Starks appears to suffer legit injury as AEW tag title bracket is down to the Final Four (UPDATED)

Update: Per Ricky’s Instagram, he’s doing okay following this match on Collision.

“I’m all good, everything checked out fine. Was being precautious”

The original story is below this line.

AEW’s version of March Madness is going on right now with a tournament to crown new world tag team champions.

The west side of the bracket was whittled down to two teams (Young Bucks, Best Friends) this week on Dynamite, whereas the final two teams on the east side of the bracket were determined on tonight’s (Mar. 30) episode of Collision.

First up was FTR vs. The Infantry. Carlie Bravo & Shawn Dean had the proverbial Cinderella story going for them after they upset House of Black earlier in the tournament. But their luck ran out tonight going up against a team that has a claim to being the best in the world today. The Infantry came close to winning multiple times, but they ultimately didn’t have an answer for FTR’s Shatter Machine.

Next up was Top Flight taking on former champions Big Bill and Ricky Starks. This was actually Bill and Ricky’s first match in AEW since they dropped the belts to Sting and Darby Allin in early February. Unfortunately, Starks appeared to suffer a legitimate injury towards the end of the match. He stayed down on the mat after Top Flight hit a tandem DDT, but may have been hurt earlier than that on a Pele kick that you can see at 1:37 of this video:

There was nothing in Top Flight’s past matches to indicate the final DDT was part of a finishing sequence. However, the referee counted to the mat three times and Starks did not kick out.

The AEW commentary team was also caught off guard when Starks did not kick out of the pin. After the match was over, the AEW trainer ran in to check on Ricky, and the camera quickly panned away from the scene in the ring.

The tournament is now down to its Final Four teams: Matthew & Nicholas Jackson, Orange Cassidy & Trent Beretta, Top Flight, and FTR. One of these teams will go all the way to win championship gold on April 21 at the AEW Dynasty pay-per-view.

We’ll bring you an update on Ricky Starks’ status as we have it, Cagesiders.