Backstage Report On Injury Status Of AEW's Dustin Rhodes

After a roller coaster of a month that saw a weekend where he wrestled three matches in 24 hours, a first singles championship win in 23 years, and a run with the AEW TNT Championship that ended with him being stabbed with a screwdriver, "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes is out of action indefinitely. Following his loss to Kyle Fletcher on the July 31 episode of "AEW Collision," Rhodes revealed that he will be having a double knee replacement, but made sure to let everyone know that he is not planning on retiring anytime soon.

In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer gave some more information about Rhodes and his condition, stating that it was very clear from his match at ROH's Supercard of Honor event on July 11 that his knees were in the worst shape they had been in for some time. The level of violence in his street fight with Fletcher on "Collision" was all by design as Rhodes went into the match knowing it would be his last match for a while, and wanted to go out in style before undergoing surgery. However, the diagnosis was reportedly worse than anticipated as Rhodes will need the aforementioned double knee replacement, a procedure that he will undergo on August 21 while AEW are in the United Kingdom.

Meltzer noted that in his years of covering wrestling, only one wrestler has ever got both knees replaced at the same time, that being Bad News Allen who was able to withstand the pain of the recovery process because he was so mentally tough. However, wrestlers usually get one done, rehab it and make a full recovery before having a second as the pain of the recovery process is so great, it can lead to some people calling time on their own careers. In which category Rhodes falls in remains to be seen. Meltzer rounded off by saying that Tony Khan will now have to figure out what to do with the ROH World Tag Team and World Six-Man Tag Team Championships that Rhodes held with Sammy Guevara and The Von Erich's respectively, as the titles cannot remain around his waist if he is going to be out of action for an undisclosed amount of time.