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On Saturday Night Collision, Tony Schiavone let us know that due to Darby Allin’s injuries he would be replaced from the 2025 Continental Classic for the Gold League. His replacement? Jungle Jack Perry.
Darby Allin had just lost to Kevin Knight in his first match of the Continental Classic, arguably the best match of the first week. Word from Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer is that it’s a head injury and wasn’t on Knight’s cross ring drop kick as some speculated.
Darby Allin cut a promo on his frustrations with the injury:
This isn’t the first time AEW has had to use an alternate for the Continental Classic. Last year Juice Robinson took an injury and had to be replaced by Komander. Komander wasn’t able to win the Continental Classic in replacement of Juice but he did take a victory over Claudio Castagnoli which essentially eliminated Claudio from a spot in the semi final.
Tag Team Detour
Jungle Jack Perry disappoints me as the alternate, but it isn’t because I have something against the guy. He’s a very good wrestler, especially when working babyface. The problem is that him and Luchasaurus just reformed Jurassic Express and were looking like one of the top teams in the division. Young Bucks looked to be going into trios with Kenny Omega after their reunion. JetSpeed is already in the Continental Classic.
FTR are right now feuding with Bang Bang Gang who are not a bad team but a bit of a patch up team due to the injuries of Colton Gunn and Jay White. Bang Bang Gang are doing their absolute best to be a credible tag team against FTR as their first defence but they certainly didn’t feel like the direction the company would go for their pay per view match at World’s End. That felt far more like Jurassic Express.
Hey, this does delay that program to say Revolution and you could do it with a lot more time now, but it still leaves a bit of a gap in a division that was becoming flush with guys on both sides of aisle. I figure now they will just have Brodido get a rematch at World’s End since they didn’t put them in the C2.
This isn’t the first time AEW has done this. They finally figured out a good spot for Sammy Guevara in Ring of Honor by having him team with Dustin Rhodes. It was a pretty good way to rehabilitate him, keep him off All Elite Wrestling television, and build him as a specialist for the tag team division instead of singles. And then suddenly he’s winning a $100,000 four way on AEW Collision. Okay that’s random, he’s back in ROH… oh okay he’s back to tag team work but now facing the AEW Men’s World Tag Team Champions on pay per view. Not ideal but at least he’s still in a tag team… now what the heck is he doing in the four way for the vacant TNT Championship? On pay per view?
Tony Khan couldn’t just leave Sammy in ROH to rebuild him and he couldn’t keep him out of the singles divisions. He just had to get him back into singles and back on AEW TV despite plenty of options. He couldn’t help himself. Now we have Jack Perry back in singles competition to remind people of the let downs he would often have as a heel.
Top Alternatives
You would at least want your alternatives to be someone who could deserve to be in the Continental Classic. You don’t want just anyone in these. That was part of the concern with Komander. He’s a good wrestler but he felt like a pin eater to be added.
Jack Perry’s last singles match was January 5 at Wrestle Dynasty against Yota Tsuji for the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship. Prior to that, his last singles match in AEW was losing the TNT Championship to Daniel Garcia at Full Gear 2024. So it has been over a year for him to be a singles wrestler.
I didn’t have Jack Perry listed when I wrote about “Who is Missing?” in my Continental Classic preview. I had Josh Alexander, Ace Austin, Juice Robinson, Eddie Kingston, and Kyle O’Reilly.
Josh looks to be facing Swerve Strickland instead of getting added to the C2. Ace Austin just lost an AEW National Championship match against Ricochet. Juice Robinson is getting an AEW Men’s World Tag Team Championship shot against FTR. Eddie Kingston is getting to face Samoa Joe for the AEW Men’s World Championship.
Then you got Kyle O’Reilly, who Tony Khan said wanted to be in the Continental Classic but couldn’t due to injuries suffered in his win against Jon Moxley. Some thought it was a storyline, and sure it would have made sense for Allin to go out and be replaced by KOR to give Moxley another loss, but the problem is that they are in different leagues. Darby in the Gold League doesn’t face Moxley. So it wouldn’t have really worked to slip KOR in and give Moxley more troubles.
It’s clear they wanted a babyface in the role, so who else could have worked to replace Darby Allin? If you don’t use Brody King or Bandido, is there anyone else who isn’t a champion (Mark Briscoe), isn’t facing a champion (Kingston, Juice, Ace), and is a babyface (not Josh Alexander) who could be credible as a C2 alternate?
AEW rarely does matches where someone wins for just the sake of winning. Because of this, it’s hard to find people with good win/loss records where it doesn’t go anywhere (unless you’re Sammy Guevara) and funny enough, the best potential choices as alternates?
Bobby Lashley or Shelton Benjamin.
Yeah… that’s not happening. Not with MVP dictating what moves they can take.
Sheesh. You’re basically down to breaking up a tag team or using Komander again.
Jack’s Back
It’s a shame Darby Allin got hurt because I was really looking forward to matches against Speedball, Okada, Fletcher, and PAC.
And while I’m not going to act like Jack Perry is just as good of a wrestler as Darby Allin (few are) I think people are going way overboard on the Jack Perry criticism.
Perry is a fantastic wrestler as a babyface.
We haven’t had babyface Jack Perry for a few years.
His heel run, the best match was his match with a half broken down Bryan Danielson at All Out 2024. But as a babyface? You got the cage match with Luchasaurus, you got his matches with Fenix and Kenny Omega, you got the great feud with Christian Cage, and that one match with Dax Harwood that was way better than it had any right to be.
Jack Perry is not a bad wrestler, and he’s going to have great matches with Speedball Mike Bailey, Kyle Fletcher, PAC, and Kazuchika Okada.
Speedball Mike Bailey worked a lot of PWG but surprisingly never had a match with Jack so that’ll be a fun one to run.
Despite both being in The Elite and The Elite breaking up, Okada and Perry haven’t had a singles match either. And now it’ll be under the best conditions of Okada still heel and Jungle Jack now a babyface.
Kyle Fletcher can work absolutely anyone, so I’m sure he’s going to do great stuff against Perry.
It’s honestly a shock he’s never faced PAC. Never! Both are AEW originals from 2019 and they never had a one on one singles match. We now have a first time ever we didn’t know we needed.
These are all going to be excellent TV matches. Is it what we could have got with Darby? No (I was really looking forward to Okada versus Darby) but it’s still going to be excellent, and you’re going to look like a real dweeb still pouting about Jack in the tournament when he’s providing excellent pro wrestling on a weekly basis.
Does This Change C2?
I guess you have to ask yourself if this changes the Continental Classic. Darby told Jack to win the whole thing when he’s starting 0-1 due to Darby Allin’s loss. Was Darby supposed to go on a tear and win the Continental Classic?
I don’t really think so. I think everyone is pretty confident that the top two of the Gold League is going to be Kyle Fletcher and Kazuchika Okada. The big story is all about Konosuke Takeshita having to get through his Don Callis Family members and break out. At least that’s how I see it. Maybe that’s only one point of it and actually it’ll be Takeshita versus someone in the Death Riders. It’s possible, but at best that maybe slips the Darby spot into the semi final to lose to a Death Rider.
I think Perry has a decent enough showing. He’s believable enough to win the matches Darby was maybe supposed to win. You can have him beat Bailey, and maybe even beat PAC. A win against Fletcher or Okada is possible but unlikely since both need to be strong to place in the semi final, though Fletcher could certainly drop one. That means there won’t be a big change.
It’s disappointing for Darby to be out but people really need to stop acting like AEW planned this. You think they don’t want Darby Allin in those matches with PAC, with Okada, with Fletcher? Of course they do. It’s an injury. You have to adjust. And AEW actually found a real good wrestler who checks a lot of boxes.
It isn’t ideal. I wish Perry stayed in the tag division for longer. But I get it. And we’re still going to get some great wrestling matches out of it. Forget the Scapegoat. He isn’t around anymore. It’s Jungle Jack time.
