Ricky Starks may be battle-hardened, but his No Disqualification Strap Match at AEW All Out gave a new meaning to the term “excessive punishment.”
The former FTW Champion went to war with Bryan Danielson at the September 3 pay-per-view event in Chicago. Starks recently took to Twitter to show off the wounds he endured at the hands of the American Dragon.
After 22 minutes of hard-hitting action, Danielson was finally able to put away Starks via technical submission.
Original AEW All Out Plans
According to Fightful Select, Bryan Danielson was not AEW’s primary choice to go up against Ricky Starks. The promotion reportedly had intended to pit Starks against CM Punk for the “Real” AEW World Championship. AEW was forced to alter course in the wake of Punk’s controversial ouster from the company.
The Chicago native’s firing allegedly caused Tony Khan to bring back Bryan Danielson, who had been out of action since Forbidden Door where he suffered a broken arm during his match against Kazuchika Okada.
At the post-All Out scrum, Danielson thanked Ricky Starks for carrying him through his comeback match.
“So one, I had an excellent opponent,” Bryan Danielson said. “I think every time people see Ricky Starks, every time Ricky Starks gets an opportunity, he knocks it out of the park. I will be the first one to say, and this is outside of our stories and what we do, he carried me through that match tonight. I’m good at certain things. I’m good at a decent amount of things, and I’m confident in saying that. I can fire up, I can do all these things, but he was the one who carried me through that match. So that’s what I’m gonna say.”
Also read: Chris Jericho Addresses CM Punk’s Departure, Discloses Brief Talk They Had At AEW All In
