For the first time this past weekend, and intentionally no matter what they may say, WWE and AEW ran PPV/PLE on the same weekend, perhaps competing head-to-head for the first time since NXT was pushed back on Wednesday night. It feels great to see where the individual companies are and how they relate to each other with big changes, big stories, and the future is as exciting and exciting as it has ever been. Today, we’re doing our best to deal with what’s going on with AEW.
Whether Tony Khan is truly heartbroken or secretly in love that WWE comes to him over Labor Day weekend, we will never know. He stated on his pre-show media call that one of the things that upset him about the way WWE has “treated” him was the scheduling of Clash At The Castle the day before All Out, because AEW’s biggest PPV is on Labor Day. weekend for all four of its installments. That is, and it’s up to your point of view until the end of the AEW weekend. But deep down, you get the sense that Khan enjoys putting his product in a location close to New York.
Exactly what Khan thinks of the AEW product and all that comes with it is another question.
Before diving into AEW . diagrams and bolts “Hard Night” over the weekend, it’s impossible to miss that AEW got all these things wrong to the point where now no one in the industry is talking about Clash At The Castle (though there’s not much to talk about on that show, which we do). we will get in our next section). It’s just a little bit perfect, no? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but the whole point of wrestling is trying to figure out what’s real and what’s fake and what’s story and what’s not, and it all depends on the fight. that exact argument.
However, AEW has been in the works for weeks now and one wonders if that was part of the plan. Khan came out first to say It’s a good thing There is conspiracy and rumor and unrest behind the curtain because it can improve the product in front of it. But some of those claims have a real “Baghdad Bob” feel to them, as Khan tries to tell us there’s nothing to see here. We know Khan has not dealt well with conflict or criticism in the past (Big Swole wants a word), and has a rather simple feeling that he doesn’t know what to do when things don’t go according to his plan. The more you scream, “This is good! This is fine! “The more the house burns, the more the dog sits and sips coffee as everyone on the internet knows.
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It’s a horribly dated reference, and I’m a horribly dated guy, but the whole thing has felt like Guns N’ Roses in the Use Your Illusion era. If you weren’t around, or don’t remember, GNR was the biggest band in the world in a way that few have approached since. But their world tour to support the Use Your Illusion albums was a complete circus. Yes, most of the shows were great, but the stories off-stage swallowed up as much as the shows did. It was constantly something, as Axl started two riots, Slash died for eight minutes, Duff McKagan’s pancreas exploded a year later, Izzy quit, shows were canceled as Axl dodged the cops over said riots, or some of the shows were awful, as everyone was too fucked up to play. It was very rock n’ roll, but of course, the band was done as soon as it was over.
That’s not to say that AEW will end because of all this, or anything close. And a fair number of fans, maybe even most AEW fans, love the turmoil. Or they’re just drinking the Kool-Aid. And fuck, Dynamite on Wednesday is going to be must-see. Anything could happen! They’ll all be so until Grand Slam in two weeks when it’s likely MJF faces CM Punk, and Queens is technically part of Long Island, so the math is there. But there are definitely fans who don’t really need the stories of backstage politics and straight-up fights, and indeed others who don’t like hearing that AEW has been an unpleasant place to work for some for a while now, with a couple of beloved stars reported pain to get out. And there’s a symmetry to the people who think they’re starting the controversy now are the same people who mocked WWE under Vince McMahon and all the misery he’s caused in the aftermath. WWE school.
While there’s still a lot of time, what fans want most is a small degree of stability, knowing that company A) will be around for a long time and company B) can come up with the same. to a degree the program was. When you have stories of wrestlers threatening to walk, or sometimes actually walk, those fears grow. And there’s a shelf life of how long you can keep things going while you’re completely a backstage circus. Something serious will happen that prevents AEW from just “combining and performing great”.
On the other hand, most but not all of AEW’s “problems” are now centered around a thin-skinned CM Punk. What’s the truth with Punk, what he did or didn’t do with Colt Cabana’s status, he removed the hype and what he didn’t, we may never know for sure until when someone writes a retelling book 10 years later. And there’s no doubting that, because whatever comment Hangman Page makes is no different than what Eddie Kingston or MJF said in the ad about their matches against Punk, and no one else. think about that. Punk just sat on it while wounded and stewed, and then brought it back simply so he could say the last word and then bring all this to himself. Whatever it is, it is small.
Whatever you think of Punk, and it’s wide-ranging, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone in the industry or outside who can speak ill of Colt Cabana, widely regarded as one of the biggest lovers in the business. Meanwhile, throw a rock and you’ll probably run into someone who can tell you for sure that Punk is a certified asshole. As a close friend of mine said, you can’t find someone with such pride and outspoken looks who isn’t a certified asshole.
With everything spilled out from behind the scenes and the press conference after All Out, it became clear that Khan didn’t really have any control. Maybe he wanted it to be that way, and it was all a great story, or they could get there, but it felt like all of this was happening to Khan instead of going his way. That gave it a real WCW feel, and we know how that ended. But then there’s the MJF arc, which looks like something else is out of Khan’s control, or made to look like it was, and ends up with MJF right where he’s always been, except maybe just higher on the card and with a bigger check.
It’s clearly not just Punk. Is there anything going on with Thunder Rose, Miro’s reported hysteria, or it could be what’s going on with Malakai Black (which could be a personal matter and has nothing to do with Khan), or one or two other stories. It feels like Khan is trying to weather a thunderstorm and make it to the next town, even though it’s a long tradition of wrestling. While AEW’s devoted fan base will always give it plenty of avenues and give it a base of engagement and ratings, part of AEW’s appeal in its first three years was that it was established. founded by a group of friends who want to run a company. the way they think and everyone is happy to make the matches and the story they want. This is obviously completely different now.
AEW will burn really brightly over the next few weeks and months from the fallout from all of this. But there’s a fear that if you burn so bright you’ll burn out, that’s what AEW fans have always feared.
