Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, All Elite Wrestling has been producing shows exclusively from Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida. At first, these Daily's Place AEW shows only had wrestlers in attendance as "fans," but real fans have slowly been phased in throughout the year. And now that the pandemic is getting under better control in the United States, AEW is finally back on the road, hosting its first live episode of AEW Dynamite outside of Daily's Place since 2020 on Wednesday, July 7.
This special Road Rager edition of AEW Dynamite, emanating live from the James L. Knight center in Miami, Florida, featured the shocking debut of former WWE star Aleister Black (now known as Malakai Black) as well as an incident that saw a fan rush the ring. This fan was taken down by AEW ring announcer Justin Roberts and punched in the face by Chris Jericho before being dragged out of the arena.
Video of the AEW fan rushing the ring has been shared widely on social media, and now someone claiming to be the fan has spoken up on Twitter. The individual, who goes by the name Fat Bastard on Twitter, tweeted legendary professional wrestling manager Jim Cornette and podcast host Brian Last, asking them how they liked his AEW "debut." He said that he did it "for all of us real wrestling fans," and so that "wrestling is no longer a safe space for friends to dance around and play dress up."
For the uninitiated, Jim Cornette has been in the professional wrestling business for decades, rising to prominence as the manager of the villainous Midnight Express tag team. He would later go on to run his own promotion, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and served on the WWE creative team for a few years in the 1990s. He's credited with creating the concept of the Hell in a Cell match and has been instrumental in the training of professional wrestlers like Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, Brock Lesnar, and many others.
In recent years, Cornette has retired from being actively involved in pro wrestling, instead focusing his efforts on podcasts The Jim Cornette Experience and Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru, both co-hosted by Brian Last. Cornette's podcasts feature numerous instances where he sharply criticizes modern wrestling, including AEW. Cornette has repeatedly described AEW wrestlers as "cosplay wrestlers" and has mocked the product as being "phony" when compared to older wrestling.
It seems that this individual was inspired by Cornette's rants against AEW, though it should be stressed that Cornette himself does not condone the behavior. On Twitter, Cornette said, "Got news for you dips***, the ring is sacred ground for US, and even if you and a lot of others THINK you can kick the s*** out of the Young Bucks, I would have turned you into a tennis racket popsicle, & you're lucky someone there didn't gut you like a fish. And you're blocked."
Cornette's podcast co-host Brian Last also responded to the individual in question, saying "Real wrestling fans don't jump the rail. You should be embarrassed. You are blocked."