At the 2026 ROH Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view (PPV) event next week, AEW star Nick Wayne will challenge Bandido for the ROH World Championship. If Wayne wins, he will become the youngest person to ever hold the title. However, Bandido is considered the favorite to win. In the lead-up to this matchup, Wayne suffered a clean pinfall loss on this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite.
On the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed the situation. In a three-way match for the #2 spot in the Men’s Casino Gauntlet Match at All In, Wayne, MJF, and “Speedball” Mike Bailey competed against each other. However, MJF was the obvious choice to win, and since Bailey is ranked higher than Wayne in AEW, he was also unlikely to lose.
Meltzer explained that AEW President and CEO Tony Khan tends to use ROH talent in AEW to provide entertaining matches, rather than focusing on protecting their ROH records. He also noted that Bandido frequently loses in AEW, even in Mexico. This places Wayne and Bandido on relatively equal footing in terms of storylines and allows Wayne to avoid being thrust into a major AEW main event that would be better suited to Bailey.
Additionally, being young allows Wayne to make reckless mistakes in the storyline without undermining his perceived talent.
