Backstage News On Whether AEW Plans To Reunite Ricky Starks & Big Bill As A Tag Team

After a 123-day reign, Big Bill and Ricky Starks lost the AEW Tag Team Championship to Sting and Darby Allin shortly before Sting's last match at AEW Revolution, and in the subsequent tournament to crown new champions following Sting's retirement, they were eliminated in the first round by Top Flight. Starks appeared to suffer an injury during the match; he later said he was fine, but he hasn't wrestled or appeared on AEW since the Top Flight loss, while Bill has aligned with Chris Jericho. The Starks/Bill team appears to be officially finished as a result, and a new report from Fightful Select confirms this is the case.

Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp says AEW sources told him there were no substantial plans to continue the team following their loss to Sting and Darby Allin in February, with both men ready to embark on separate journeys going forward. This could explain why Starks and Bill were off TV between their title loss on February 7 and their tournament loss on March 30, though it doesn't explain why they were entered in the tournament at all or why there was no on-screen angle explaining their dissolution. Fightful also reported at the time that Starks and Bill were supposed to defeat Top Flight, but that an audible was called during the apparent Starks injury.

The new report also doesn't explain why Bill has returned to AEW programming while Starks has remained absent, despite continuing to claim he's not injured. It should be noted that at the Revolution post-show media scrum, Tony Khan was forced to address rumors that Stark's AEW contract had expired, which he denied.