Clarification on awkward Shelton Benjamin vs. Mike Bailey AEW Dynamite finish
On Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez explained what happened with the awkward Shelton Benjamin vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey finish from last night’s AEW Dynamite.
The closing stretch of the Benjamin vs. Bailey match included a spot where Benjamin delivered a superkick and went for the pin, but the referee stopped counting despite Bailey’s shoulders still being down. They then continued on with the match, which ended with Benjamin getting the win with a German suplex, a knee strike, and another superkick.
SHELTON KNOCKS SPEEDBALLS HEAD OFF #AEWDynamite #AEW pic.twitter.com/H56CODBpws
— TalonWulf91 (@TalonWulf91) November 20, 2025
Some fans thought Bailey was injured from the initial kick, but that was not the case. Benjamin tried to call an audible and end the match with the first kick because he thought it looked so cool that it should be the finish. The referee was not on the same page and there was a miscommunication.
“As it turns out, everybody is fine,” Alvarez said. “What essentially happened is — the finish was going to be a superkick. So Shelton ends up shooting him in or whatever. And he hits this kick, and Speedball just takes this incredible full-flip bump and it looks like he’s dead. So Shelton decides it ain’t going to get better than that. And so Shelton calls the audible — this is the finish. Apparently the ref didn’t hear him, and so the ref stops the count because that wasn’t actually supposed to be the finish.
“So you could say it’s the referee’s fault, you could say it’s Shelton’s fault. You can’t say it’s Speedball’s fault, he just laid there like he was supposed to. So, anyway, that’s what happened. It was a miscommunication. And then when the referee stopped [counting], they just went on and did the actual finish. But, no, he did not get concussed by the kick or anything like that. There was no injury involved. It was just, Shelton thought a move looked really cool and that they should just go to the finish right there.”
Benjamin’s victory earned him one of the first two spots in the Casino Gauntlet Match at Saturday’s Full Gear pay-per-view. He’ll start the gauntlet off against his Hurt Syndicate stablemate Bobby Lashley.
The winner of the gauntlet becomes the inaugural AEW National Champion.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
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