LuFisto and Jonathan Gresham are both off Beyond Wrestling’s upcoming show but for very different reasons.
The promotion released a statement on Monday that Gresham is injured and will miss the show on 8/13 in Worcester. He was injured during training and will be out for four to six weeks.
Impact Wrestling has yet to comment on Gresham’s status for upcoming shows in Philadelphia and Toronto later this month.
BREAKING: Jonathan Gresham sustained an injury yesterday during training and will be out 4-6 weeks.
We wish The Octopus a speedy recovery and hope to find a new opponent for @FancyRyanClancy for #Americanrana this Sunday in Worcester. pic.twitter.com/GKGB11nusv
— Beyond Wrestling (@beyondwrestling) August 7, 2023
LuFisto will also miss Sunday’s show but her situation is quite different. She has been the center of controversy recently after making several comments critical of AEW’s women’s division.
After a fan’s sign reading “Book Women’s Division Better” was shown on AEW Dynamite last week, LuFisto wrote on Twitter:
“It’s cute how people blame booking for a bad women’s division. Talent with too much power; talent denigrating each other; talent trash-talking potential employees so they never get in as soon as they walk in…It starts here. – The one you called FN French Canadian asshole,” she wrote. (LuFisto has since deleted her Twitter/X).
She was again critical of the company earlier this week during an interview with Fightful. She recounted her experience backstage during her lone AEW appearance on the 4/6 show in Boston, this time specifically mentioning Ruby Soho and Dustin Rhodes as those she took issue with.
Several members of the AEW roster responded to LuFisto’s comments over the weekend, with MJF writing:
If you listen to miserable people who never made it in this sport that’s not exactly the brightest thing to do. Use your brain. If someone’s been in professional wrestling for over a decade and you find them to be talented but they’ve never truly “panned out” there’s a reason for it. 1. Lack of talent. 2. Difficulty to work with. 3. Delusional Just to name a few. People love to talk ill of companies and will say things like “I’m the only person who’s brave enough to speak up.” When in reality the only reason you’re spewing bullshit is because you are aware deep down you aren’t going to make it so what’s the harm in spewing reckless lies and trying to hurt hard working talented people on your way down to obscurity. We have an amazing women’s locker room. Sorry not sorry.
Beyond Wrestling confirmed on Saturday that LuFisto has pulled out of its upcoming show:
Sad to announce that LuFisto has withdrawn from Americanrana next Sunday in Worcester.
We will work to find a suitable replacement for her scheduled opponent Dan Barry.
I hope that she will return to compete for Beyond Wrestling again when she is ready.
-DC
— Beyond Wrestling (@beyondwrestling) August 6, 2023
On Sunday, LuFisto posted the following comments on Instagram:
For 26 years, I did everything I could so that the women wrestling environment wouldn’t be so damaging as it was for me.
Fights with wrestlers, fights with promoters, fights with the government, fights with fans… I was a problem child to many as I was seeking for change, truth and respect.
My “career” was a series of trials and errors as I had to learn most of it on the job while dealing with physical, sexual and mental abuse. I was so determined to be taken seriously and be respected as an equal athlete that I accepted things no human being should.
I’m not perfect but I did my best.
Today, because I set out to fight for women’s wrestling again, with my own story but also with what was confided in me, I have nothing left. There is no more legacy.
I called out a system where many women said they were miserable and I shared my own experience. Everyone wanted “names” but when it turned out to be someone you should not mention, everyone followed the PR memo and did everything they could to kill any credibility I had left.
Wrestlers so desperate for a job or a push, that I wrestled when no one else would, that I always showed respect to but also ones who already hated me to the point where they kept laughing at the fact that I had almost killed myself at Shimmer 83 on that terrible moonsault to the outside, made sure to add more fuel to the fire.
Just like a woman wearing revealing clothes that gets raped, I brought this upon myself, many say.
When confronted with the truth and not accepting that sometimes, a “nice” person is only nice to those who can benefit her and will throw under the bus anyone or anything that could stand in her way, they all got together to make sure people would know how terrible of a person I am, a piece of shit human being and that I had absolutely no credibility.
The legacy they are leaving me with is the one of a terrible wrestler that thought she was good.
An indie lifer who never elevated anyone and was just a selfish and narcissist prick.
I was a always a problem backstage, always complained about my booking, never delivered.
I am bitter, old and ugly.
I am a liar because, unlike speaking out, I’m standing there alone with no one backing me up.
I was never signed because I make up stories and no one actually talked or wrote to me. I imagined all that. I’m delusional.
I never wanted to make women’s wrestling better.
26 years of enduring bullshit and talking for others for this.
The harassment is not stopping. They set out what they planned to do yesterday and they will all party tonight at the tapings like there was never a problem there… They are on TV and I never will so, they are right. I’m wrong.
Who cares anyway? It’s just the failure. Who? Yeah, who the fuck is LuFisto?
Nobody. Nothing.
26 years.
26 years.
