Deppen was scheduled to be part of the segment on the 5/4 Dynamite.
As AEW was building towards the singles match between Wardlow and MJF at Double or Nothing, for weeks there were segments when Wardlow would run through security guards in an attempt to get to MJF.
When the company hosted Dynamite from Baltimore, Maryland on May 4th, former ROH World Television Champion Tony Deppen was present as he had competed on a Dark: Elevation taping prior to Dynamite.
Deppen was a guest on Ringsiders Wrestling and shared that he was supposed to be a part of the Wardlow-security beatdown segment, but was pulled aside by AEW’s extra coordinator and informed that he was not going to the ring. When he asked why, he was told that they did not want to ‘hurt’ him and people in attendance know who he is.
I like what it does [AEW Dark] because it gives wrestlers the opportunity to make money and stuff like that but also, some wrestlers need to really cut back on it too because eventually, you will devalue yourself being there every week losing in a minute. If you’re there once a month and you get like a five, six minute match and you can actually showcase, yeah, that’s different. But if you’re there every week and you’re getting squashed out, I think it devalues you as a wrestler and I don’t care about the run-ins, like when Wardlow would beat people up, I don’t feel like that devalues you but… yeah.
When I did AEW in Baltimore, I was supposed to do the run-in with Wardlow as well and you know, Baltimore, that’s prime Ring of Honor territory. Everyone knows me there and I did my match and I got in the back and the extra coordinator pulled me to the side, he’s like, ‘You’re not going out there for that.’ I go, ‘Why?’ He’s just like, ‘We don’t wanna hurt you.’ He’s like, ‘Everybody knows who you are out there…’ They didn’t want me to get hurt as an a — my value I guess, which I understand that but also in the same sense, I’m like yo, I would have got an extra payday.
He is going to be doing more work on Dark in the future. Deppen detailed how he established a friendship with Stokely Hathaway and when Hathaway arrived to AEW, Deppen asked if he would be willing to reach out to someone in the company on his behalf.
See, it was for — IWTV does a thing called The Masked Wrestler. It’s sort of like The Masked Singer and we got to choose our names… and I was just like, ‘I wanna be Stokely Hathaway Jr.’, and Stoke messaged me, he’s like, ‘Dude, what the hell?’ He’s like, ‘Why did you do that?’ I was like, ‘Because it’s funny.’ He’s like, ‘That’s amazing dude.’
He’s a really good person. I’ve only met Stoke maybe two times and then the one time he wanted my phone number so somebody gave him my phone number and we just talk all the time and you know, after he went to AEW, I sent him — because I didn’t know what he was gonna do because he wouldn’t even tell me but then he showed up, I was like, ‘Congrats man’ and then he’s just like, ‘Do you need anything? I’ll help you try to get somewhere if you need to.’ So I’m gonna be doing — I can’t say when but I’ll be doing more [AEW] Dark work eventually and it’s because I said to him, I was like, ‘Hey, can you reach out to somebody for me?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, no problem.’
Deppen’s match on AEW Dark: Elevation aired on May 9th and there is a weekly review of that program here on POST Wrestling titled ‘Shot In The Dark’ which covers a multitude of shows.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Ringsiders Wrestling with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
