On yesterday’s episode of AEW Dynamite, an awkward situation took place during a match between Shelton Benjamin and “Speedball” Mike Bailey. In the closing moments of the match, Benjamin hit Bailey with a superkick and immediately went for the pin.
However, the refere in the match stopped the count at two despite Bailey’s shoulders remaining down on the mat. Benjamin did go onto win the match but it led to confusion and questions on exactly what happened with some speculation that perhaps an injury played a part in the mixup.
Shelton Benjamin just DESTROYED Speedball Mike Bailey with this superkick. #AEWDynamite pic.twitter.com/xMILYey5f8
— Fightful Wrestling (@Fightful) November 20, 2025
On the latest Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez confirmed that there were no injuries and what happened is that Benjamin tried to “call an audible” after delivering his superkick that he thought went over so well that he felt it was best that that be the finish. However, the referee in the match didn’t hear the audible and didn’t finish the count as that was not expected to be the planned finish.
“As it turns out, everybody is fine. What essentially happened is, the finish was going to be a superkick. So Shelton ends up shooting him in or whatever. And he hits this kick, and Speedball just takes this incredible full-flip bump and it looks like he’s dead. So Shelton decides it ain’t going to get better than that. And so Shelton calls the audible, this is the finish. Apparently the ref didn’t hear him, and so the ref stops the count because that wasn’t actually supposed to be the finish.”
“So you could say it’s the referee’s fault, you could say it’s Shelton’s fault. You can’t say it’s Speedball’s fault, he just laid there like he was supposed to. So, anyway, that’s what happened. It was a miscommunication. And then when the referee stopped, they just went on and did the actual finish. But, no, he did not get concussed by the kick or anything like that. There was no injury involved. It was just, Shelton thought a move looked really cool and that they should just go to the finish right there.”
