Audio version available on the POST Wrestling Café
The death of Ben Satterley was the type of gut punch that left the wrestling industry reeling and speechless.
On Sunday, September 27, less than 24 hours after opening the All Out pay-per-view with Andrade El Idolo, Ben Satterley was seen hunched over in his vehicle outside of the Cava restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. When 911 responded, there was little to be done, and Satterley was pronounced dead at 4:08 p.m. local time. He had just turned 40 last month.
Hours later, AEW alerted the public. Among those stunned were those in attendance at the Buffalo RiverWorks, remembering Andy Williams with a celebration of life. It included members of the AEW roster, who were grieving one fallen member of its fraternity only to be rocked by another.
When Pac was on screen, he conveyed an intensity and aggression mixed with a brutal demeanor and yet a graceful and beautiful composition inside the ropes. He didn’t drop his guard in public often, but a rarity was weeks ago when he memorialized Williams on his own tribute edition of AEW programming. It was one of the speeches that night that hit hardest because it came from Ben Satterley and not Pac. We saw the man and not the performer in that moment, struck with grief and allowing the public a peek at the man his colleagues have fondly recalled over the past week.
The reaction has been as overwhelming, emotional, and reflective as any wrestler’s passing in recent memory. It’s the unfortunate reality that it takes the ultimate tragedy for a collective understanding of what an individual meant to both his chosen profession and the contributions to the people he shared dressing rooms with across the world.
Josh Alexander got to speak with Satterley the day before he died at All Out, “Everybody knows how good he was. Not everybody got to know the human being. He was one in a million, one in a billion. I’ve never met anyone in the business like him.”
Every major promotion has paid its respects, tributes ranging from The Rock to Tetsuya Endo and just about every major figure that encountered Satterley.
It’s not wrong to say that he was taken for granted because he operated at a supreme level for so much of his career. His Black Arrow was a majestic ownership of one’s control and rhythm that left audiences awed each time. It was a task understood by Will Ospreay that he had to perform this move on Wednesday’s special, spending his afternoon with a crash pad and questioning if he could hit it (after neck fusion surgery, no less). Pulling off the maneuver successfully was evidenced by Ospreay’s sheer elation after hitting the tribute spot on live television that night.
Fortiter Defendit Triumphans
Born on August 22, 1986, to Stephen and Gillian, the future Pac called Newcastle upon Tyne home. Life would take him away from Newcastle, but it would never take Newcastle away from him. He pledged allegiance to the Newcastle United club and represented his homeland on the world stage.
Like many of his contemporaries, it was in backyards that he first started what would become his vocation. At sixteen, in a post-Attitude Era, post-WCW and ECW environment, his goals of becoming a star on a world stage had to be pipe dreams. The backyards led him to the Independent Wrestling Federation’s training school at St. Joseph’s Hall in Gateshead. He would spend fifteen pounds per week, working under Mark Sloan, and it allowed for plenty of time to “mess around”. The crash pads and extracurriculars became the petri dish for one of the next generation’s most influential performers. A man with unbelievable body coordination, blessed with genetics that earned him the nickname “Six Pack” from his father for his abs. It was the inspiration behind his ring name.
On March 27, 2004, he made his debut wrestling Assassin (Brian Bell), who continues to wrestle and train at Contract Pro Wrestling in Bedlington:
From day one he had all the talent you could ask for & from training in a church in Newcastle, leisure centre in Gateshead, leisure centre in Sunderland & The Community Centre on Chillingham Road he honed his skills to become one of the ABSOLUTE best to do it!
Working stuff out in the ring with him at Chilly road community centre I said off the cuff “Do you reckon its possible to do a 450 facing out of the ring?” Pac climbed to the top rope & just did it… i was like “… yeah that!”
Humble to a fault, it was very hard to get him to take a compliment, he would always redirect it back at you & insist whatever you were praising about him was only because of what you did to facilitate his performance.
It was only the fourth match of his career where he shared a ring with Fergal Devitt, a.k.a. Prince Devitt and later, Finn Balor.
The IWF and 3 Count Wrestling (promoted by Mick “Mike” Groom) became his staples of development. Blake Norton wrestled for 3 Count Wrestling for several years and saw Pac up close as someone special: “Incredible athlete. Just astounding to be in the presence of him. I envied his physical gifts right from the start. His movement was magical”.
The British independent scene had been ravaged, and it was hardly the springboard it would become over the next generation. Promotions had come and gone, fans had been turned off, and making it outside of the country was daunting.
The breakout year for Pac was 2006 when the greater wrestling collective started to take notice of this nineteen-year-old, who latched onto the beleaguered 1PW (One Pro Wrestling) and had matches with AJ Styles, Teddy Hart, and a class of European standouts on the rise like Jody Fleish, Jonny Storm, Tommy End, Sheamus, and Drew Galloway (McIntyre).
Alan Counihan (“Alan 4L”) of the Pro Wrestling Torch recalls the high bar the British fanbase demanded, “The pride that you saw for local wrestling that came a decade later with Rev Pro, OTT, ICW and PROGRESS was absolutely not a thing in 2006. A young British wrestler had to really win over the likes of me (as silly as that was in hindsight). There was Nigel (McGuinness) & Doug (Williams), but then everyone else we handwaved. When I first heard of PAC, it was when he was breaking out in 1PW, and that really worked against him because I didn’t respect 1PW either (on that, I was proven right). I wasn’t buying in easily. Then All Star Weekend IV happened.”
In May 2006, Pac was booked into a four-way match for IPW: UK, winning the 3PW heavyweight title in a match with Takeshi Morishima of Pro Wrestling NOAH, Ashley Reed, and a 22-year-old Canadian by the name of Kevin Steen. Months later, IPW: UK booked Pac in a three-way with Steen and El Generico in Kent and a four-way the following night with El Generico, Ultimo Dragon, and Ricky Marvin. On night one, it was the first time Pac and Generico shared a ring, a pairing that was instrumental for both men’s careers, taking their rivalry to heights unimagined that day in Orpington Hall. Steen and Generico spread the gospel of PAC to PWG promoter Super Dragon, and this nineteen-year-old “secret” was about to be exposed to a U.S. fanbase.
RevPro promoter Andy Quildan shared a story that his career-altering set of matches almost didn’t happen. PAC crashed his car on the way to the show but managed to get the car towed home, took a taxi to the train station, and made it to the show.
“I remember Kevin Steen telling me about this guy that El Generico and he had wrestled in England (they had worked a 3-way with him). Kevin was really impressed by PAC,” recalls historian Pat Laprade, “And then, they both worked against him at PWG, and I remember Kevin telling me they had helped get PAC in the U.S”.
For any independent wrestler, the first time a promoter is willing to invest in you as a “fly-in” is a recognition factor of your value. No promoter working on slim margins is adding the cost of a flight as a favor or just to do it (well, at least the ones with plans to turn a profit). Pac’s big “fly-in” weekend was for PWG’s All-Star Weekend IV in Reseda with matches against AJ Styles and El Generico in November 2006.
“PAC vs. El Generico. Voted as the SoCal Match of the Year and the match that turned me from a PAC disrespector to one of his most vocal champions online”, remembers Counihan. “I was blown away and thought what they did in that match took the style I had seen being crafted since 2002 by the likes of Low Ki, (Amazing) Red, AJ (Styles), to an even higher level… they had built chemistry, but on this night, it was chemistry like you rarely ever see two wrestlers have. The explosivity, the creativity, and the level of the execution – it was all just mind-blowing.”
The industry was shifting in 2006. Despite the hangover of two national promotions dying five years earlier, the game was evolving through the rise of Ring of Honor and a thriving DVD industry where more accessibility to the worldwide scene was becoming easier. TNA had jumped onto Spike TV, and performers deemed “too small” or not possessing “the look” for WWE were wrestling in front of a million viewers per week. PWG was becoming a pilot episode for the series that would be picked up by the major groups over the next decade, and Pac was cast after All-Star Weekend.
He would earn a return flight months later, at PWG’s Holy Diver (a show named after the popular song by Dio), facing Kevin Steen underneath the main event where El Generico won the PWG world title from Human Tornado. In April 2007, PWG brought him back for a rematch with Generico for the title and headlining a show involving some of the biggest independent names of the era. They followed with Pac and Kaz Hayashi the next evening. Two months later, he formed a team with Roderick Strong, winning the vacant tag belts. It was a formative relationship, with the two eventually going to WWE and reuniting in AEW. However, it was Pac’s affiliation through the Death Riders that allowed Pac to work with Strong’s wife, Marina Shafir.
Thank you for being you, always. For being the performer you were, for being the human you were. But I thank you the most for helping my wife. Giving her guidance and just helping her find herself in this crazy world. Letting her know that it’s okay to be you and to stick with what you stand for, and you can be a good person the whole time. Thank you for being such a good friend to my son, chatting with him for hours about soccer and for being such a thoughtful and amazing human being and the best wrestler I have ever watched. – Roderick Strong
It was a short title reign, poetically ended by Steen & El Generico right before Pac’s invite to the Battle of Los Angeles tournament. Pac would wrestle Jack Evans and Claudio Castagnoli before losing to CIMA in the semi-finals at BOLA.
He was in high demand throughout the U.K. for any promotion that could string three letters together and track down the 20-year-old. He was quickly becoming a fixture on wXw shows in Germany, including an invite to its 16 Carat Gold Tournament in May 2007. The stacked field featured Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, Matt Sydal, Go Shiozaki, Davey Richards, Nigel McGuinness, Doug Williams, and Tommy End, and Pac’s opening round opponent, El Generico.
“PAC is Dragon Gate Family. Forever”
The next act of his career was the biggest step in his still very young career. Just over three years after his debut, he was stepping foot into a Dragon Gate ring for the first time, and it was a promotion that became synonymous with the performer. The teachings imparted on Pac would be lifelong ones, as Counihan observed, “He embraced the DG mentality and carried it his whole career. As someone who famously doubted himself, I think the structure and the quiet professionalism of the DG system really worked for him”.
July 15, 2007, Pac walked into the promotion at Hakata Star Lanes teaming with members of Typhoon. It reads like an all-star lineup with Pac, CIMA, Dragon Kid & Susumu Yokosuka facing Shingo Takagi, Jack Evans, Cyber Kong and of course, El Generico.
“They were getting to work with the best of the best”, says Counihan on the state-of-the-art wrestling occurring in Dragon Gate. “The standard that men like Masato Yoshino drilled into anyone that came in was perfection. It wasn’t for everybody. But it was absolutely for PAC.”
U.S. fans were getting a peek into the future by Dragon Gate being exposed through Ring of Honor. One of the most famous matches of the decade was at Supercard of Honor in March 2006, where members of Blood Generation and Do Fixer spent twenty minutes transforming the ring into a flux capacitor, turning the speed up to 88 miles per hour and sending the Frontier Fieldhouse to the future of what was possible.
Dragon Gate was a surging promotion, begat by Toryumon, a company presenting breathtaking wrestling – high-flying and technically proficient athletes presented as matinee idols – thus attracting a larger female fanbase. It was also importing some of the most influential figures of the next U.S. wave. Pac would see the roster encompass The Young Bucks, El Generico, Rich Swann, and a man that would become just as critical to his career, Ricochet (Trevor Mann). Adds Counihan, “All of these guys had a ‘Before DG’ and an ‘After DG’. If you look at the promotion’s schedule, that explains it partly, as they got to work so frequently, which is obviously a massive part of wrestler development”.
Post-Typhoon, Pac joined World-1, and it was this era where he was bestowed his first championship in the company. Teaming with Masato Yoshino and BxB Hulk after multiple attempts, the stablemates won the Open the Triangle Gate belts from CIMA, Gamma, and Kagetora. It was Pac’s first of three reigns with the trio’s championship. He would add two more reigns with members of WORLD-1 as his singles career blossomed.
His most important title reign in Dragon Gate began August 29, 2010, when the Open the Brave Gate belt was vacated by stablemate Yoshino and put up in a tournament. In Fukuoka, Pac bested Genki Horiguchi, Kagetora, and Susumu Yokosuka in one night and began his record-setting title run. Eleven defenses and 447 days later, Pac still holds the longest reign in the history of the 21-year championship.
Picking up where El Generico left off, Ricochet served as Pac’s muse. The rivals first met at a CHIKARA show in 2007, but it was in Japan for Dragon Gate where they defined their rivalry. Ricochet was the young phenom, wowing audiences with a middle finger toward the parameters of aerial possibilities. Throughout 2011, he chased Pac for the Open the Brave Gate Championship. Twice Pac defended the belt successfully against the rising talent. At Dragon Gate USA’s Freedom Fight show on November 13, 2011, Ricochet scored his elusive victory as a prelude to his third crack at the championship the next weekend in Osaka.
The November 19, 2011, showdown at Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium saw the rivalry take main event status and became a match for the ages, climaxing with the end of Pac’s legendary reign and the coronation of Ricochet.
“Me and Pac in Osaka for the Brave Gate (championship). That was Will Ospreay and Ricochet before Will Ospreay and Ricochet”, noted Ricochet when he was interviewed by Case Lowe in 2024. “Pac and me were really taking it to the next level because he was always somebody that I looked up to. I always wanted to go out there and put on the best performance I can for him. Pac instilled a lot of discipline in me, especially the diet, working out, and taking it and treating it like an actual business. So, every time I went over to Japan, like, it was literally ‘business time’. Workout, diet, eat right, train, get in the ring, do everything I need to do for the big pay-per-view coming up. So, he was a guy that instilled a lot of discipline in me”.
The 2011 match was their final one-on-one match, and other than a trios contest over WrestleMania weekend the next spring, the two never had another match together. They did not overlap in NXT or WWE, and their lone link in AEW occurred last month with both participating in the Casino Battle Royale at All In, at Wembley Stadium.
The years flew by, but the memories didn’t, and Pac’s influence was overwhelming when Ricochet turned in one of the greatest tributes ever seen on a broadcast with a match involving Will Ospreay last Wednesday, going note for note over some of Pac’s greatest hits.
This is every PAC reference I could find in Ospreay vs Ricochet, and there’s probably more I missed too. Beautiful match https://t.co/qXBUxfwZfL
— e🩸 (@punksriptiide) October 1, 2026
In 2012, he hit another crossroads, and it was a year that took Pac away from Japan and led to signing a contract with the industry leader, WWE.
Before that, he received an invite to the Best of the Super Juniors tournament, maintaining his core connection with Dragon Gate. It is the only time the lion mark would appear on Pac’s CV, but it opens the discussion of what was on the table had he opted not to sign with WWE.
The field was loaded as Pac joined Low Ki, Prince Devitt, KUSHIDA, Hiromu Takahashi, Ángel de Oro, Brian Kendrick, and Jushin Thunder Liger among them. It was the lone match Pac was able to have with the junior heavyweight icon of New Japan, beating Liger on the opening night at Korakuen Hall. Pac was hardly just booked as a favor, beating some of New Japan’s top junior heavyweights and winning the block before falling to eventual winner Ryusuke Taguchi in the semi-final.
The summer of 2012 was his swan song with Dragon Gate after agreeing to terms with WWE and reporting to the newly established NXT.
Perhaps as a sign of respect, Pac left the promotion holding the Open the Triangle Gate belts with Yoshino and Doi, opting to have Pac’s team retain on his final night on July 22 in Kobe. Instead, the belts were vacated, and a tournament began the next month. To add to the respect, CIMA retained the Open the Dream Gate belt in the main event, then summoned Pac to the ring, followed by the entire roster as CIMA delivered a speech to honor the outgoing star.
Alan Counihan was told firsthand by CIMA how highly he regarded Pac: “After the first DG: UK show in 2009, CIMA was flying home to Greece. Unluckily for him, the airport gate for the London to Athens flight was the same as the London to Dublin flight. We ended up having a really lovely talk, and a lot of it was about how great PAC is. I will never forget CIMA’s words to me in that conversation. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘PAC is Dragon Gate family. Forever’”.
Joining WWE was even more surprising to those who heard the most open and revealing interview of Pac’s career several months earlier. The Art of Wrestling podcast was launched by Colt Cabana in the summer of 2010 and quickly became the “go-to” spot for wrestlers to have relaxed, open, and revealing conversations with a colleague and friend, analogous to WTF with Marc Maron.
“I’ve got this rejection complex. I fear failure. That’s what holds me back.”
Pac was a guest in January 2012 and became one of the most discussed episodes in the history of the series. A noticeably nervous Ben Satterley is hesitant from the start, displaying a vulnerability few wrestlers would be willing to exhibit. The future “bastard” conveyed imposter syndrome, a fear of failure if he were to advance his career to new horizons, and a rejection of the compliments sent his way. The former were obstacles he would tear down, but the latter was still a consistent note among his peers that he was a perfectionist who was quick to evade praise.
Blake Norton said this was evident early in his career: “The one proper conversation I remember having with Ben was when he came to me after the show on December 8th in Northallerton in 2006. I’d gotten over well with the “family” crowd, and his match with Doug Williams, he’d had difficulty getting a reaction. He was proper down on himself. Not the crowd, not Doug, himself. He felt he had done a bad job and let us and the fans down because there wasn’t a loud reaction to his match. The rest of us were happy with some things we did, maybe wished we did other things better or things had worked out better; Ben was really down, though. Really sad. Really frustrated with himself”.
Cabana wrapped the interview with Pac, but the real conversation began afterward. To the point, they hit ‘record’ again and did a follow-up as Pac laid bare all these insecurities, stemming from the standard ‘wrap up,’ allowing Pac to promote his socials and contact info and the performer squirming. He admitted to not ‘pushing himself’ further in his career for that fear of rejection in a new place and not ‘rocking the boat’ in his stable position at Dragon Gate where he derived a full-time living. ”
“The first thing I think about is the worst possible outcome. That’s just how my brain works”
Cabana was quick to observe the juxtaposition of an incredible risk-taker inside of the ring but held back outside of it because of those insecurities. It led to this revelatory moment for Pac as he described his anxiety before the podcast but settling into a comfort with Cabana midway through and conquering that fear. Days later, Pac created a Twitter account, and while it may seem small and insignificant, it represented a breakthrough for the performer, with a seed planted from the interview that blossomed that year.
He left the nest of security, entered the Best of the Super Juniors, and then took the leap and signed with WWE in the summer.
The Man That Gravity Forgot
In 2012, NXT was not the same brand it would evolve into over the ensuing years. WWE was still, very much, the “land of the giants” with a narrow viewpoint of what qualities a star possesses. On the eye test, it was easy to question if WWE would see the talent in Pac, now renamed Adrian Neville.
Fans had seen talents like Paul London, Matt Sydal, Low Ki, and even Bryan Danielson during this era, join WWE and fight upstream. As Counihan summarizes accurately, “Hope for the best. Expect nothing. That was pretty much always my mentality when they signed people”.
The landscape was evolving. The rise of CM Punk and Daniel Bryan as main players was a breakthrough that would widen the scope of who could become stars. Paul Levesque was given the initiative to overhaul developmental, shift FCW into the shiny toy that would become NXT, and in time, an entire Performance Center dedicated to developing and funnelling future talent.
As Adrian Neville, he made his televised debut on the January 16, 2013, episode of NXT, exactly one year after his interview on The Art of Wrestling was released. The year was a dress rehearsal for what NXT would become the next year when the WWE Network launched and suddenly created a brand aimed at die-hard wrestling fans.
Neville teamed with Oliver Grey (formerly Joel Redman), who had been in their system for six months and was a fellow British wrestler. The pair became the first set of NXT tag champions as British Ambition, beating Luke Harper & Erick Rowan in a tournament final. Grey’s run would be altered by a torn ACL injury, leading to Bo Dallas assuming his role as Neville’s partner. Grey never got back on track, returning in a singles capacity and being released the next year. Neville added a second tag title reign, teaming with Corey Graves in the summer.
While accessible, few were watching NXT until the spotlight was placed on the brand as the inaugural live event on the WWE Network in February 2014. NXT presented “Arrival” from Full Sail University and created the template of WWE’s “super indie” with top-notch production values and a wider distribution platform. The night displayed a radical counter to the main roster fare by opening with Cesaro and Sami Zayn going twenty-three minutes, Paige and Emma’s championship presented like a main event instead of a buffer match, and capped off by Neville defeating Bo Dallas to become the NXT champion in a ladder match.
NXT had significant real estate on the WWE Network, attracting an audience that had become jaded with the main roster presentation. Instead of being sent to find their wrestling elsewhere, WWE created its own alternative, and NXT became a must-watch one-hour program on Wednesdays. More important was the launch of its TakeOver series on the WWE Network that drew immediate tie-ins to the earliest renditions of Clash of the Champions. The typical special featured five matches, all action, minimal downtime, and crammed into a nice 2 ½ hour window.
The first TakeOver in May 2014 was headlined by Neville against Tyson Kidd (TJ Wilson), who was not finding much focus on the main roster and rediscovered himself in NXT.
After my career ended, searching for moments of clarity, I’d put on matches that captured my true happiness in wrestling. I’d always replay my matches with Neville. It was a time in both of our lives when I truly believe, in my heart, that we both felt so alive and at our very best. We had such a special, unmatched chemistry that I was never able to duplicate with anyone else.
Naturally, the former Pac and El Generico found themselves reunited. In the summer of 2014, the pair were booked on back-to-back WWE live events, taking their rivalry to Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall) in Tokyo.
Neville and Sami Zayn would take the headline position at TakeOver: R Evolution in December. It was such a well-booked show, encompassing Kevin Owens’ debut and ransacking CJ Parker (Juice Robinson), leading to his role in the post-main event celebration. Neville and Zayn tore the house down and climaxed with Zayn finally winning the “big one”. Owens arrived to hug his long-time best friend, only to turn on Zayn and deliver an apron bomb that would be replayed countless times.
Pat Laprade remembers it vividly, “I was at home, watching the show because it was Kevin’s debut, and Sami in the main event. And that main event was so good. I remember thinking that just a few years before, no one would have thought that they would have a look from WWE, let alone have a chance to be signed. And they stole the show”.
The most important night of Zayn’s twelve-year career was spent with his two greatest rivals, Neville and Owens.
Kevin Steen, Prince Devitt, KENTA, Kana, Samoa Joe, and Uhaa Nation were just a selection of the talent that would come to NXT over the next year. The WWE roster was populated by more stars with pedigrees across the U.S. independent scene, who had thought TNA or ROH might be their ceiling in the U.S. What clicked in NXT was observed by Vince McMahon and WWE, and while there were hits and misses with talent, a sampling of the product today shows how that influence has infiltrated.
The Altitude Era
On March 27, 2015, Neville wrestled his final match as an NXT regular, facing Finn Balor on the well-remembered live event in San Jose over WrestleMania 31 weekend. Two nights later, he debuted on Raw in the same city, beating Curtis Axel and wrestling the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Seth Rollins, the next week.
His first year on the main roster saw the talent lose his first name, go to the final of the King of the Ring, wrestle John Cena on Raw, face Chris Jericho at Sumo Hall in Tokyo, enter Money in the Bank, team with Stephen Amell at SummerSlam, and have a rematch with Rollins that tore the house down on an episode of Raw in San Jose.
He was set for his first WrestleMania in 2016, when he sustained an ankle injury in a match with Jericho on Raw (often remembered for Jericho admonishing referee Charles Robinson). It sidelined Neville from the ladder match for the Intercontinental title at AT&T Stadium.
Months later, his comeback set the stage for the most impactful run of his WWE tenure. Drafted to Raw, the brand became the proprietor of its reinstalled cruiserweight division after the staging of the Cruiserweight Classic on the WWE Network, complete with its own dedicated show in 205 Live.
The label of “cruiserweight” poisoned many performers’ minds because it suggested a ceiling and removed their opportunity to ascend to the “money positions” in a company.
Neville didn’t half-ass any of it, turning heel on Rich Swann late in 2016 and developing “The Bastard”. He became the division’s stalwart as the once-shy, insecure performer became one of the best talkers in the company, with a villainous side juxtaposed with a ring style that eliminated anyone’s phobia of size in WWE.
He was bestowed the Cruiserweight Championship at the Royal Rumble in January 2017, leading to his first (and last) match at a WrestleMania. It was a dash of cold water to the 205 Live enthusiasts as Neville and Austin Aries were confined to the opening spot on the pre-show, yet turned in one of the best matches on the entire card.
The Neville title run lasted until the fall, dropping the belt momentarily to Akira Tozawa in August and regaining it six days later at SummerSlam (on the pre-show).
The once risk-averse star, who fretted about losing a secure spot with Dragon Gate and was grateful to be making his living in pro wrestling, would take the ultimate leap of his career, exiting his WWE deal before its expiration in the fall of 2017.
Neville dropped the Cruiserweight title for the last time to Enzo Amore at No Mercy on September 24. He stuck around for another week, last wrestling for WWE on a house show on October 1 against Amore.
From the October 16, 2017, edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
The biggest WWE news was actually at Raw, regarding Neville (Ben Satterly, 31). The scripted plan for Raw on 10/9 was for the main event to (be) Enzo Amore beating Neville in a non-title match. When Neville found out, he walked out. It was a last second decision by Vince McMahon, said to be because nobody could come up with a better idea at the last minute, to put the title on Kalisto, rather than have Amore beat somebody else. The plan is to get the title back on Amore, which is only logical given they have the show built around him.
What that means regarding Neville is still up in the air. Neville wasn’t back for the 10/10 show. At this point the belief within the company is that he’s gone, including one person close to the situation insisting he’s 100 percent gone. The company’s official word is that he is still with the company and never quit. At press time, this was a situation that wasn’t fully sorted out.
To put this decision into perspective, there wasn’t even a thought of AEW in 2017 as a comparable landing spot to replace a WWE income. TNA was in the doldrums under its first year of ownership by Anthem and in between the Jeff Jarrett regime and the Scott D’Amore and Don Callis era. Ring of Honor and New Japan were options, but it was a far cry from WWE, speaking to Pac’s vigilance to push for creative satisfaction over monetary stability.
The larger problem was he still had a contract with WWE and, through various hold-ups, would sit out for an entire year in his prime.
From October 1, 2017, until October 2, 2018, Pac did not wrestle. He did not tweet. There were no interviews. No cryptic videos, and the man that gravity forgot attempted to be a man that the wrestling world forgot.
“I’M BACK YA SHITS !!!”
It was not TNA or Ring of Honor or New Japan Pro Wrestling. It could only be one stage where Ben Satterley would emerge, and it was on Dragongate soil and aligning with R.E.D. He had been freed from his WWE contract and was ready to prove the words of CIMA true: that he was “Dragon Gate Family. Forever”.
He was crowned Open the Dream Gate champion on December 4 at Korakuen Hall, unseating Masato Yoshino and treating the championship with the ultimate care. There would be no jobs to negate or lessen the prestige of the title. Pac was a man driven by conviction and had a firm set of hands on the steering wheel of his career, placing his company on board for the ride. He made a point that he was not under contract, an understandable stance after his WWE ordeal.
Now, AEW was a very real thing. The success of All In in September 2018 was amplified by the building blocks behind the scenes by Tony Khan, who had pitched a concept to Kevin Reilly of WBD, eyeing a slew of influential free agents at year’s end and sensing opportunity after the WWE’s landmark television deals it secured that year. It culminated with a reveal as the clock struck zero on New Year’s Eve and the reveal on “Being the Elite” of the most important three letters for the next generation of professional wrestling.
A press conference was held in Jacksonville on January 8, 2019, minutes before a live edition of SmackDown. During a speech by Hangman Page, the Open the Dream Gate champion appeared in “full gear” of trunks and boots (sans shirt) to confront Page. It was the running joke that provided the inspiration for the annual November pay-per-view in AEW.
Members of the 205 Live roster had a secret rendezvous with Pac in Jacksonville that day. Mustafa Ali shared the memory and the reverence they held for the star:
When the 205 Live boys had to sneak out to meet Pac, we just wanted to see our friend again. Our fearless leader. Pac wanted to meet us for something else. He told us that he wanted to apologize for leaving. That he felt he left us hanging. We had to assure him that we all supported him and him fighting the machine. Despite everything he was going through, he was thinking of us. As we said our goodbyes, Pac pulled me aside and said “Don’t let the rat bastards pull you down, bubba.
Pac’s physique was always a calling card. Blessed with incredible genetics, but aided by incredible work sculpting himself to resemble a Greek God with gigantic traps, broad shoulders & chest, and the small waist that housed his signature abs, continuing to honor his father’s nickname for his son.
It’s easy to look at a wrestler with that physique and question the methods to achieve such a look. He did make a point in November 2018, posting a picture of his ripped physique and proclaiming himself, “a steroid-free savage”.
He would engage in his only one-on-one match with Zack Sabre Jr. in January 2019, and a first-time match with Will Ospreay the next month for RevPro. Because he was Open the Dream Gate champion, it meant a DQ with ZSJ and a time-limit draw with Ospreay. In March, he met WALTER (WWE’s Gunther) in OTT with another DQ finish. Between Dragongate commitments, he was making up for lost time and wrestling the current and future crop of stars, adding Mark Davis, Kyle Fletcher, Pentagon Jr., Michael Oku, Speedball Mike Bailey, and El Phantasmo to his list of opponents.
AEW planned to promote a match between PAC and Hangman Page for its inaugural event in Las Vegas in May, but it was bumped. The match was set to determine who would wrestle the winner of Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho to determine the first AEW champion.
The reason for the match being pulled was believed to be two-fold. The first: PAC was not losing while still holding the Open the Dream Gate title. The other has come to light recently through David Bixenspan, who reported for Deadspin during that period.
Bixenspan noted the visa issues Pac went through in the spring of 2019, claiming that when AEW was filing trademarks, WWE tried to block the performer by contacting the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Bixenspan would note WWE never had issues with his visa status until he was aligned with AEW. It is not known if he was ever in violation of any regulations, but Bixenspan added, “This BADLY rattled Pac and made him extremely paranoid about the future of his American work visa status.” It was enough of a concern that Pac removed himself from his bookings over WrestleMania Weekend that year in New York and New Jersey.
Instead, a match between Pac and Page was done overseas in Nottingham for Wrestle Gate Pro, ending with Page winning by DQ.
Pac’s reign as Open the Dream Gate champion was ended by Ben-K in July and allowed Pac the flexibility to fully dedicate himself to AEW for the rest of his career.
Post-WWE, Pac would not wrestle in the United States until All Out in August 2019. Pac was a replacement on the pay-per-view when Jon Moxley was injured. Pac surprisingly beat Omega with a referee’s stoppage in a statement that the top stars can lose, thus establishing Pac as a player. The two would have a rematch in one of the early months of Dynamite with a 30:00 Ironman match in February 2020 in Independence, Missouri, on the “go-home” show before Revolution that weekend.
Omega would have one of the greatest tag matches in U.S. history at the pay-per-view with Hangman Page against the Young Bucks. Pac, meanwhile, wrestled Orange Cassidy in a transformative match for Cassidy’s career, going from underneath comedy figure to a staple act of AEW’s history with a greater ceiling than even optimists had for the performer. Pac made the match through his facial expressions and beautiful sequences to highlight Cassidy’s aerial array of skills, with a red-hot atmosphere for the wide contrast of characters. It was easily one of the most memorable matches for both men’s AEW careers.
AEW fans got the Pac and Hangman Page match on the inaugural episode of Dynamite on October 2, 2019, with Pac beating the future AEW champ.
Pac was crowned AEW’s first All-Atlantic champion (which is now recognized as the International Championship), winning a fatal four-way match at the first edition of Forbidden Door in June 2022. Pac took the belt to Europe to defend against Shota Umino, LJ Cleary, and Connor Mills. It was Orange Cassidy who succeeded Pac, beating his rival at the company’s first event in Toronto, Ontario.
His first allegiance was with Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix as the Death Triangle, and they became the first Trios Champions on September 7, 2022, in Buffalo. It was an odd show because it was the Wednesday following “Brawl Out,” and being inside the venue, it felt like a cloud over the action and a far cry from the usual “party atmosphere” at Dynamite.
Two months later, the Elite returned, and a Best-of-Seven series was held with the Death Triangle against Kenny Omega & Young Bucks for the Trios belts. It was an incredible series, culminating in “Game 7” at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. Most impressive was Pac breaking his nose at the start of the series and gutting his way through six weeks of matches with a face mask covering the break.
After the injury, he returned to programming and was added to the Blackpool Combat Club (later changed to the Death Riders), which was his stable for the remainder of his career. Another injury struck in July 2023 during a match with Gravity, removing Pac from action for the rest of the year and only registering six matches that year. The injury caused him to miss All In at Wembley Stadium the next month.
Pac returned in early 2024 and entered the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, wrestling long-time associates Claudio Castagnoli and Bryan Danielson. AEW’s return to Wembley allowed Pac to wrestle in the famous stadium, leaving the show with the Trios titles he won with Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta in front of 53,393 fans. They held the belts for eight months, and between both reigns, Pac held the belts longer than anyone at 360 days.
In August 2024, Pac and Will Ospreay put on one of the best matches of the year at All Out, and it was highlighted by Tony Schiavone when remembering Pac last week. It was the same event and arena where Pac would sadly have his final performance two years later.
Pac’s resume only grew over the last years. He wrestled Adam Copeland, Tomohiro Ishii, Swerve Strickland, Darby Allin, FTR, Komander, Máscara Dorada, wrestled at Arena México, and competed in Blood & Guts and the Continental Classic.
It is both eerie and sad to look at the final month of Pac’s career, where it almost felt like he was getting in every opportunity and experience. A return to RevPro, wrestling at Wembley Arena and then Wembley Stadium the next night, a trip to Arena México, one more match involving Will Ospreay, and then his final performance against Andrade El Idolo at All Out. The event where he beat Kenny Omega and had the classic with Ospreay.
“I Miss You My Friend, ‘Till We Meet Again”
But the month is not going to be remembered for classic matches, his stellar execution of the Black Arrow, always being in the right place and making the job seem effortless, or his nasty demeanor as “The Bastard”. It will be remembered for the twenty seconds when he dropped the persona to pay tribute to “The Butcher” Andy Williams. It was a heartbreaking speech in the moment, and today, it is devastating knowing what was to come.
We experience an industry that moves at a breakneck speed where the next “great match” is hours after the last one. It is hard to sit on something and digest its importance, value, and artistry. Pac was a perfect example of someone who did the job so well and so consistently that it became commonplace to see his name opposite anyone and just know it would be great.
His body control, aerial skillset, precision of his daunting maneuvers, promos, protection of his character, and bell-to-bell command of every detail and movement were something to marvel at and future stars to study and dissect.
However, it is not the headline of Pac’s legacy. Instead, it has been the worldwide mourning of those who saw Benjamin Satterley and not Pac or Neville. Someone whose guard was up in public but at ease among his contemporaries. A throwback to an era when that was the norm.
He advanced the game in so many ways, and when the natural evolution occurred, and others took to the sky higher and farther, he was able to adapt and change. Yet, when called upon, he could execute a Black Arrow on command, or put on a main event-level match and make others shine their brightest. There was no dip in this man’s output.
For the man who once had a fear of failure, the impact he made on those around him tells us his life was anything but.
As Jon Moxley stated, there are two types of eulogies. For fans, they were impressed by Pac because of “what this guy did”, but for those who shared locker rooms with Ben Satterley, they are left remembering “who this guy was”.
Special thanks to Alan Counihan, Pat Laprade, and Blake Norton for their memories of Pac for this story
Recommended material:
– The Art of Wrestling – Ep. 78 with Pac (Colt Cabana)
– Open the Voice Gate – PAC (Case Lowe & Mike Spears)
– 30 4L 30 Series: PAC (Alan 4L & Mark Buckeldee)
