Report: AEW Talent Expected To Leave Following Backstage Brawl
AEW departure expected following high-profile brawl after All Out 2022.
Ace Steel is not expected back in All Elite Wrestling following his role in the backstage brawl that erupted following the company's post-All Out 2022 media scrum.
Steel, a long-time friend of AEW World Champion CM Punk, is believed to have "shoot cracked Nick Jackson with a chair" in the melee. This is according to Fightful Select, to whom a source stated that Steel was lucky not to have wound up in jail. Elsewhere, Fightful reported that Ace bit Kenny Omega and grabbed him by the hair during the confrontation.
Multiple people within AEW have stated that they don't expect him to be back in the promotion following this. Jackson, an AEW Executive Vice President, is understood to have left the brawl with a black eye.
Released from his role as a WWE coach in January 2022, Steel has been with AEW in a backstage capacity since Revolution. He appeared as an on-air talent in the build to All Out, talking Punk into signing Jon Moxley's open contract for a World Championship rematch, featuring in another brief on-camera segment at the pay-per-view.
Punk and Steel have been friends for decades, with Ace training the current AEW World Champion at his Steel Dominion school from 1999 onwards.