Steven Borden’s frightening collision at AEW All Out immediately raised questions about whether the spot that ended his match should have happened at all, but new backstage details suggest Sting’s son was fully on board with attempting it.
Borden was taken to the hospital after colliding head-first with Kevin Knight during their tag match, prompting the referee to stop the bout immediately.
According to Sean Ross Sapp on the final Fightful Select Q&A of September, AEW had already confirmed Borden was responsive at the hospital, and Sapp added that Borden himself had genuinely wanted to do the spot, even though a few people involved in the match were understandably concerned afterward.
Yeah, AEW announced he was at the hospital after the match and was responsive. And talking about the match, I had heard he was big on doing the spot and that there were a couple people involved in the match, concerned after.
Sapp said that concern eased considerably once testing came back and Borden was able to communicate normally, adding that people close to the situation felt things had gone about as well as they could have once the full picture became clear.
He acknowledged the visual was still difficult to watch in the moment, specifically noting Borden appeared to show a fencing response after the collision.
I’m sure they all were [concerned], but they felt that with the testing and how he responded and what he was talking about afterwards, it all went as good as possible.”
“Now, obviously you don’t want anybody fencing in the ring like he was doing.
Sapp also pushed back on the idea that Borden had been rushed onto a major pay-per-view before he was ready, pointing out he’s been wrestling for over a year and training for roughly two and a half.
Someone said, was he pushed to perform on the big stage too early? No, he wasn’t pushed to appear on the big stage too early. It’s a tag match on All Out. He’s been wrestling for over a year. He has been training for like two and a half years, I want to say.
He did allow that the specific spot may have been somewhat ambitious, while noting that similarly athletic spots have been pulled off successfully by others. He drew a comparison to a similar move Logan Paul has performed, adding that Borden is more athletic than Paul.
Now, was that spot a little too ambitious? I would probably say maybe. See, okay. I can’t say yeah to that because, like Logan Paul did it right. And Stephen Borden is more athletic than Logan Paul.
Sapp said Borden recovered well after the show, and that the broader backstage reaction to All Out was positive overall.
But yeah, I, I think that he recovered well after the show, but the backstage reaction was fine. They thought that they had good matches.
