Bishop Dyer—previously WWE’s Baron Corbin—made his AEW debut in a darkish match forward of Dynamite, however he wasn’t initially a part of the plan.
In response to Fightful Choose, indie standout Robert Martyr was initially scheduled to work the pre-show match in Orlando. Nonetheless, he was finally changed by Dyer, who teamed with Martin Stone (Danny Burch), Hadar Horvitz, and Ori Gold in a dropping effort towards Austin Gunn, Billy Gunn, Brady Booker, and Elijah Drago.
Dyer’s look wasn’t deliberate prematurely, both. In reality, he solely confirmed up as a result of he was giving Paul Wight (Large Present) a trip to the venue. As Dyer later defined on Off The Ropes with Jonathan Coachman:
“The spotlight of my day was not solely being within the ring, with that crowd… however the entire thing began as a result of I went to choose up Large Present to take him as much as Orlando for the present.”
As soon as backstage, Billy Gunn noticed him and made the impromptu pitch:
“He’s like, ‘Hey man, do you wanna be on this darkish match with us?’ And I used to be like, ‘Dude, if it will get OK’d, I’m bought.’”
Tony Khan authorised the change, and identical to that, the darkish match was reshuffled—Martyr out, Dyer in.
Regardless of the last-minute nature of the change, Dyer made the many of the second, absorbing the gang’s power and incomes reward from AEW management. However for followers of Robert Martyr, the swap leaves questions on what might’ve been.
Whether or not this was a one-off or an indication of AEW testing the waters with Dyer stays to be seen—however both method, it wasn’t the debut AEW initially had in thoughts.