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OVW Issues Statement After Referee Suffers Medical Episode During Match
Image Credit: OVW
OVW has issued a statement after referee Dallas Edwards suffered a medical emergency during a match on Thursday night. F4W Online reports that Edwards was refereeing a multi-person tag team match on Thursday night. Edwards came into the match after the first ref took a bump, and was part of a planned spot where he was shoved in the way for a Phenomenal Forearm. The sport reportedly “went wrong” and Edwards hit the mat hard, convulsing in what appeared to be a seizure.
The match was eventually stopped and the show went off the air, with Edwards taken to a hospital. Jake Lawlers shared a photo on Facebook of Edwards awake and giving a thumbs up.
Fightful reports that Edwards’ girlfriend provided a statement to them, which read:
“Please keep Dallas in your thoughts as your day begins. I am not going to provide much more information at this time except to the parties who already know, but last night resulted in a brain injury that is being monitored and will continue to be monitored by doctors here.
“Seeing all the support you guys have already given is amazing and I didn’t want to leave everyone without some kind of update.”
OVW has also issued a statement on the matter, which reads:
“Last night during Rise, referee Dallas Edwards – a member of our OVW family – experienced a medical emergency during the broadcast. OVW takes the health and well-being of all our performers extremely seriously, and as a company we are all distraught to see an injury to one of our own.
“Dallas is alert and doing much better. We ask everyone to keep him in your thoughts and prayers and respect his and his family’s privacy at this time.
“We will provide an update as soon as it is available, but in the meantime, we wish Dallas a speedy recovery and we can’t wait until he’s back with our OVW family very soon.”
The incident has drawn criticism toward OVW, as the match continued for some time after Edwards hit the mat. F4W Online reports that one of the wrestlers moved Edwards out of the way and pushed him with his foot after the spot so that Edwards wouldn’t be in the path of the next move. Gnarls Garvin, best known as Beef in ROH, is a close friend of Edwards’ and posted to Facebook:
“This is a very serious post from me.
Dallas Edwards is one of my best friends in this world. I spend time with him almost every single day.
What happened last night at OVW Wrestling was and is complete total negligence and 100% avoidable.
I am beyond anger right now and everyone involved with not helping him while having a seizure, needs to burn their boots or go back to training day one.
Accidents happen, what we do is very dangerous. I am very ashamed in all of the wrestlers who didn’t put safety first of all involved.
Say a prayer for Dallas today.”
On behalf of 411, our best wishes to Edwards for a quick and full recovery.
— OVW Wrestling (@ovwrestling) March 13, 2026
