Steven Borden’s frightening injury at AEW All Out on September 26, 2026 immediately raised questions about the spot that ended his match with Kevin Knight, but new backstage details indicate Sting’s son was very much on board with attempting it. Borden was taken to the hospital after the collision, though the reaction behind the scenes became considerably more encouraging once doctors evaluated him and he was able to communicate normally.
Sean Ross Sapp addressed the situation during the final Fightful Select Q&A of September 2026, saying AEW had already confirmed that Borden was responsive at the hospital. Sapp then revealed that Borden himself had been a major supporter of doing the spot that ultimately led to the scary scene.
“Yeah, AEW announced he was at the hospital after the match and was responsive. And talking about the match, I had heard he was big on doing the spot and that there were a couple people involved in the match, concerned after.”
Those concerns were understandable considering what happened in the ring. Borden had received the hot tag from Darby Allin and hit several moves before coming off the ropes and colliding head-first with Kevin Knight, prompting the referee to immediately stop the match. Sapp said the people involved were naturally worried, but the testing Borden received and the way he responded afterward helped calm the situation.
“I’m sure they all were, but they felt that with the testing and how he responded and what he was talking about afterwards, it all went as good as possible.”
The visual inside the ring was still difficult to watch. Sapp specifically referenced Borden showing what appeared to be a fencing response after the collision, something that naturally made the situation look even more serious in real time.
“Now, obviously you don’t want anybody fencing in the ring like he was doing.”
The incident also led to questions about whether Borden had been placed on a major AEW pay-per-view before he had enough experience. Sapp pushed back strongly on that suggestion, noting that Borden had already spent significant time training and had been wrestling for more than a year before All Out.
“Someone said, was he pushed to perform on the big stage too early? No, he wasn’t pushed to appear on the big stage too early. It’s a tag match on All Out. He’s been wrestling for over a year. He has been training for like two and a half years, I want to say.”
Sapp was more willing to entertain the idea that the particular spot may have been a little ambitious. He stopped short of saying Borden should never have attempted it, especially because similar athletic spots have been successfully performed by others.
“Now, was that spot a little too ambitious? I would probably say maybe. See, okay. I can’t say yeah to that because, like Logan Paul did it right. And Stephen Borden is more athletic than Logan Paul.”
Sapp then pointed directly to Borden’s athletic background. Before entering professional wrestling, Sting’s son played college football, and by the time of All Out he had already accumulated several dozen matches.
“All due respect to Logan Paul, he’s a great athlete. Stephen Borden was playing college football in CAA Division 1, is the son of Sting, you know what I mean? He’s had three dozen matches.”
Most importantly, the news coming out of the situation afterward was considerably better than the frightening scene inside the ring initially suggested. Sapp said Borden recovered well after the show and that the backstage response following the incident was ultimately fine.
“But yeah, I, I think that he recovered well after the show, but the backstage reaction was fine. They thought that they had good matches.”
That also lined up with the broader feeling backstage at All Out. According to Sapp, the event was generally considered to have gone well internally, even with some understandable exhaustion setting in as AEW prepares to turn around for another major event at WrestleDream.
“Somebody asked about the backstage reaction at All Out in general and I’ve heard that things seemed like they went well. People like the in-ring work in the company, but you know, probably a little bit of fatigue after All In and they got to turn around and do WrestleDream right after that.”
Borden’s collision was one of the scariest moments of All Out, but the backstage picture sounds far less alarming than it did when the referee first threw the match out. Borden wanted to attempt the spot, people around him were concerned once things went wrong, and the testing and his response afterward gave AEW reason to feel that a terrifying situation had ended about as well as anyone could have hoped.
Do you think the spot was too ambitious for Steven Borden at this stage of his career, or was this simply a wrestling accident that could have happened to anyone? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
