When Tony Khan delivered the following quote – as dictated by Wrestling Inc. – on Busted Open Radio about Santana's much-speculated about injury suffered at Blood and Guts, it put a cloud over a match that many an AEW fan considered a resounding success.

“Obviously, it’s a very dangerous match, and going into it, we knew injuries are a possibility,” Khan said. “I think it could be a relatively long injury, so it could be a while that Santana is out, but we’re here for him in whatever he needs … It’s unfortunate that the Blood and Guts match does come with injuries, and it was a knee injury that he suffered, and hopefully he’ll be back relatively soon.”

Yikes, that's not good, but hey, at least it wasn't a definitive diagnosis one way or another. Who knows, maybe he simply suffered an MCL sprain or an ankle dislocation and he could be back in the ring in the not-too-distant future.

… no, that speculation came to an end a few days later, when Chris Jericho let it be known on the True Geordie Podcast that Santana is expected to be out until at least March of 2023, eight months after his initial injury.

That's… less than ideal.

Though there have been wrestlers who have remained on television and stayed relevant while recovering from an injury, most notably “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Brian Pillman Sr., Santana isn't quite that level of a star or an Eddie Kingston-level talker who can make up for his in-ring absence with work on the mic.

Fortunately for Santana, he'll remain on the AEW roster and get the best medical care TK can buy, but in the meantime, fans have already started to wonder what's next for his post-Inner Circle factionmates Kingston and Ortiz and what they'll be up to once “The Mad King's” match with Chris Jericho in a shark cage comes to an end. Can they go on as a duo? Is a JFK Connection tag team something the promotion would like to pursue moving forward with Ruby Soho as their third partner? Or is there another performer Khan could bring into the promotion in the hopes of keeping things going until Santana is ready to return?

Fortunately, there's a perfect man for the job who has already appeared at one AEW event and might just be willing to take on a more expansive wrestling workload moving forward.

Homicide would be a perfect addition to Eddie Kingston's faction in AEW.

Eddie Kingston and Homicide go back a very, very, very, very, very long time.

Initially sharing the ring as foes in the IWA, where Kingston and his The Wild Cards partner in crime Jack Marciano defeated “The Notorious 187” in a Mid-South Tag Team Title match. From there, they wrestled together or as foes on 42 more occasions, and even formed a tag team in ROH first called The Strong Style Thugs before changing their name to Outlaw Inc., taking on everyone from The American Wolves to reDEagon, and even The Briscoes from 2011 through 2020.

Though they've only held a championship belt on one occasion, serving as IWA Tag Team Champions from late 2017 through early 2018, they've wrestled together on 35 occasions over the past decade and have remained good enough friends that when Kingston was getting beaten down with Jon Moxley at the end of Rampage Grand Slam live from Arther Ashe Stadium in New York by the Suzuki-Gun team of Minoru Suzuki and Lance Archer, Homicide hit the ring for the save, before celebrating with his long-time friend with a beer shortly thereafter.

Now that history between Homicide and Kingston alone should be more than enough to make him a logical addition to the AEW faction, with the team even potentially taking up the Outlaw Inc. name, but what really takes Homicide over the top as a potential target is his history with Santana and Ortiz, which goes back almost as far.

You see, before Santana and Ortiz wrestled together in AEW, they took on the monikers in Impact Wrestling, where they formed the faction LAX with Konnan, Diamante, and you guessed it, Homicide. Though this faction eventually fell apart, with Eddie Kingston joining the promotion and splitting the faction in two with Santana and Ortiz sticking with Konan and Homicide and a returning Hernandez siding with the “King,” the roots between these performers run deep, going well before All In was even an idea in mind of Cody Rhodes.

If there's any one performer who deserves a spot in AEW as the mid-term replacement for Santana, it has to be Homicide, and if he's down to join up for a once-a-week-ish commitment for the next eight months at least, there isn't another name Tony Khan should call about the gig.