Why Nic Nemeth Says Wardlow's AEW Return Broke His Heart

After nearly a year and a half off of AEW programming, Wardlow returned at Forbidden Door, attacking Swerve Strickland following his loss to AEW Unified Champion Kazuchika Okada. While the return was indeed notable after so much time away for the 3-time former TNT Champion, a dissatisfying follow-up on "AEW Dynamite" has Wardlow right back to where he was when he left, according to "Busted Open Radio's" Nic Nemeth.

"He came back at the pay-per-view," Nemeth explained, "and he was there [at 'Dynamite'], kinda, like cardboard cutout-wise, and it broke my heart." Seemingly aligning himself with The Don Callis Family, Wardlow's return appeared initially to put him in prominent position in AEW once more but Nemeth says the apparent missed opportunity to take advantage of the hype surrounding the re-debut leaves him flat once again. "We didn't hear from him?" Nemeth asked. "Maybe you don't have to hear from him. He's standing next to Don Callis. That's kind of a big deal. It wasn't addressed and Callis had a long promo about all of his minions in his group and I just go, 'There's something special that could have happened there.'"

If not from a promo, the moment could have been capitalized upon with some simple physicality from Wardlow, who is set to be featured on the upcoming reboot of "American Gladiators." "We're not clotheslining anybody?" Nemeth asked. "[To just have] him standing there, immediately just goes, 'Oh, this isn't a big deal.'"

Agreeing with Nemeth all the while was co-host Bully Ray, who was equally as excited to see Wardlow come back, and equally as disappointed with his presence, or lack thereof, on "Dynamite."

"It was great to see Wardlow back," Bully said. "It was not great to see Wardlow back in the exact same spot he was in when he left 17 months ago." Calling him "special from day one," Bully explained that usually, when a promotion has something unique with a talent, if they let it slip away, it's gone for good. With Wardlow, however, the WWE Hall of Famer feels like they can still get things back on track, despite a return that he and Nemeth saw as less-than.

"I think that they could get it back with Wardlow," he opined. "I think he's one of those talents that the people want to invest in. I think that they would forget about all of the mistakes that AEW has made with him if you just put him in a spot to shine." Step one in shining, according to Bully Ray, would involve a clear-cut role or identity, which the "Dynamite" appearance failed to establish.

"I don't know if he was there as Don Callis' bodyguard, his executive assistant, his chef, his driver, his laundryman, his bag boy. Pick one of those because all he did was stand next to Don Callis while Don Callis announced and featured everybody else."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.