Santana & Ortiz return to AEW, added to All In Stadium Stampede match
Santana & Ortiz returned to AEW, reuniting as a duo and aligning with the Blackpool Combat Club ahead of Sunday’s All In Stadium Stampede match.
Santana made his return for the first time since suffering a devastating knee injury in last year’s Blood & Guts match on the June 29, 2022 Dynamite. Ortiz has intermittently appeared for AEW since last year’s Blood & Guts, occasionally working as a single or in mixed tags, but Dynamite marked his first appearance for company since an ROH match taped on April 5.
In their return, Santana & Ortiz aligned with Blackpool Combat Club, turning on Eddie Kingston in the process in an angle that involved Jon Moxley & the BCC attacking Rey Fenix as Kingston & Penta El Zero Miedo ran in for the save. Santana, Ortiz, Moxley, Wheeler Yuta, and Claudio Castagnoli took out Kingston & Penta, then Orange Cassidy & Best Friends entered to even the odds.
Fenix was taken out of the arena on a stretcher after the angle, creating a scenario where the originally announced six-on-six Stadium Stampede match for All In was changed to a five-on-five, with Moxley, Castagnoli, Yuta, Santana & Ortiz facing Kingston, Penta, Trent Beretta, Chuck Taylor & Cassidy.
The updated All In lineup:
AEW All In, Sunday, August 27, 1 p.m. Eastern time on pay-per-view —
- AEW World Championship: MJF defends against Adam Cole
- AEW Women’s World Championship: Hikaru Shida defends against Toni Storm, Britt Baker & Saraya
- AEW World Tag Team Championship: FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) defend against The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson)
- Real World Championship: CM Punk defends against Samoa Joe
- AEW World Trios Championship: The House of Black (Malakai Black, Buddy Matthews & Brody King) vs. The Acclaimed (Max Caster & Anthony Bowens) & Billy Gunn
- Stadium Stampede match: Eddie Kingston, Penta El Zero Miedo, Orange Cassidy & Best Friends (Trent Beretta & Chuck Taylor) vs. Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta), Santana & Ortiz
- Coffin match: Sting & Darby Allin vs. Swerve Strickland & Christian Cage
- Chris Jericho vs. Will Ospreay
- The Golden Elite (Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi & Hangman Page) vs. Bullet Club Gold (Jay White & Juice Robinson) & Konosuke Takeshita
Zero Hour pre-show, 12 p.m. Eastern time on AEW’s YouTube & social media channels —
- ROH World Tag Team Championship: Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) defend against Better Than You Bay Bay (MJF & Adam Cole)
An F4WOnline Editor since 2019, Ethan has been covering wrestling and MMA since 2011. He has hosted The Wrestling Life Podcast since 2014, and is a former Baltimore Sun TV/Tribune Media contributor. He is also a Baltimore Ravens and Baltimore Orioles fan.