Thread: Tony Khan terminates CM Punk's AEW contract
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Old 09-18-2023, 11:10 PM   #11
Tom Guycott
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Splaya View Post
Ha.

But in all seriousness, this is basically going to become a back and forth between AEW and WWE now.

WWE acquiring Starks and Cargill but AEW attempts to offset that by signing 2-4 of the wrestlers who will be released in the coming weeks as a part of the TKO takeover.

The issue with that is AEW is acquiring wrestlers that 1) WWE fans could not invest in and 2) Tony Khan will not know what to do with them. A big name would be Dolph Ziggler but I always remember that Dolph had stand up comedy on the side and was really good at it. TKO will not release any big names (or if they do it will be 1 that doesn't fit their ideas moving forward) but even if they do, how much does that move the needle for Tony.

Starks may not be a super big draw initially but I definitely see the allure in Cargill. A common problem with her is that people don't think she can wrestle. Guess what. Trish could not initially wrestle either and look how well that turned out. Cargill will benefit from being able to work in the Performance Center and be "taught" how to wrestle.
I don't know about "back and forth". This isn't exactly the Monday Night Wars.

To the point you made about either picking bad horses or not knowing what to do with the good ponies they scoop up, you have more of the former than the latter. You're talking about a company that would rather pick up El Hijo De Vikingo and Kommander. If they brought in a monster like an O'Shay Edwards, they wouldn't know how to handle him outside of the initial "oooooh" he'd get mostly by himself because he isn't a flip-tacular Buck buddy. So, the same would stand from former WWE talent. They will either do what they've already done (say what you want about folks like Keith Lee or Swerve, but they deserved better than they got on the booking end), or hire the least impressive spot monkeys to make The Elite look better by comparison.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that WWE would be able to cherry-pick guys who actually want to do this shit seriously without the express allure of TK's infinite money teat - or at the very least, look like they do. They'd look at an MJF or be talked into a Darby Allin, and all the while, the brain trust behind the scenes of AEW are prob'ly trying to contrive a way to bring back Joey Ryan with minimal social media blowback or bring in a nobody they can groom into a subordinate lackey to "their revolution" like a Jay Cutler. And it won't negatively affect them like it should, because Tony still gets to play with his live action figures paid for out of pockets deep enough to be hammerspace instead of actual business.

AEW isn't a business: it's his hobby.

About five years ago, it looked like there would be a plethora of somewhat viable options for folks to grow their careers: NWA, MLW, NJPW, iMPACT, AAA, and AEW all being a round table to flex against the all-or-nothing will of WWE. About five years later, it's kinda ironic that the only places really trying are New Japan and Old TNA. Everywhere else seems to be populated by scumbags and barrel bottoms. The tide didn't raise all boats: it raised just enough to float most of the dinghys.
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