Hikaru Shida seems confused about being pulled from Owen Hart tournament

It seems that the lines of communication went haywire in AEW regarding Hikaru Shida and the Owen Hart tournament.

AEW has been playing up an injury for Shida since losing the street fight to Serena Deeb a little over two weeks ago. Commentary brought into question if Shida would be medically cleared to compete in the Owen Hart tournament. We found out the answer during Rampage when Shida was replaced by Kris Statlander.

Apparently, this decision seems to have confused Shida. She replied, “What?” to a clip of the segment.

The quick assumption when jumping to conclusions is that Shida was unaware of this plan. She added fuel to this fire with her next tweet.

Shida has been wrestling in Japan since her loss to Deeb. She even competed in a 1 hour 45 minute tag team match. Shida also performed in the Makai fighting musical drama.

As soon as I heard AEW discussing an injury to Shida on Dynamite, it immediately struck me as an odd choice. At times, AEW embraces the idea of fans scouring social media and international wrestling to provide depth for story gaps, so it would seem obvious that fans would find out Shida is not injured severely enough to be pulled from the tournament.

As for Shida’s response, the line that sticks out most is, “Japanese wrestling is nothing for them.” It comes across as throwing shade, but I would caution that it might be a case of not expressing herself as intended in English.

In true babyface fashion, Shida decided to be positive about the situation and wished Statlander well.

What’s your take on this odd situation involving Hikaru Shida and AEW?