10 Wrestlers You Totally Forgot Worked For AEW

3. Tully Blanchard

Glacier Gigi Dolin
AEW

A lot was going in on the first quarter of 2021.

The Forbidden Door had swung open, leading to an excellent DDT-adjacent Dynamite main event starring KENTA. The buzz and resulting furore of the blinding but fatally cursed Exploding Barbed Wire Death match between Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley is an abiding memory. The buzz and resulting furore of Christian Cage's signing also dominated headlines. Oh, and Shaq wrestled, on free TV, entered an incredible performance, and mysteriously vanished in a thoroughly bizarre angle.

You might be forgiven, then, for forgetting that Tully Blanchard worked a match.

Alongside FTR, he took on the old iteration of Jurassic Express in Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus and Marko Stunt, who you might also have forgotten had been kidnapped in the build (!).

The match was tremendous, too. Obviously, FTR did the vast majority of the work, and were typically superb in giving Jungle Boy no space to fight back - which of course made his comeback soar when he actually did. Blanchard did however project his arrogant, inherent presence, and strutted after teasing a dive before blasting Stunt with a faithful, rousing rendition of his slingshot suplex.

In a quirk of Dave Meltzer's rating system, FTR were so fantastic, and Tully was treated with such reverence in the layout, that he deemed it better, at ***3/4, than Hulk Hogan's WrestleMania matches against Andre the Giant and the Rock.

 
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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!