Former ROH/AEW talent Brandon Tate took to Facebook, claiming AEW CEO, President and General Manager Tony Khan and AEW pulled The Outrunners from an independent wrestling event that was set to take place later this month.
Brandon and Brent Tate (Tait Twins) were scheduled to wrestle The Outrunners at an EEC Wrestling show on September 28 at the Hasa Shine Temple in Ashland, Kentucky.
Due to The Outrunners being pulled, EEC has canceled the event.
Brandon wrote the following in his Facebook post:
It was announced that my brother and I were returning to the ring after being away for two years. Today I was informed that Tony Khan and All Elite Wrestling had removed the opponents from our match that was supposed to take place next weekend. Not only are they causing issues to continue outside of AEW where we no longer work and our personal life, but effecting the independent promotion, wrestlers, fans and everyone involved or planned on attending the show next weekend.
My brother and I have grinded for almost two years trying get our life back from the hole they left us in and were finally able to return to wrestling and make a little money for ourselves to try and bounce back. This dude has ruined over nearly two and a half decades of one of the best companies to ever exist in professional wrestling Ring of Honor and is now pulling talent from the independents just to get his way, but claiming his roster are “independent contractors”. I hope he realizes the company he once praised about changing wrestling for the better for EVERYONE is going completely backwards and this will one day all catch up to him.
I apologize on behalf of my brother and ECC Wrestling for anyone looking forward to seeing us wrestle and giving ECC Wrestling a bad rep like they did the both of us both.
From ECC Wrestling’s post on Facebook:
For the 1st time in our 6 years of creating wrestling events, we are making the difficult decision to cancel our event scheduled for next Sunday. Due to no fault of their own but rather the guidelines within their obligation to AEW, the Outrunners have been informed they will be unable to perform in their scheduled match. This situation along with other prominent featured talent notifying us that they’ve double booked for this date have left us to make this challenging decision. Refunds have now been issued for online purchases and we have the names of those that have purchased at Cheers and those will be available tomorrow at 5pm in person at Cheers.
We hope to have both The Outrunners and The Boys back home at ECC again in the future, just not competing against each other for the time being. Sorry to all of our fans for this and thank you for your years of continued support. We will be back Dec 7th, thank you for your attention on this matter and until then, support Independent Wrestling!
The Tates and former AEW announcer Kevin Kelly filed a joint lawsuit against Khan and AEW in September of last year. The Tates are claiming defamation for comments Khan made on a media call about the brothers no-showing ROH TV tapings and AEW events. Kelly was fired by AEW back in March 2024 for criticizing AEW and Ian Riccaboni online. Kelly alleges that Riccaboni defamed him on social media over his support for the film Sound of Freedom film. Kelly also says that he has not been able to find work since. This past June, a judge ordered the case to go to arbitration.
At the time of this writing, neither Tony Khan, AEW or The Outrunners have commented on Brandon Tates Facebook post. It is also unclear how this may affect the arbitration with the Tates and AEW.
Brandon and Brent Tate are best known as The Boys, accompanying Dalton Castle to the ring during their time in Ring of Honor.