Why Brody King Didn’t Appear on Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite

Update from 1:42 p.m. ET on 2/12/26: Warner Bros. Discovery has now denied involvement in Brody King's absence from Wednesday night's edition of AEW Dynamite. They have released a statement to the public, which you can read here.

In the sake of transparency, you can read our full orginal story below.

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There was no shortage of newsworthy headlines that came out on Wednesday night's edition of AEW Dynamite in Ontario, California.

Thekla shocked many of the All Elite Wrestling faithful when she defeated Kris Statlander in a Strap Match to win the AEW Women's World Championship, Kyle Fletcher also knocked off Tommaso Ciampa to capture his second TNT Championship and Private Party made their return to television for the first time in over a year.

Two men who were noticeably absent from the program, however, were AEW Men's World Champion MJF and No. 1 Contender Brody King, who will battle each other for the title this Saturday at Grand Slam Australia.

THIS SATURDAY! An empire stands. A challenger rises. @Brodyxking faces @The_MJF for the #AEW World Championship at #AEWGrandSlam Australia!

Watch #AEWDynamite LIVE on TBS & HBO Max pic.twitter.com/TRxzL1bjLv
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) February 12, 2026

Instead of capitalizing of King's surprising squash victory over Max the week before with some kind of in-ring segment, AEW ran the above video package to promote their match this weekend in Sydney.

According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, the decision to keep Brody King off of television this week was directly related to the 'F--- ICE' chants from fans in attendance at the February 4 edition of Dynamite in Las Vegas. Those chants made national headlines.

"The deal is that they didn't want the fans in the arena to be chanting that. If Brody came out, there was that risk… when he comes back, it will happen again. I don't know how they're going to handle it."

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Meltzer stressed that this was a decision that came from above AEW President Tony Khan's head.

"You know what it is, nobody wants to get on [President] Trump's bad side," Meltzer said. "If it wasn't for that, nobody would care, it's just a chant, but unfortunately [Warner Bros. Discovery are] trying to sell and get regulatory approval from a guy who is gonna take that stuff personal."

All eyes are on the massive merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix

Brody King | Ricky Havlik - All Elite Wrestling

Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to a multi-billion-dollar merger with streaming giant Netflix, which would result in Discovery Global splitting off into a standalone company. Netflix would then acquire many of the media properties under the Warner Bros. brand, including HBO and HBO Max.

The deal does need the green light from the federal government before it can be finalized, and rival Paramount is continuously upping its bid in an effort to swoop in and steal the purchase away from Netflix.

Despite being defeated rather easily by King last week, MJF is very likely going to retain his title at Grand Slam Australia on Saturday. It'll be interesting to see how quickly Brody returns to television once AEW is back stateside. We'll provide an update on the situation just as soon as one becomes available.

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