AEW updates on Lance Archer, Matt Hardy & Kenny Omega injury

This story was updated and corrected at 10:30 AM Eastern.

Following Wednesday’s edition of AEW Dynamite, a big question was why the promotional debut of Lance Archer didn’t happen as planned.

According to our Dave Meltzer on Thursday’s Wrestling Observer Radio (subscription needed), it was a creative change in the last week that resulted in the non-appearance. Meltzer didn’t know if it was related to Jake Roberts’ debut and Archer perhaps being his mystery client. 

Meltzer also discussed Matt Hardy and his future with AEW following Hardy’s video featuring the Young Bucks that came out Wednesday.

Meltzer had said Hardy was pulled from Saturday’s The Big Event wrestling convention in New York City and replaced with Terry Funk due to Hardy’s possible signing with AEW. However, RF Video (one of the event vendors) has reached out this morning to indicate Hardy will indeed be at The Big Event this weekend as their guest and that Funk was booked the entire time. According to them, he was never pulled. Hardy himself confirmed his appearance there on Twitter.

On the timing of debuts, Meltzer “strongly presumes” Brodie Lee is heading to AEW, so he expects the company to spread out the debuts instead of having them all on one night.

Following the AEW tag title match from Revolution, Kenny Omega has a broken pinkie that will not require surgery, but he does need a cast. Meltzer said he expects Omega to work with the cast, but he’s not sure when Omega will return. He didn’t believe Omega was in attendance last night.

Nick Jackson is at home as he and his wife await the birth of their third child. He’s not expected on Dynamite until then as none of the four participants were scheduled to work matches last night.