Seems one of the Devil’s masked goons is leaving AEW

On Dynamite this past Wednesday (Dec. 27), we got the biggest development yet in AEW’s ongoing Devil storyline when two of the masked man’s henchmen won the Ring of Honor Tag titles as part of Samoa Joe’s deal with their boss.

Then, AEW head honcho Tony Khan talked about “big revelations and big moments at Worlds End” this Saturday in response to a question about The Devil’s identity on his pre-PPV media call.

Fans and interested observers are making their guesses and placing their bets as to who’s gone to all this trouble to mess with MJF. But after Shawn Spears announced yesterday that he’s leaving AEW when his contract expires in a few days, one suspect it seemed safe to rule out was fka Tye Dillinger.

And we can still rule out Spears as being the person behind the entire scheme. But according to this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, he had been playing one of the masked goons over the past several weeks. In writing about Shawn’s exit from the company he’s been with since 2019, Dave Meltzer wrote that “Spears hadn’t been used much but on a recent TV was one of the Devil’s guys”.

This wouldn’t really be worth mentioned, except that other sources have been saying that those weren’t just rotating stand-ins under those masks on television. Reports were that AEW planned for the performers working as masked henchman would play the unmasked henchmen post-reveal.

If that’s right, Spears departure pre-reveal adds to the sense that AEW is writing the angle on the fly — or at least making modifications from their original blueprint.

Which doesn’t mean what they eventually come up with won’t work, but does give skeptics more reason to be skeptical that they won’t stick the landing on a program they’ve invested a lot of time and effort into.

We’ll see how we all feel about this Sunday after Worlds End.