Earlier this month, AEW's Malakai Black posted a response to a fan on social media who claimed he refused to “take a pin or knock someone out.” Black denied that he had a problem losing matches, and the wrestling world continued to turn.
But then Black and his faction mates Brody King and Buddy Matthews were cautioned for a cage match on the January 27 episode of AEW Collision. The match against FTR and Daniel Garcia was announced a week in advance as the show would be competing against WWE's Royal Rumble event and needed all the hype help it could get. It was also originally advertised as an elimination tag match in a steel cage.
Near the start of the show, AEW began referring to Collision's main event as the “Escape The Cage” elimination match. There were some questions about the rules and how it worked that we didn't get official answers to until Saturday night, but it was still a fun match that the babyfaces won as Mark Briscoe helped Garcia Black defeat the last man out of the cage .
That would have been it… had Dave Meltzer not suggested on Wrestling Observer Radio that the “escape” condition came about because no one in the House of Black wanted to do the job:
“When they first announced the match, it was a cage match elimination match. When they first announced it was Escape The Cage, and when I heard it was Escape The Cage, I thought, “Okay, we have all these people here, but someone complained about it, that he did a job.” Essentially, five players have to do a job in this match.
“I know from the guys that Daniel Garcia will do a job in a match like this. And I know FTR will do a job because Dax Harwood does a million jobs when the circumstances are right and Cash Wheeler doesn't mind. So, you know, and Malakai Black never does a job, and when that was on and I was watching that, one of the things I thought about was, those damn House of Black guys never do a job…”
Malakai didn't respond this time, but his two teammates did – as did Will Washington, AEW's wrestling administration coordinator. You probably don't need to tell me that they disagreed with Meltzer's assessment of the situation, which they made clear by replying to Twitter/X accounts, summarizing quotes from Observer Radio, and further speculating about what Dave said .
It's funny how someone's opinion becomes fact simply because they've been watching wrestling for a long time. The format and conditions of cage fighting have always been as they should be. It's not our fault the wording on the graphic changed. https://t.co/zGuNP61TxN
– Big Bad Brody King (@Brodyxking) January 29, 2024
I don't normally comment on things like this, but before this idea spreads or gets out of hand, changing the wording was just for clarity.
When the first game graphics were deleted, absolute escape rules applied. https://t.co/3nubqqtQNL
— Will Washington (@WillWashington) January 29, 2024
Feel free to judge this round of “Wrestlers and Wrestling Companies vs. Dirt Sheets” in the comments below.