Dan Lambert Says Junior Dos Santos Was Fired Up When He Cracked Tony Khan’s Rib

Junior Dos Santos was extremely psyched when he showed up for AEW’s Grand Slam at Arthur Ashe Stadium. American Top Team head Dan Lambert says that dos Santos was bouncing around like a pinball before the show.

The MMA star may have been a little too fired up. During the segment, Junior cracked Tony Khan’s ribs after an overzealous hug. Khan spoke about the injury shortly after.

“I’ll be OK. But he legitimately cracked them. I’ll be OK. It’s been a few weeks, but I’m sleeping on my right side. It felt just right in the moment. It was just kind of improvised. He’s a very strong man. I love the gasp pop it got.”

Khan told the New York Post that he no-sold the injury. He even went so far as to say he was asking for it. The AEW boss clarified that he believed dos Santos did nothing wrong.

Lambert told ESPN’s Marc Raimondi the story of how excited dos Santos was for the New York show. He said dos Santos told him that he wished he could get that excited before one of his MMA fights.

“The first time JDS came to me to a show, with Andrei Arlovski, we did an in-ring promo and the fans were kind of vocal in response. As soon as we got to the back, JDS looked at me and said, ‘Oh my God, when do I get to come back and punch somebody in the face? A couple weeks later, AEW had the Grand Slam show at Arthur Ashe Stadium and that was going to be the first time he got to punch somebody in the face. We got there early, figured out what our plan was for the night, went back to the hotel for a while and JDS was all excited, bouncing against the walls, and we’re driving over to the arena and he’s like, ‘Man, I wish I felt like this before my fights. I’m ready to go,'” 

Junior dos Santos was let go by UFC earlier this year. He is currently trying his hand at the pro wrestling game. Dos Santos will team with Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page to take on Chris Jericho’s Inner Circle (Jericho, TNT champion Sammy Guevara, and Jake Hager) tonight on Rampage.

How will Junior dos Santos do inside of an AEW ring? Share your opinions in the comments!

Thanks to Fightful for the quotes!