10 Shocking AEW Behind The Scenes Revelations

7. The Demise Of Pride & Powerful

AEW All Access CM Punk
AEW

As a tag team, Santana and Ortiz are one of the very best tandems in the world. Unfortunately though, it looks as if this pairing is now well and truly over.

Of course, right now Santana is on the shelf as he recovers from reconstructive knee surgery for an ACL injury he suffered in the Blood and Guts match on a June 2022 episode of Dynamite. While there's been no update on how the hugely talented 32-year-old is doing in his recovery, initial reports from last year noted how he could be out of action for a full year.

Still, prior to that injury, there were plentiful rumblings that all was not well between the Pride & Powerful pairing.

Having been teaming together as far back as 2012, the duo apparently butted heads early last year due to how they were being used by AEW. Well, more specifically, how they weren't particularly being used by AEW. As noted by their former LAX mentor Konnan, the long-time partners fell out because Santana was frustrated at Pride & Powerful not being used much at that time, whilst Ortiz was happy with that situation as they were still getting paid and looked after by AEW.

Additionally, K-Dawg even revealed that this situation got so heated that Eddie Kingston became involved and things nearly got physical between the Mad King and Santana.

For Santana, last July saw him take to Twitter to say "[he'll] speak soon.

As it stands, that's the most recent tweet the star has posted.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.