[Tom Guycott]

Originally Posted by Evil Vito I suspect a lot of these Punk stories will be minor or tiny non-incidents blown up to make headlines.

That's mostly been the case already. But it is pretty funny how this went from a simple front facelock to him being a raging lunatic who nearly murdered the 18 people just standing around before turning the fireaxe he was brandishing at Tony Khan. Even playing The Telephone Game, that's some pretty bad fucking storytelling. Outside of the sheer "newz" magnet any mention of Punk always is, you'd think that would have been the instant story if most of it were true and he'd have been fired immediately on the spot instead of having an investigation that the person who called for the investigation was supposedly a firsthand eyewitness.

Just smells like a setup. Sure, shame on him for falling for it, but at the same time the thing I said before still applies: if Punk did/said nothing, "he's a bitch", if Punk did/said *anything*, "he's a cancer". There was no winning here, and he's always been a guy who admittedly will die on his chosen hill.

Originally Posted by Evil Vito The Regal stuff does feel slightly revealing only in the sense that it feels like pretty much everything else he does, his respect for veterans is conditional. It's like so many of his gestures of generosity and friendship, they're all extremely transactional, and feel as much about making someone feel they now owe him loyalty. Samoa Joe's cryptic Tweet the other day kinda alludes to that too. Bret Hart, Harley Race, and Roddy Piper are the vets Punk often talks up the most in terms of guys he respects and admires. Wonder how much he'd talk them up if they hadn't told him they liked him.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect Punk likes to have glory he can downplay, but I don’t know why people expect him to talk people who don’t like him. Or why his like of vets should be unconditional. There are very weird expectations put on him.

Meanwhile, remember that whole story about Omega not really being a fan of Harley Race because he basically believed he was better than he was percieved at some wrestling camp and Harley didn't think so? Pretty sure that The Elite's opinion of the legend would be different if he didn't group Kenny with the beginners and decided to blow him instead.

A lot of relationships in the business are conditional. Goes with that old adage of "You can make friends or make money". And while this type of one-sided selfishness is repeatedly brought up to be some sort of knock on Punk, it somehow never gets brought up about a particular sub-par tag team that needs to keep reminding everyone how *they* started AEW and it's *their* revolution. They, or folks associated with them, don't need to listen to or take advice. All their ideas are good ideas. A match isn't a good match unless there's at least one dive in it. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

They already didn't like the man from the outset because the RUMOR OF HIM sold a building they were proud of their (OG) ALL IN plaque being posted on outside. You'd think they were playing up being heels to lead to business with the smarm and passive-aggressive, snide comments, but they weren't going that deep. How dare he be a bigger star than us in our own company.