AEW was forced to make major adjustments to this week’s Dynamite after illness and injuries tore through the locker room coming out of Grand Slam Australia, leaving the company scrambling to reshape large portions of the broadcast.

The February 18, 2026 episode of AEW Dynamite, which aired from the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento, California, reportedly underwent significant rewrites on the day of the show. Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that the roster was hit hard by a sickness bug that impacted talent who traveled to Australia as well as several who remained stateside.

Despite the chaos behind the scenes, two key matches stayed locked in as originally planned: the TBS Championship four way bout and the main event showdown between Kenny Omega and Swerve Strickland.

“I don’t know the names, but I was told in the afternoon that this show was completely rewritten. Not completely, I mean, Omega Swerve was exactly what it was going to be, and I think that the four way women’s TBS Championship was what it was going to be. There were a lot of illnesses, both people from Australia, and I think there were some injuries too. There were a lot of illnesses from people, some in Australia, but a lot who didn’t go, so the feeling was that somebody must have been sick last Wednesday, and a lot of people got it, because people who were not in Australia also got sick all at the same time. So it was like a skeleton crew in a lot of ways. I know Mortos was not scheduled for the show, to wrestle on the show. He was a replacement,” Meltzer said.

Several talents were shuffled into new positions as a result, with last minute replacements filling gaps across the card.