Colt Cabana’s AEW Return Was A Locker Room “Morale Booster”
Colt Cabana returned to AEW programming recently as he battled Chris Jericho, seemingly improving the backstage atmosphere within the AEW locker room.
Heading into the November 4 AEW Dynamite, there was a lot of mystery surrounding the potential opponent for ROH World Champion, Chris Jericho. It was noted that a former holder of the championship would be answering the call but as it turns out, the opponent merely had to have held any championship in ROH.
As such, Colt Cabana – a former two-time ROH World Tag Team Champion – wrestled ‘The Ocho’. Though Cabana came up short against Jericho, his surprise appearance was met with an abundance of fanfare. The match marked Colt’s first for AEW since March, outside of the company’s showcase as part of Gamescom. He hadn’t appeared on Dynamite, however, since November 2021.
Discussing the comeback during this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote that Colt Cabana’s AEW return drastically improved the morale within the locker room:
“[Colt] Cabana appearing led to even more talk because people saw it as a shot at [CM] Punk or a vindication of the story that Cabana stopped being used in AEW due to Punk. Whatever it was, it was Tony Khan’s idea. We were told that this was more for the locker room than anything else, that having Cabana on the show and given a positive spotlight after months of being ostracized for reasons that had nothing to do with him was a dressing room morale booster since he had many friends there.
As best we can tell, Cabana was only in for that one match but is still under contract to ROH, but is no longer ostracized and could be used again in some form.”
DAZN Boxing’s Steven Muehlhausen has since confirmed PWInsider’s initial report, noting that Colt Cabana’s AEW return was a one-off. He’s expected to remain largely featured across Ring of Honor.