Timbo Slice

Bandido has impressive spots but no sense of match construction. Jericho is letting him shine but the match isn’t really coherent.

That Bandido suplex was wild.

I popped for Jericho calling himself “The Ocho.”

Action Bronson hits the ropes with conviction, which so many full-time guys don’t. I love the short burst explosiveness he had. I’d be bringing him back as often as it would be warranted, as he loves the business and has many folks’ respect for not half-assing it.

Welp.

Because you get her in front of 1 million viewers and a $1 million house and you get the damn BBC to write an article about it.

That’s a stretch. It was incredible to watch in the moment because it was as if a master artist was making a clay mold out of dirt with no water for 15 minutes. To call it his “worst” just because his opponent wasn’t any good is to do him a disservice because carrying is as important as having a good match with a good wrestler; maybe even more so, in fact. Yuta in the MJF promo was extremely cringe, by the way. And that’s with MJF taking his cheap shots.

Never mind the fact that a majority of the information that has come out from one side of the argument in a way to paint the other side in the wrong, which has only made it worse.

Calling Punk’s rant about Cabana “preplanned” when dude has been stewing on something like that for years is a stretch. My point has always been that dirtsheet reports are rarely fact-checked with any type of vigor. The “two sources” rule most folks use leads to conspiratorial reporting where the wrestlers know they can pass off the same story, but never go outside their normal sourcing to get that different point of view. Hence my original statement of The Elite being gossipers extraordinaire bearing fruit when you barely hear anything about Punk in these reports. The awkwardness of the Kenny report only paints a picture of a failed attempt to lead the locker room, and frankly, is why he’s never led a truly diverse locker room in his career. It’s what The Elite need to realize: the influence they think they hold only exists with a few folks, and even then, you strain credibility when you try to be something you really aren’t. “Leaders” don’t pull the shit they have. And I’ll happily admit Punk isn’t one either.

Again, it goes back to my original point of Punk being very upfront at calling the Elite out for chirping to the sheets and the more time that passes, the more it rings true. They’ve been trying to get the narrative on their side from moment one on this thing while Punk has stayed quiet. And Punk’s version is becoming more right by the day.

Kenny still hangs out with guys like Chasyn Rance and Marty Scurll on the regular so I don’t think his judgment has ever really been “good.”

So the timeline now looks like this: -Punk tries to mentor younger guys and it doesn’t get received well, most specifically by Page, leading to resentment, along with his general curmudgeonly nature turning off certain parts of the locker room that were more or less harmonious (where many folks feel Cabana leaving given his positive backstage standing with the locker room can be attributed to Punk’s arrival) -Resentment grows to the point where Adam Page becomes the focal point during their feud, and Page uses that as a way to go into business for himself during the money promo for their PPV match, which Punk takes as an opportunity to have a receipt ready when necessary -Receipt is given by Punk after his injury, which raises simmering ires to unseen levels, isolating Punk more than what has happened the previous several months -Punk then gets hurt again, knows it’s going to put him out for a long time again, and being pissed off, takes the simmering ires completely nuclear, going scorched earth due to frustration both with the gossipy nature of the locker room angling against him and his own body betraying him during a run he really wanted -The Elite takes Punk’s comments to heart given they perceive themselves as big in stature as Punk (objectively not true) and haven’t been called out like that before, so they respond in kind and the altercation happens The escalation seems about as organic as you could imagine given the participants’ proclivities and differing philosophies. And something that, if there were adults in the room, could have been handled a lot sooner. This isn’t something that just suddenly happened. Tony letting this play out was a giant mistake.

I think it’s becoming more and more apparent that him getting hurt again so soon after dealing with the foot injury is the big driver here, and that it allowed all the other transgressions to bubble to the surface. He’s pissed because none of this is working out the way he wanted to and he’s taking it out on others. But the other people involved aren’t exactly dousing the flames, either.

Mox cutting the loudest subtweet of all time.

Just in time for a Royal Rumble spot. Gotta love it.

D’arcy Carden. Respectfully.

Really need Dylan to dust off the screen name to tell his Colt stories.

So the fact that you hear “Punk’s situation will be clear soon” tells me Meltz’s sources only go so far. Tony playing this one close to his chest.

The Punk/Steel leaving part is conflating and assuming, so I wouldn’t put too much into that with Punk. What I have not seen reported yet but is absolutely part of the calculus: Warner reps perhaps being insistent on Punk sticking around to get AEW the best TV deal. You wonder if Tony has been holding off on doing anything big so close to signing it. There’s a lot to Warner thinking the investment is better with Punk than without.

Throw a case of beer like LA Park instead.

Cabana was well respected by the roster and thought of as a coach with actual input rather than his on-screen presence. This aligns with how the locker room perceives itself as a whole: The value the locker room has is in guys like Colt makes it more fraternal, building itself up bereft of “outsiders.” That having Colt and others around while they began to explode meant he was indispensable to some. Especially given many thought he took on the Brodie role after he passed, not on screen, but as the elder statesman of Dark Order. I think it’s an underreported aspect of this.

If that’s the case, The Elite is just as delusional as Punk.

My question is pretty straightforward: for someone with a history of going after people with deliberation, why would Punk decide to go after the Elite without provocation? We’re talking about perhaps the most notable collector of receipts in the history of wrestling. When he decides to call someone out, it’s with a purpose.

I don’t think either of them have much other than speculation. Because how they’ve reported on it so far has been haphazard. So maybe it does have to be Tony at this point.

Keller doesn’t have anything at all. Tons of speculation. Unreal.