Also, so fucking ridiculous they put Orange Cassidy in the Danielson/Okada program. You know what a program about who the best wrestler is? A dude who actively mocks pro-wrestling as fake. You have a comedy wrestler and then expect there to be drama in the “high impact” of the stuff you want to sell as real. This is objectively bad storytelling.

They should add Oklahoma to The BCC and Vince Russo to Chaos. Would totally fit. They were fake wrestlers and one even held the World Title.

Holy shit, Tony Khan is going to make an “important announcement” on Dynamite this week.

Nice! Can't wait to read all about it!

I saw on the main page that MJF vs Omega didn't draw (although faced stiff competition).

What do they have left?

I hope his announcement is that Shad fired him

This is the one guys. I can feel it in my soul. This is the announcement that will change everything.

it's only big, not huge this time.

Do it again, but this time it’s a Texas Deathmatch. When that doesn’t work, go to space.

:lol: I do enjoy a good last man standing match that pretends to be a Texas death match. Maybe this will be the thing that gets me watching the show again!

Who could have guess exploding your payroll to sign a bunch of ex WWE guys would lead to a decrease in viewership amongst a fanbase that hates WWE. Remember Tiny saying he learned from WCW's mistakes, but then is still making all the exact same mistakes? That is all ok though, TINY HAS A HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT TONIGHT!!!!!! #dynamite #tonightonwednesday #wedneadaynightdynamite #tbsdynamite #tonight

I’m sure absolutely none of them were cut loose with the intention of them being Trojan horses either.

I'm not normally a fan of the belt being stolen thing unless its fairly quickly resolved but I am enjoying this angle with BC Gold and MJF. Lots of layers with the devil stuff although the reveal will make or break that, Jay White looks good with the belt and the BC gold revolving around holding it leaves them looking like good dastardly heels.

I would have happily never seen the Gunns again pre BC gold, when they joined I cringed but its working now. Not sure who should get the praise for that but someone should.

How come Tiny's YUUUUUUUUGE announcement couldnt get a million viewers? Or 900,000 viewers? Or even 850,000 viewers????? Poor Tiny Khan :'(

No pity spike.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I think people are down on what AEW has become because they were so high on what AEW originally set out to be. They were the company that said &quot;We want to change the world&quot;. Now they're the company that says &quot;This is just how wrestling is now&quot;. They conformed, and that sucks.</p>&mdash; Gran Akuma (@__AKUMA) <a href="https://twitter.com/__AKUMA/status/1720302327549112503?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 3, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

this feels spot on

I still enjoy more about AEW than I don't. the wrestling is still very much to my tastes and I know that part will give me my fix for the time being. but this is easily the most "WWE" its ever felt

the anti-AEW crowd were always getting on the "wrassling journalists" acting like TK was paying them off for not being critical enough of AEW. well they are now. even Meltzer and Alvarez. they're not saying it sucks or whatever but a lot of what made the company feel special to its fans is getting increasingly homogenized and it's gradually feeling more like just another wrestling company

It was like that from the start. They dropped “change the world” thing very quickly when it was apparent that it wouldn’t change much of anything. It doesn’t help that they lied about things, but the chief problem is that it is bad.

Who’d have thought signing 200+ talents and having to pump out 5 hours of TV a week would lead to a downturn in quality?

I can say one thing about AEW, even with all the embarrassments and money lost, Tiny Khan has made lots of fun friends!!!!!

Somehow I doubt many of them are picking up the phone if Tony isn’t paying them.

Yeah but he is paying like 200 people lol

It wouldn’t surprise me if Tony Khan doesn’t value real friendship, because he knows it’s all phoney. But it’s going to be a bit sad if AEW ends and he can’t get people to hang out and drink White Claw with him anymore.

Someone’s going to get thrown under the bus for this mess. It’s almost definitely going to be Tony Khan when the wrestlers all have their say.

He needs to do something to boost that live attendance. Has he thought about walking around with the AEW World Championship before shows and taking photos with the fans?

Maybe he could just not charge people for entry?

Ooh. That's not bad!

As the face of AEW he needs to be in angles with top talent. Maybe a romance with Hikaru Shida?

They can pluck a Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleader to accuse Tony of doing the deed.

Under 2,200k tickets distributed for their Chicago show later this month. Wow.

The card for Dynamite looks fucking awful this week:

* MJF vs. Daniel Garcia for the AEW World Title
* Jay White vs. Mark Briscoe
* Samoa Joe vs. Keith Lee for the ROH TV Ritle
* Red Velvet vs. Julia Hart
* Swerve Strickland vs. Pentagon, Jr

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You’re welcome.

The Garcia thing is so frustrating. Like why is this happening? Garcia has never drawn a dime, and never will unless he gets on the gas.

Swerve VS Penta is oood though, looking forward to that

Garcia’s not w/o talent. He’s just not there yet and has been presented like a joke. People aren’t going to be invested in the idea of him challenging for the World Title, especially when everybody knows the belt is no danger of changing hands.

Swerve vs. Penta isn’t my thing. If it’s yours — cool. But again, there’s no drama in this because they’re just going to flip for 20 mins before Swerve wins because he has a match against Hang-on Page coming up.

Agreed. Garcia just needs to hit the weights, big time. He used to be presented as this Benoit style rassler, but you see him and it's just not impressive. He needs to put on mass, and he'll get there

Swerve has been growing on me recently, and Penta is usually entertaining (his overuse of Canadian destroyers aside)

Remember when they had a ranking system to determine who got a shot at the champ? Now Garcia has a title shot because reasons.

Not a fan of Garcia. The dancing thing is dumb and he's boring as fuck. He shouldn't be challenging for the World Title.

lol the rankings! CM Punk was still listed as number one like 6 months after he'd been suspended.

Update: he still is number one because the rankings haven't been updated since August 31, 2022.

All 4 of the men’s matches on dynamite this week seem like they’ll be great in-ring matches and we have a fucking numbskull who doesn’t watch saying the card looks awful

Groan @ Red Velvet being back though. Never saw anything with her in ring, was kinda hoping she was gonna be one of those talents that got quietly non-renewed

I think the rankings were a cool idea to begin with but also think they became something of a hindrance as the company got older. You started having everyone and their brother wrestling squash matches on Dark because they wanted to inflate records

They would intentionally bench guys if they didn’t want them winning too many matches to justify a title shot. Ditto for the tag division. Guys would suddenly get booked in 6-man and 8-man tags so their tag records didn’t get too good

That's not how rankings should work. Almost always you should beat someone ranked to move into the rankings. Beating nobodies shouldn't get you ranked.

Back when I cared I noticed CM Punk beat numerous people when he first joined AEW some of whom were ranked. Quite frustrating to see that he wasn't getting ranked. This changed when he said at the press conference that he wanted to be AEW Champion.

If Gabe couldnt get rankings over no one can

Ill never forget when Tony Nese was a top 5 contender for the World Title based on a bunch of dark wins lol

:lol: Holy shit. The rankings were always a bad idea. Was always going to force them into corners. Limits the stories you can tell and makes it hard to shift gears and directions with guys.

MJF vs. Daniel Garcia will be “fine” in the ring. Maybe “good.” But I’ve already laid out why it’s a bad idea to do it for the World Title now, and look — a bunch of people seem to agree with this “numbskull.” And why don’t I watch? Oh yeah, because of a shit product like this. Some people want more substance than a bunch of dudes flopping around.

Samoa Joe is a talented guy. Great worker. Booked fucking horribly. He’s held the irrelevant mid-card title of a dead promotion for almost 2 years that they sometimes forget even exists. He was a breath of fresh air being inserted into the main event scene despite this, but has prematurely been taken out. He’s now going to “wrestle” Keith Lee — who absolutely sucks. Lee’s finishing move would be heart disease if he could make it contagious. Most people accept he’s a big ol’ bust in AEW, and hey — who could have guessed that from the start?

Swerve has talent. But when he’s against flippy guys he just flips. Plus he’s involved in an all-time bad story right now, breaking into peoole’s homes (is it because he’s black, Tony?) and cutting promos on babies. Pentagon is overrated as hell. Pantomime presentation, spams Canadian Destroyers and other nonsensical bullshit. But even if you like this shit (as I said: “cool”), you can’t pretend there’s any drama in the context of the match.

I can’t even remember what the 4th match is. Oh, Jay White and Mark Briscoe. Both talented guys. Somehow TK dropped the ball with Mark even despite there being a death to exploit. Jay White has lost something with Punk booking him. He’s in over his head on this main event story. He’s not used to cutting promos and he and MJF don’t match up well visually. It’s surrounded by all this Black Scorpion bullshit and again, there’s no drama in the outcome because Jay White is going to a PPV title match, Mark Briscoe is irrelevant and has been booked as such.

Where is the fucking lie?

I don't understand why Mark Briscoe cares so much that Jay White has MJF's Championship. As far as reasons to make a match, that is even weaker than the "I walked into your backstage interview so now we must fight" trope (which is how we got the Joe vs Lee match booked).

Lol at the reasoning behind Joe and Lee wrestling.

Is that really why Mark Briscoe is going after Jay White? This company.

Did Keith Lee ever get even with Swerve Strickland for crushing his head with a cinder block?

He doesn't remember it because of the concussion

Also, Keith Lee stinks and looks/speaks like an autistic grandpa

He was better as the BEARCAT. Yeah, I said it. So what? Wanna fight about it? :shifty:

Nobody would dare dispute the power of BEARCAT Keith Lee

I don't know how someone who describes themself as verbose cannot identify the indubitably insatiable verbosity of the indescribable, incomparable Limitless Keith Lee.

This feels like what me on the best (?) Booking posts.

Also, last Keith Lee match I saw was the one where Zicky Dice bounced off of him and put himself into the Spirit Bomb.

I've identified it because I'm also an autistic grandpa (and I stink)

They should just hire Dixie Carter, and repeatedly have Tony make an announcement that she has an announcement, and then have her announcement be that TK has an announcement. Just bounce it between the two of them, ad infinitum.

They also haven't done anything like the borderline bait & switch announcement yet - like that time "Chris Jericho will appear on Impact"... and it was just a one-time airing of a Fozzy video at the end of the show, even though everyone knows that wasn't what was being implied.


"Sports-Based presentation!" - legless guy in a battle royal.
"Wins and losses matter!" - rankings and wins are only mentioned when convenient for the here-and-now, and after a specific match happens where it was a big deal? Very small print in the entrance lower third.
"Faces and heels are tired old tropes!" - almost everyone that is even in an angle is in an angle about who is and isn't friends anymore. Because being a saint or an irredeemable shithead doesn't matter in this morality play; only if they're still friends or not in a very slow burn that goes nowhere and nobody cares...

I had more shit written here, but I lost interest. I agree with you: chief problem is that it is bad. Followed closely by they don't know it's bad.

No, seriously, Tony should hire Dixie.

These two things perfectly encapsulate major AEW problems - low stakes matches you can predict the outcome for and repeated flip-o-thons where the winner doesn't matter as long as everyone goes through tables or into thumbtacks for a "holy shit" chant and everyone "gets their shit in".

I disagree. They were a great idea... but here comes the qualifier... IF they were consistent.

Similar to how WWE has been off and on again with the idea of a Brand Split, or whenever they decide that Tag Teams are in any way important enough to actually push beyond two teams specifically having a feud for a few months then all the teams fucking off to obscurity or fighting against randomly thrown together teams of singles, AEW just never follows through with anything worth following through with for future use. They want to spend all their currency of "set up a potentially cool moment" without earning the moment by making people that fans want to see in and of themselves.

If they maintained consistency on rankings and win/loss records - two of the things the company sold themselves on - they should have some folks there to keep track of this shit and help book longer term than some random match in the next two weeks at Daily's Place. Folks who are getting positioned to be stars should be getting more wins than shitheads who are middling or jobbing... and the only consistent "jobbers" are Fuego Del Sol and the dudes from Bear Country. Everyone else they pretend are all upper midcard to main event when that can't even work in the loosest of theories. Nobody gives a shit about The Best Friends, but they're boys with Orange Cassidy, so they're all unilaterally supposedly championship material. Whatever you feel about guys like Tony Neese or Keith Lee, they came in with a bunch of buzz that was pissed away by AEW inside of a month. Same with guys in-house like Hobbs and Wardlow.

At this point, after 4 years, a Powerhouse Hobbs and Wardlow collision (no pun intended) should have been considered a must-see inevitability for the AEW Championship. Instead, both guys are spinning wheels, have met in nothing matches and battle royals umpteen times with meh results because "that wasn't important right then" (and what I mean is like, Wardlow tossing Hobbs from one such battle royal because Hobbs was just some random obstacle in the way of the then-angle Wardlow was in with someone else. So, instead of teasing or placing the seeds for a showdown one day and being denied because it was inturrupted, it became evident to fans that Hobbs wasn't worth Wardlow's time from the presentation).

They consistently find new and unique ways to make people not care about any of the talent, be it from Tony or the person's own creative dumbness. Or both.

I can't believe I'm about to defend Keith Lee. I already made my feelings known since he got plucked from Ring of Honor to a NXT developmental deal, but for the uninitiated: I could not tell the difference between him and Shane Taylor. They were both just two big black "former NFL" fuckers that were respectively shaped like a pear (Taylor) and an upside down pear (Lee). They had nothing of note: no real gimmick besides being big, no visible charisma, and aside from the tried and tested "agile for a big man" shit done to death since Bam Bam Bigelow, nothing of note. I didn't get why WWE bothered to sign one and not the other. To me, it should have been both or neither.

Then, Keith Lee started getting over in NXT. I even said then that I personally didn't get it, but I could see by reaction that the fans obviously wanted to see him. His entrance was over. His matches were over. Him talking was over. Fans ate all of it up.

So, WWE did what WWE does; and fucked all of it up. Changed his name. Changed his music. Changed his ring gear. Tried to change how he talked. Essentially, everything that was already over: blow it up and start again. For no real fucking reason.

So, then AEW. He comes in with all that behind him in terms of smark knowledge. Fans basically get the NXT Keith Lee that was over... just for him to disappear in short order. Then randomly tagging with Swerve. Then beaten to hell by two guys who end up released, so, guys that essentially don't exist. Both he and Shane Taylor now work for TK, and, unless there is something currently going on from Rampage or the unwatched ROH online shit, still haven't addressed their history in spite of having a random-ass six man tag on opposite sides for one of the handful of AEW PPVs that happended fairly recently. Don't even remember which one.

All of this that I mentioned is all stuff that isn't Keith's fault. There's prob'ly other things that is. Whatever. Again, never really been my cup of tea. He was always the poor man's Mark Henry to me. But to go from everyone loving you to nobody knowing you exist outisde of the recent internet drama where people confused him with the food critic Keith Lee. How the fuck does a company do that? Repeatedly? It isn't a one off, because the same thing happened with The Hardy Boyz. And Tony Neese. And Undisputed Era... etc., etc. Feels like only a matter of time before they find a way to fuck up <s>Edge</s> Adam Copeland and Christian.

Even people the AEW community consider "big stars" of the international variety never show up in big star capacity. Guys like Okada or Osprey look like they just rolled in off the flight they crossed the pond in in travelling sweats so it takes less time to get through security instead of anything identifiable. The few times they appear, any New Japan guy looks more like a guardrail hopping fan than RoH Kevin Steen did.

My primary issue with Keith Lee isn't even his fault. COVID fucked him up bad. WWE wanted him to get into better shape, he didn't or couldn't. He also couldn't adapt. Meanwhile, we have an Indy darling who did adapt and went from pudgy badass with an awful ring name to a brutal killer with a slightly less awful name, and he will be the measuring stick for both IC Champions and foreign heels for years to come. But, if what I'm hearing is true... poor Walter... (Famous last words.)

The match with Dice was sad.

Wait, what’s this with Gunther?

Keith Lee has never been good. He doesn’t have it mentally, never mind physically. His psychology is awful. He’s a fat dude who flips. The insult used to be levied at Samoa Joe back in the day just because he could fly. But Joe can put together a match. Keith Lee is spot, spot, spot. His promos suck too. I don’t think he needs to sound like The Hulk like Cornette suggested. But he needs to sound like someone who is in the world of physical competition trying to promote a match. You can be intelligent and not sound like a fucking waste. Again, Joe.

Then factor in that the guy gives off the visual impression he is about to have a heart attack when he goes out there. I’m not trying to be morbidly funny. He starts heaving and he goes clammy. He fucking sucks at this. And if he drops dead on the job, no one is going to be surprised.

Here are the problems with rankings:

What’s LA Knight’s record like? Do you want to smack people in the face with him having won maybe one match in 2023 before SummerSlam? What kind of title challenger for Roman Reigns is that? Yet he’s hot and people want to buy him.

Conversely, look at Gunther’s record. How do you justify not giving him a title shot?

It always gets in the way of your creative agency. Always. If someone is getting over, they’re getting over. The rank becomes redundant.

Gunter has "it" from curtain to curtain, and makes it look effortless.

He gets it.

Gunter is not going to really go anywhere once his big long title reign is done. He'll either fade away quick or get repackaged into foreign comedy face when Imperium breaks up. There is a chance he doesn't fade away and just stays midcard for life.

Terrible take, and sounds like Blue Dot Man's career tbh.

Unless he has shown some outside the ring charisma I have not seen due to not watching outside major PPVs, dude has a ceiling.

I will say last time I tuned in to RAW was especially for Gunter/Gable... but again I probably would not have done so if it wasn't for the length of the title reign.

I think Gunther is very clearly the next heel World Champ, whether that is him beating Rollins or more likely about a year from now he ends Cody's WWE Championship reign.

I still think at some point they are going to separate the Universal and WWE Title again (they still have them listed separate on their website).

Could do a story where Roman defends the Universal Title on night one and the WWE Title on night two.

Gunther will be some sort of World Champion either heading into or coming out of Bash in Berlin. Yes, I know he is Austrian, but he’ll be pretty over.

There’s ways to work it, albeit they might also add “barriers”.

Have separate “divisions” like weight classes in fight sports. You can’t compete in 2 divisions at the same time. You have to “climb the rankings” in each division separately pretty much like in the video games. If Gunther decides he wants a shot at the World title he either vacates the IC belt or can’t move off until someone beats him for the belt. Then he has to climb the rankings in the “heavyweight” division.

The thing with Knight is interesting as there were some that felt like the title shit came too soon anyway. You have the conundrum of how do you build someone that’s already got the crowd behind them. Equally it stops you rushing someone to the top. Or you can do the occasional tourney where the rankings give you seedings or the top ranked guys get a bye to the next round. Or you do a “wild card” battle royal where the winner gets a shot despite not being the #1 ranked guy.

There’s ways to thread it in.

The easiest thing AEW could have done was to say wins on Dark don’t count to your record, or keep the top guys off the show.

I was comparing them due to an infamous tweet that Keith Lee made. After said tweet, their careers went in opposite directions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SCJerk/comm...t=share_button

Best thing I ever saw lol

Lol, what did he say?

Too complicated. Totally unnecessary. If a guy is going to get a push, get them winning and insert them where it works. Take them out if it’s not working. Don’t create more work for yourself.

Didn't say it generally doesn't. My point was that if you're going to do a thing, commit to it. If you're going to drop it, drop it. But don't start doing rankings, quit doing rankings, then start pretending rankings matter again but only sometimes.

I go back to the WWE brand split, because it is the same principle - it only matters when there is a supposed "blockbuster trade!" or when they beat everyone over the head for it for about every 2 out of 3 Survivor Series down to talent wearing red or blue t-shirts every appearance. Then, they conveniently stop giving a shit and it goes back to being unimportant even to themselves and half the roster shows up on either show at any time because fuck it. Right up until a few years later when they act like they're starting it all over again, and there is strict adhearance... for a few months, maybe a year, then they mandate that all the talent are supposed to show up for both RAW and SD even though they aren't "booked" for the opposite show. Until they are. Then the veneer falls away again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Or, similarly, the idea of having two world champions. They are large enough and have enough people in "creative" that they should be able to focus on two different people with two lineages and trajectories. Right up until they inevitably want to put both belts on one guy. Then, when they get bored with having one dominating persona instead of two, they have to contrive a reason to have the champion drop one title instead of both. The simplest form would be to treat it more like boxing, and a contender is battling for one OR the other... but nope, the person wins both. Again, unless there is some arbitrary reason why they don't. And even with the split belts, they focus on one or the other again. Then pull gymnastics on ground rules like Roman not having title defenses for months at a time, but then, for someone they "need the belt off of", the company will dust off the old "...needs to be defended every 30 days or you're stripped" stipulation that magically was forgotten about when Brock Lesnar defended three times in a year. Either use the rule all the time, or retire it. Don't do both.

Which leads me back to rankings. Or tournament points. Or win/loss records. Or any sort of tangible recordable heirarchy that anyone tries to make a thing... if you are going to do that, you have to keep doing it. If it goes away, it needs to stay away. Its the seesawing that really kills everything.

LA Knight is pretty over and earning his spot. Which would make this a really bad time to decide the company would start a ranking system. Especially one that would lock him out of the main event picture... only to scrap it six months later and have someone like, say, in total ass pull fashion, Trick Williams leapfrog everyone and become a main roster big belt champion. The first thing would be bad, but if it's "the way of the world now", can be dealt with. But to fold the tents later - and not even in an appreciable amount of time later - makes it demonstrably worse from inconsistency and give people bad feelings for wasting time trying to get emotionally invested just for the rules to keep changing.

Lol.

Just don’t do it. It never works lol. It’s always a pain because you book yourself into a corner. Every time.

Sorry to be brief, I just have no sympathy for this company and what was an identifiably bad idea from the start.

lol LJ you're so brainwashed by Vince. Someone not doing songs and dances doesn't mean they don't have charisma. Smooth brained bullshit.

No, but to get over in North America they do need a rudimentary grasp of the English language and how to do a promo. I guess Nakamura gets the very occasional main event push, so Gunter could be like him... but he doesn't have as much non-verbal charisma as Nakamura either

Gunther has been excellent in all the interviews I’ve seen him in. When it comes to WWE promos, he’s seemed “fine” at the very worst. I actually love Nakamura and don’t shit on his WWE run, but I wouldn’t give Shinsuke the clear edge in charisma either. Gunther’s got a lot of appeal in basically being the best worker going today.

I’m getting pretty horny at the idea of Gunther vs. Dominik Mysterio. The crowd is going to be so into Gunther chopping the shit out of Dom Dom.

Trying to work out whether I’d most like to see Gunther take the WHT off Seth Rollins, Damian Priest, Sami Zayn or Brock Lesnar.

Outside option: Dominik somehow ends up in possession of the MITB title shot. Maybe Priest gets kayfabe injured in War Games to sell the concept. But Dom ends up as Senor Money in the Bank.

Dom wrestles CM Punk at WrestleMania. Lots of talk about how disrespectful CM Punk has been to Dom’s family over the years. Punk can beat Dom, but Dom still cashes in and becomes World Heavyweight Champion for Money in the Bank. Judgment Day vs. Imperium. Then at Berlin Brawl, Gunther beats Dom 1-on-1 to become WHC.

Then it turns out Rhea Ripley has been taking REAL good care of Damian Priest while he’s been injured.

The non-verbal charisma is there too, it just isn't the same as Nakamura.

He is a big dude and knows how to silently be imposing with his mannerisms. Again, from curtain to curtain, he has it - no questions.

How would you know he's wrong? You don't even watch the product lol.

Keith Lee is not charismatic. I can't remember if he ever was at this point.

Oh wait, we're talking about GUNTHER. Yeah, fuck off LJ you smooth brain.

Not going to lie: Christian vs. Gunther could have been a classic.

That is why I clarified with unless he has shown more on TV or lesser PPVs I haven't watched....

Whatever... I'm just enjoying the ride... and in a funny way I am now more invested in whoever eventually takes the title from Gunther than I am Roman since with Roman they literally just said "dunno" and made a whole other belt.

To their credit, they’ve also made the other belt boring.

Brandon Thurston has stated the obvious, in that AEW isn’t profitable and they’ll need a large TV deal to get them there. Like I’ve been saying, Collision probably exists because Dynamite isn’t worth it on it’s own. It’s a good thing AEW have tried their best to sabotage that for themselves.

AEW are reportedly doing 3-for-1 tickets and managed to get their Portland show over the 4k line.

NXT just got a 5 year deal from Network channel The CW, worth somewhere between $25.5-$35.5 million a year. If WBD is going to use that as a price point, AEW is going to be really hard pressed to get that $200 million per year deal Thurston said they need to become profitable.

Tony’s gonna need to do some splaining to daddy.

Just realized that with Tony being so desperate, Goldberg is probably due for a truck to pull up to his house any minute.

On Dynamite last night they made a few references that could maybe be construed as Punk references and it's now got a segment of the fanbase speculating that he's gonna be revealed as The Devil and that maybe the firing was all a work. And I don't get that at all. It's nearly impossible to fathom a work of that magnitude actually being pulled off.

One thing about wrestlers is that they're notoriously bad at keeping secrets. That's what made even Jim Cornette applaud AEW with the Brodie Lee stuff because it was completely unheard of for an entire locker room to actually keep a secret like that. But the AEW locker room back then was half the size it is now, there was very much the "big happy family" vibe at the time and most of all, it was a very real-life situation involving the tragic illness of a beloved colleague.

Can't imagine 200+ wrestlers + refs/agents/production + office staff all being in lockstep with a worked angle and corroborating the same story when asked by dirt sheets. I also can't really buy the idea that only those involved or some of the big names know it's a work and everyone else is in the dark, if that were the case I'd expect it to actually not be great for morale because, well, generally people don't like being lied to by their employers.

Oh and WBD would've needed some level of involvement too. Remember that SRS and Alvarez reached out to people there directly to gauge the reaction on Punk's firing. Can't really imagine a scenario where they would've been happy with a top star a new show is built around being taken offscreen 2 months in, let alone right as they were about to lose viewership to the college football season.

So even if somehow it was Punk as The Devil I'd think it would've been a fairly recent return agreement. Even that would be tough to keep under wraps with how Online the guy is and how many other people would've presumably needed to greenlight it and keep it in the dark. There's just no way in hell it wouldn't have leaked from somewhere.

More likely to me is that they've seen that WWE are continually dropping vague little Punk references themselves even while office staff there also deny he's coming in. It's obvious there's still a lot of people who think he's gonna be at Survivor Series and I'm sure there are people in AEW who feel the same way. If these even were Punk references last night they're probably just doing it because of all the ongoing speculation about where he's gonna end up.

Logically a worked firing would make zero sense/be of very little value to AEW anyway given the ripple effects resulting from it.

Tony Khan always wants to present himself as the babyface promoter. That was a lot easier to do when everyone was down on WWE and Vince was still the public face of it.
WWE have got better, Vince is more or less out of the picture, a lot of people have moved on from the Saudi Arabia stuff even though it's still happening.

WWE aren't, right now, the "heel" promotion. AEW aren't a heel promotion either but they've clearly lost their grasp on being the babyface promotion where everybody wants to work. They've been a bit chaotic this year, and their booking is a bit of a mess. CM Punk has a lot of fans, and Tony Khan had to know that firing him risked losing his fans with him, and why would you take that gamble for an angle?

When attendance is down, when AEW are running directly opposite NXT, when TV deals need renewing, all of that, why would they keep one of their biggest names off TV for months, let his departure derail the company's momentum and overshadow the success of Wembley? And do it all in a way that suggests it's very much not a storyline, and that he won't be coming back, if everything's actually fine and he's still working there?

There are a million ways you could've gotten to a potential Punk vs. MJF feud with the roles reversed - choosing a route which involves taking one of your most popular guys off of TV for months and objectively hurting numbers in the process would be a really dumb way to get to it.

To put it simply, why not make money from somebody when you could be making money from them?

Rumors that WWE is negotiating an ECW/TNN type situation and that they’ll snag a deal with WBD for Raw. :lol:

I’ve had the thought. AEW is floundering. Raw would bring more eyeballs and profits for WBD. From a promotional “war” aspect, the move makes sense on WWE’s side. But that’s exactly the sort of reason someone might make it up. They would have obviously talked to WBD though.

Seems like it would be a lot of trouble for a shock reveal. If the point was to get to Punk vs MJF, they could have got just with what they already had setup.

To take Punk off TV, to take Jack Perry off tv, to embarrass the company again, and to ultimately burn their fans for a twist that would pop a youtube number and trend on Twitter, (because they won't pop a ratings number because they wouldn't without spoiling it) would be pretty bad booking, even for Tiny Khan.

Lol, CM Punk’s situation with AEW is not a work. It’s made the company look terrible and has done (possibly irreversible) damage to them. It would get groans from so many fans. You can’t keep “going back.” Even if Punk was their biggest draw and one of their best performers, that’s compromised now.

Punk wouldn’t take it anyway. You can’t trust Tony Khan. He’ll take one side of an issue at Collision, take another at Dynamite (or All In with the glass). He is not a leader. Even if he promised Punk a stake in the company, there would be suspicion that TK would fuck him over.

AEW is desperate though. But it’ll take A LOT to get Punk to drop his plans. I imagine Punk would need to be given the authority to remove some of the problems backstage in a more permanent sense. Even then, is that enough to challenge the perception that AEW clearly has no idea what they’re doing if they flip-flop with Punk?

Also let's not forget, if it was some big work, you think the Bucks wouldn't leak that, just to stick it to Phil.

Goldberg will be the desperation move from Tony Khan.

Remember when they exposed the Cody/Shawn Spears angle? And when they tried to sabotage Collision days out?

I’d love to make a joke about having doubt because AEW is really fucking stupid, but this would possibly be the stupidest work ever.

Tony’s reaction if WWE programming ends up replacing AEW on TNT/TBS is going to be hilarious. He might have a meltdown if the rumors pick up steam. Starting the rumor might be enough to achieve the goal of the actual move.