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Anti-ICE chant erupts at AEW pro wrestling show in Las Vegas, pausing main event match
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this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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"Pausing match" means they paused for like 4 seconds while they let the crowd chant. They do that all the time in pro wrestling. And being anti-ICE seems to be part of his gimmick.
Eh, sort of.
For a particularly meaningful chant? Yeah, they'll halt things to let it breathe (and get the footage).
But in this case? The referee (Bryce Remsburg) has openly stated he intentionally delayed the match to let the chant keep going. And the commentators stopped themselves mid conversation to also let it breathe.
And "being anti-ice" is not really part of either wrestler's gimmick. Nathan Blauvelt (Brody King) is a hardcore punk musician and came out in an "abolish ice" shirt once but not a big deal was made out of it. And MJF is one of the most obnoxious (and talented) heels in the history of wrestling who pretty regularly will break character on social media only to call out bigots.
So, based on that info: The chant was likely a result of seeing Brody but is mostly just because ice are fucking monsters. MJF in particular seemed to want to mug it up and draw attention without any prompting. Bryce, the referee, may have been given instruction to let it breathe from the back (so Tony Khan and the rest of creative) or he did it of his own initiative. It is likely the announcers (Tony Schiavonne and Excalibur) were given guidance from creative to do so as well.
Its also worth noting all of this happened AFTER the official end of Dynamite when they were in the (effectively planned for at this point) overrun. And while it gets messy as to how much TNT/TBS actually care, they are technically supposed to be wrapping it up by that point. And this was a double taping night so there is also the concern about keeping the audience up too late since there was a whole 'nother two hour show to tape basically within minutes of Dynamite ending.
This is from the ref in the match