Why Sammy Guevara Returned In ROH Instead Of AEW

Last weekend, Sammy Guevara returned to action for the first time since February, making a surprise appearance at the latest ROH tapings.

Sammy was on hand to save Dustin Rhodes from a beatdown at the hands of the Dark Order. But the decision to have Guevara return on ROH rather than AEW has caused debate.

Some fans online have speculated that it may be to keep him apart from Mercedes Moné, about whom Guevara was found to have made offensive comments in an interview that resurfaced in 2020. Sammy has since apologised for the incident, which Mone acknowledged in a tweet at the time.

However, in a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez reported that Sammy's apparent move to ROH has nothing to do with this prior situation, stating:

"I know that everybody has immediately jumped to the following conclusion: that he was moved to Ring of Honor because Mercedes Mone is on the main AEW television show. I was told that him being on Ring of Honor has absolutely nothing to do with Mercedes.

"Sammy has been ready to go for a little while and they did have a storyline [for him] that would have brought him back to the main roster. [...] But there was an aspect of the storyline that he was not cool with. I think it involved him turning heel and he didn’t want to turn heel, whatever it was. They did have a storyline and they decided well, he doesn’t want to do that aspect of the storyline, so they ended up coming up with a storyline where he’s a babyface in Ring of Honor. So there were plans to bring him back to the main roster when Mercedes Mone was there and it didn’t happen. So, I’m sure he’ll be back on the main roster. I would bet you anything that by the end of the year he’s back doing Dynamite, Collision, etc."

H/T to WrestlingNews.co.