Real Reason For Botched Ending Of Shelton Benjamin Vs. "Speedball" Mike Bailey On AEW Dynamite

Shelton Benjamin and "Speedball" Mike Bailey faced off for one of the first two spots in Full Gear's Casino Gauntlet on Wednesday night's edition of AEW Dynamite, but the match ultimately came to an end following a messy final sequence.

The closing moments of the match saw Shelton Benjamin connect with a monster superkick which resulted in Bailey flipping in mid-air. Benjamin then went for the pin and Bailey's shoulders remained on the mat, but referee Paul Turner didn't complete the three count. The match then continued, and Benjamin picked up the win following another superkick.

Bryan Alvarez reported on Wrestling Observer Live that the reason for the botched ending was Shelton Benjamin called an audible for the match to end early after his first superkick due to how good it looked. The referee didn't hear Benjamin call the audible, however, which resulted in the official stopping his count.

"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," Alvarez said.

"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 [counting], 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."

Courtesy of his win, Shelton Benjamin will begin the Casino Gauntlet opposite his Hurt Syndicate stablemate Bobby Lashley. The winner of the Casino Gauntlet will be the inaugural AEW National Champion.