Jacques Rougeau’s AEW Redemption appearance almost ended before it even started. Before the Rougeau family was honored inside Montreal’s Bell Centre, the wrestling legend got into a heated backstage confrontation over a tribute video that never made it onto the show. Things allegedly became so tense that an AEW official warned Rougeau to calm down—or leave.
According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the entire situation started with a video Rougeau personally put together for the family’s tribute. He reportedly told AEW he’d handle everything himself and arrived with a finished package, but there was one major problem. AEW couldn’t air it.
“Jacques told AEW he’d take care of that. He gave them a video to play. Unfortunately, the video was too long, had footage that AEW didn’t have rights to, music that AEW didn’t have right to and some AI stuff in it that AEW didn’t want to use. There was no way it could be used and now it’s the day of the show with no time to do anything else, so there was no video.”
With no time left to edit or replace it, the tribute video was reportedly scrapped altogether. That’s when everything boiled over. Meltzer says multiple people backstage described Rougeau as throwing a tantrum after learning the video wasn’t going to air. The situation escalated enough that one AEW official stepped in and made it clear the outburst needed to stop immediately.
“Multiple sources said Jacques was throwing a tantrum backstage over that. He was told by one AEW official to calm down or they’d have to kick him out.”
Despite the reported confrontation, Rougeau still made it out for the ceremony. The Rougeau family was honored during the Redemption Buy-In, celebrating 80 years and four generations of wrestling history. Matt Menard hosted the segment, Raymond Rougeau thanked Tony Khan, and Jacques quickly slipped back into his old heel persona by telling the booing Montreal crowd to kiss his ass before later dropping Rocky Romero during the Don Callis Family interruption.
Fans watching at home saw a celebration. But if this report is accurate, what they didn’t see was the reported confrontation that happened backstage just moments before the cameras rolled.
What do you make of the reported backstage incident? Should AEW have handled the tribute video differently, or did they make the right call? Let us know in the comments below.
