 'you Mark. I'm working everybody.' I'm like, 'I didn't know. I wasn't smartened up to that.' So you never know when the boys do certain things like that. So it's a coin flip. For me, he was laying there a long time for nobody to notice. Somebody should have picked up on it in my opinion, but that's easy for me to say sitting at home watching it on TV over and over again.

"I wasn't in the match thinking what my next seven spots were going to be. That's one of the things that I showed my son Kal. I said, 'pay attention to this stuff because you're in the ring now. You got to be aware as to what's going. There's body parts all over the place.'"

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Herro also spoke on the popularity of his yearly Blizzard Brawl shows in Waukesha. He noted that it started out as a small show of 800 people and has grown to filling a venue of 3,000 people.

"It seems like it is. The legend of it keeps growing," Herro admitted. "For me, it's flattering. It's awesome. Back then, it was the first of its kind, doing these bigger independent shows, and it just morphed from a hotel that could seat 800 people to now a building that seats close to 3,000."

The COVID-19 pandemic has halted large gatherings of people, and Herro said that it is likely that Blizzard Brawl will not be held this year. He noted that his father is 73 years old, and he does not want to take that chance to put anybody at risk despite wanting to run the show.

"Right now, from everything I've been told, the most I can get into any building in Milwaukee right now is about 235-250 people, and when you're used to getting upwards of over 2,000–and here's the thing, for me, as much as I want to do it and I thought of other ways of maybe just having 250 then putting it on PPV, it's just too much at risk," Herro pointed out. "Believe what you want to believe.

"Don't believe what you don't want to believe but at the end of the day, it's a real thing, and for me, my dad is 73 years old. And I'll be damned if I'm going to put him in a situation or anybody else's parent, for that reason, so it's been an emotional tug of war for me for quite a while because a lot of people love that show because it's a family friendly show first of all, and it's very fan friendly.

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"It's one of the few shows where you can go and leave with 10, 15, 20 autographs. So I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed, unless there's something huge and miraculous that happens, I just don't see Blizzard Brawl happening in December this year."

Dave Herro and Dameon Nelson host the Pro Wrestling Report every Thursday night, 7/6c, on FITE.tv. It is FREE to stream. Herro's full interview aired as part of today's episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.

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