Kevin Gates delivered a (staged) knockout punch to All Elite Wrestling’s Tony Nese last night at the company’s pay-per-view Dynamite event. The Baton Rouge rapper, who released his third studio LP Khaza last month, was in attendance to celebrate Swerve In Our Glory — the wrestling duo of Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee — being awarded the AEW tag team title belt.
Swerve, who referred to himself as a “hip-hop mogul” in his acceptance speech, welcomed Kevin Gates as a guest of his and Lee’s in the same speech to robust applause from the crowd. The revelry was rudely interrupted, however, when heel Tony Nese entered the arena with his smug manager, “Smart” Mark Sterling. Sterling was at the ceremony to campaign for Strickland to be removed from the AEW roster. He held a petition he claimed had been signed by most of the other wrestlers in the company before asking Gates to sign it. His persuasion tactics, however, were questionable.
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“I saw Kevin in the back, I got excited,” Sterling began promisingly enough. “I thought it was Yung M.A.” The latter remark elicited boos from the crowd, and when Gates refused to sign the petition, Sterling got nasty: “I thought you’d say that,” he responded, “because just like Swerve Strickland, you’re untrustworthy, and your music SUUUCKS!!!”
Gates immediately crossed the barricade, leaving the fan section to get in Sterling’s face. At this point, Nese stepped in, flexing his biceps while appearing to ask Gates, “What are you gonna do?” Gates responded with an impressively convincing right hook to Nese’s jaw, knocking the professional wrestler to the ground. Moments later, Strickland smushed an entire birthday cake into Sterling’s face.
Check out last night’s shenanigans above, and watch Swerve In Our Glory beat the odds to win the AEW Tag Team Championship in an unbalanced, three-on-two title fight below.
