AEW Star Says He Nearly Lost A Finger In Stadium Stampede
Last year's AEW Double Or Nothing event included several memorable bouts, including a triple threat for the World Championship between Kenny Omega, Orange Cassidy, and Pac. The main event, however, was the second annual Stadium Stampede match, won by The Inner Circle.
Santana and Ortiz, members of the victorious faction, recently spoke to DigitalSpy. The tenured AEW tag team looked back on the chaotic, anything-goes-style match and their dramatic rappelling entrance to kick it off.
"They took each of us one by one to stand up there and hook us in," Santana began. "It had to be the two biggest people at each end. So I remember the guy that was rigging us he goes, 'Alright, so who's going to be first to go up?' [Jake] Hagar looks at me, he's like, 'Brother, that's you, that's all you.
"So I had no choice but to be the first one to go up. I remember going up there and I was standing up there by myself and then the rigger went back down and left me there by myself and my whole life was just flashing because I was like, 'I'm really up here about to propel down maybe like 100 feet or more. This is my life right now, holy s**t.'
Ortiz then chimed in explaining how he was nearly the victim of a gruesome accident during the stunt. He also touched on how he would have reacted if he had lost one of the digits on his hand.
"I wasn't wearing gloves. So when I jumped, out of instinct I grabbed the rope in front of me," Ortiz said. "But you have this carabiner hooked up and it's like this thick metal carabiner, so with the slack of me getting pulled up, it cut my finger.
"So I actually wrestled the rest of Stadium Stampede with a bandage around my finger and it cut pretty deep – it left a scar. But I was like, 'Man if I would have grabbed it differently my finger would have just went flying off but I would have had no choice but to do the entrance because it was one take, that's it. But yeah, luckily I didn't lose my finger."
As of late, Santana and Ortiz have been in the middle of a developing feud between Chris Jericho, the leader of the Inner Circle, and their longtime friend, Eddie Kingston. Ortiz, Santana, and Jericho will be competing together in a trios match this Wednesday against Daniel Garcia and Team 2point0.