Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Matt D]

Really enjoyed Elevation last night in front of a game crowd that was getting to see AEW live for the first time (which is part of the benefit of Elevation as it's before the actual show) with a really good Emi vs Athena match, some great squashes (with House of Black over in a near cult-frenzy as faces), Menard fun on commentary, and Butcher/Blade/Allie getting to have a meaningful homecoming. Dark tonight has Danhausen/Avalon, Emi and Diamante teaming up against Aminata and Skye and Matt vs Angelico, taped from Chicago. There's always going to be fun wrestling. Where it seems to be struggling is a company that you can identify with and that STANDS for something, but I'm 40 now. I'm good. I don't really need that. And I identified way more with a sort of in-ring Neo-Bret-ism anyway. I'd suggest people look at it as a wrestling product that they can watch on their terms, picking and choosing and engaging with it as opposed to something to overly identify with in some sort of cosmic struggle. I am sorry that people had something they enjoyed that is harder now, but I think that sort of freewheeling pro wrestling feeling is still there if you look for it.

I can talk about how Buddy Matthews had the creative freedom to flip the script last night and react to the crowd while still navigating his character. I could write paragraphs about that and how awesome it is and how it wouldn't have been possible a few years ago in his old job. That still exists.

[Embrodak]

It also simply has to be said that there are holes in our understanding of the narrative of the melee. We know that the Elite barged in uninvited, and that Daniels, Buck, Cutler, and Nakazawa were suspended for being there, but we don’t know if it was this big group of 7 people barging in all at once to confront a guy, or just three with the rest coming later, or what. How you judge Punk’s actions has to be understood in terms of what and who he was seeing confronting him, and what their demeanor and posture was like. We know that Punk threw the first punch, but we don’t exactly know what happened after that. We know that Ace Steel threw a chair, but he wasn’t in the room when all of this started, so all he may have had to go on was his friend in the middle of a group of guys either striking him back or trying to restrain him or something. We know he threw a chair at Nick, but we don’t know when, or why Nick. We know he bit Omega and pulled his hair, but we don’t know what Omega was doing when that happened. Some reports say he was trying to pull the brawl apart and that Steel thought he was trying to get a cross face on him, but then I can’t square that spatiotemporally with the claim that Omega was trying to get Larry out of the room, unless there is some fixed law of the universe that Elite matches will run long and feature distracting action on the sidelines even when they’re shoots. We know Parek was there, but we don’t know if she was there from the start (she was supposedly seen talking to the Bucks before anything started) or if she walked in after everything happened. If she was there, why did she let the Bucks barge in? If she was talking to them beforehand and didn’t go to the locker room with them, did she tell them not to go and they went anyway? Did she tell them she’d meet them there and they jump started the confrontation without a semi-neutral party that could de-escalate and signal to Punk that he shouldn’t assume the worst? It’s just a mess. We can say Punk was 100% in the wrong for disrespecting a guy paying him millions of dollars and giving his career a resurrection after those embarrassing UFC fights, but beyond that, it seems like there’s a lot of motivated reasoning happening on both sides.

[Kadaveri]

1 hour ago, Embrodak said:

We know that Punk threw the first punch, but we don’t exactly know what happened after that.

This doesn't seem to be clear either:
 

Quote

 

There are differing stories as to who started the fight between CM Punk, Ace Steel, the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega after Sunday's AEW All Out press conference.

Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez gave some additional updates and discussed the situation on Monday night's Wrestling Observer Radio which you can listen to on YouTube.

They said there is no dispute that Punk punched the Bucks' Matt Jackson (Meltzer said multiple times), that Steel threw a chair that hit the Bucks' Nick Jackson, or that Steel bit Omega and pulled his hair.

However, there is one side that claims Punk threw the first punch when the Bucks came into the room where the brawl broke out while the other side claims the Bucks were the aggressors and Punk and Steel were defending themselves.

Both Meltzer and Alvarez said they have reached out to all principals involved, but no one is allowed to talk pending legal issues. Meltzer said in talking to neutral parties, all but one person had the same account of what happened.

 

 

[C.S.]

Tony Khan's two biggest mistakes:

1. Letting go of Cody Rhodes, clearly the only grownup in the room among the EVPs and the only one with business acumen and mainstream connections outside "da bidness."
    
2. Making CM Punk the champion instead of the far bigger star and better wrestler Bryan Danielson (although there's an argument to be made that AEW should have stayed the course with Hangman's reign because he was a homegrown star with an organic groundswell of fan support).

 

[sek69]

Bryan is probably my favorite wrestler and undeniably the GOAT, but there's no universe where he's a far bigger star than Punk.

 

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

Bryan is probably my favorite wrestler and undeniably the GOAT, but there's no universe where he's a far bigger star than Punk.

Bryan has main evented WrestleMania several times.

Punk never has.

Their "outside celebrity" is about the same (minor film and TV roles for Punk, reality TV for Bryan).

Fan support is arguably the same, but you can twist the metrics to make a case for one or the other. I won't bother doing that.

[sek69]

In WWE? Bryan probably was the far bigger star. In AEW? I don't think it's close really. Punk has proven to be a ratings mover, PPV buyrate mover, and a merch seller. Not to say Bryan hasn't done anything to those metrics, but part of why Punk kind of has TK by the balls here a bit is because he's been the top draw since he debuted. 

[Jmare007]

I'm of the thought both sides of the melee were unprofessional, both were wrong and both deserve to get shitted on by the fanbase for being morons and hurting the company. Any argument trying to defend either side makes very little sense to me at this point.

[Jmare007]

6 minutes ago, sek69 said:

In WWE? Bryan probably was the far bigger star. In AEW? I don't think it's close really. Punk has proven to be a ratings mover, PPV buyrate mover, and a merch seller. Not to say Bryan hasn't done anything to those metrics, but part of why Punk kind of has TK by the balls here a bit is because he's been the top draw since he debuted. 

I get that but at the same time, after the legit huge deal that was his comeback for the company, Punk's effect on a lot of metrics isn't THAT big to have Tony by the balls. Only thing we don't know about is merchandise, and maybe Punk was doing incredibly big numbers compared to the rest of roster (we will never known unless someone from AEW tells us).

But anything else I see is an increase with Punk doesn't seem to be the kind of bump that couldn't be replaced by any other star AEW has if the company had legit good booking for a 4 month stretch. Which is something AEW has been lacking for close none months now.

I mean, All Out was so badly booked that it basically relied entirely on Punk being from Chicago and it did not do good numbers so he's not THAT big of a draw/deal either.

[Gramsci]

There can't be no comparison because Bryan hasn't been booked as the Ace of the company and he is not selling any merchandise, but the most watched segment in AEW Dynamite history is with him and Omega, they peaked at 1.5 million. And they beat Raw for two straight weeks when he debuted IIRC. 

[Embrodak]

13 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

I get that but at the same time, after the legit huge deal that was his comeback for the company, Punk's effect on a lot of metrics isn't THAT big to have Tony by the balls. Only thing we don't know about is merchandise, and maybe Punk was doing incredibly big numbers compared to the rest of roster (we will never known unless someone from AEW tells us).

But anything else I see is an increase with Punk doesn't seem to be the kind of bump that couldn't be replaced by any other star AEW has if the company had legit good booking for a 4 month stretch. Which is something AEW has been lacking for close none months now.

I mean, All Out was so badly booked that it basically relied entirely on Punk being from Chicago and it did not do good numbers so he's not THAT big of a draw/deal either.

Idk how the All Out gate was, but in terms of the PPV buys, they did two months of a bad build for All Out on the heels of a month of bad build for Forbidden Door. Punk wasn’t even announced for the show until the Wednesday before! Lotta factors working against them this time out. But Tony flat out called Eric Bischoff’s statement about Punk being a financial flop bullshit and said Punk made the company more money than any other wrestler they’d signed, so he was either sunk costing his way out of a tough question or has access to more sophisticated metrics than the average observer. I tend to think a bit of both, Punk certainly hasn’t been Steve Austin or anything but has moved the needle enough that AEW is in a better position for tv rights negotiations than they otherwise would have been.

Now that fan opinion has pretty well come down on the Elites’ side, though, he may not have much value left. AEW has a kind of odd business model where the growth in raw numbers is modest, to say the least, but they do a super high conversion of free viewers to paying customers. That doesn’t mean everybody buys everything, but it does mean that the people inclined to buy are pretty high-information consumers compared to the average wrestling fan. That’s part of why one can’t judge Punk’s financial impact purely from raw numbers, because Tony is in the business of keeping a select group of people engaged to where they’ll shell out for PPVs and tickets, not winning over casuals, but it also means that Punk likely does not have a lot of value to a lot of those regular customers going forward, unless they figure out a really good angle to bring him back on.

[sek69]

27 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

But Tony flat out called Eric Bischoff’s statement about Punk being a financial flop bullshit and said Punk made the company more money than any other wrestler they’d signed, so he was either sunk costing his way out of a tough question or has access to more sophisticated metrics than the average observer. I tend to think a bit of both, Punk certainly hasn’t been Steve Austin or anything but has moved the needle enough that AEW is in a better position for tv rights negotiations than they otherwise would have been.

In retrospect it sure seems like Tony was sunk-costing not the money he invested, but the damage it was doing to his locker room. 

[Coffey]

It would be really interesting to see what direction AEW would go in if CM Punk & The Elite all left the company. 
 

They would still have FTR & The Acclaimed in the tag division. Still have Danielson, Jericho, Moxley & Sting as the big names. Still a ton of talent & young stars. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world… 

[SirEdger]

Perhaps they could finally pull the trigger on Darby Allin and Jungle Boy as true pillars of the company, as they claim them to be but obviously not being treated as such on TV.

[Jmare007]

I'd love a Darby run to be honest but he needs a couple of feuds to get his heat back.

Jungle Boy is gonna have a hard test with the coming program with Luchasaurus.

I'm more worried about Starks though, it's clear the crowd wants to see him succeed in a bigger role but it doesn't seem Tony wants to give it to him.

[Embrodak]

3 hours ago, sek69 said:

In retrospect it sure seems like Tony was sunk-costing not the money he invested, but the damage it was doing to his locker room. 

As of Double or Nothing, what we heard about Punk was that ESPN article where people went on and on about what a giving and valuable resource Punk was in the locker room. I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure a lot of this “Punk was toxic and awful the whole time” stuff is ex post facto spin by people with an agenda. 

[sek69]

Right, because Punk has never been accused of being a toxic asshole before.

Looking how things ended up evolving, the most likely scenario is Punk probably was in a happy place just to be involved back in wrestling with a major company not WWE. As the honeymoon waned, it's not impossible to believe the prickly asshole we all know and love emerged back out at some point. Especially if he started acting like the youngsters are required to bow to his knowledge at all times. I can easily see how that shit could get old real fast. 

[C.S.]

I assume this is kayfabe? 

Quote

hangmanadampage
Verified
“After you get famous, you stop growing. You don’t have to.”

After being an even small part of a movement with the Elite and our subsequent falling out I was a afraid of stagnation. I was happy, fulfilled, and getting a good paycheck; but without anyone to push me further.

During Brodie’s illness I was scared to move forward with these guys, but we all still felt it was the right thing to do.

I could never say enough about all of the Dark Order.

John’s jokes effortlessly turn a bad day into a hilarious one. Alex is my dad friend; our sons were born five days apart and it’s been so grounding to have someone on the same ride as me. Uno self-deprecates in a way I can relate to, only wishing he saw in himself what I see in him. Ten for working tirelessly and covering for my sorry ass at the latest possible notice. Anna for never hesitating to get in on a good dick joke and be one of the boys. Stu for never being complacent with his spot and always wanting for more. Five for overcoming having such a small penis and gaining the confidence to bet on himself in a way I have never had to. Colt for being a fountain of wisdom and saying to me the most self-affirming words I’ve ever heard.

I owe a lot of my career to Matt, Nick, and Kenny. I owe as much to these guys too. Thank you for helping me continue to grow.
Edited · 27m

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cid_V1SOF_N/

[Lukeless]

 

3 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

I'd love a Darby run to be honest but he needs a couple of feuds to get his heat back.

Jungle Boy is gonna have a hard test with the coming program with Luchasaurus.

I'm more worried about Starks though, it's clear the crowd wants to see him succeed in a bigger role but it doesn't seem Tony wants to give it to him.

To be honest, I think Starks might be leaving the company.  They take his title off him, have him get squashed in 5 minutes, and then when Hobbs cut his promo on Dynamite he said he was moving on and commentary didn't bring up Starks and only said what will Powerhouse Hobbs do next?

[Embrodak]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

Right, because Punk has never been accused of being a toxic asshole before.

Looking how things ended up evolving, the most likely scenario is Punk probably was in a happy place just to be involved back in wrestling with a major company not WWE. As the honeymoon waned, it's not impossible to believe the prickly asshole we all know and love emerged back out at some point. Especially if he started acting like the youngsters are required to bow to his knowledge at all times. I can easily see how that shit could get old real fast. 

Punk *is* an asshole, but what we know about him suggests he needs fairly objective conditions to set him off, at least by my observation. Making him work with a staph infection, asking for way too much money for a legal defense, perceiving one as trying to turn a subset of the audience against him while he’s the top babyface, etc. We didn’t hear shit about Punk as a negative locker room influence until the false rumor of him trying to get Colt fired came out, and Meltz tried *incredibly* hard to bury him recently, with some dude on his staff saying that was a more important issue than the one summarizing Vince’s goddamn retirement. There is absolutely a tendency for entrenched interests to weaponize Punk’s undeniable assholishness to run cover for their own failings, whether it’s WWE pretending they didn’t compel him to work in a wildly unsafe state of health or the Elite trying to act like he’s the first big act they’ve had trouble with and a sui generis troublemaker when Cody was literally still there earlier this year, so some skepticism toward our own intuitions is warranted, here.

[sek69]

We never really heard of anyone claiming Cody was a troublemaker though, did we? That seemed to be a clear case of Cody's vision not matching what everyone else wanted to do so they all agreed it was best to move on. Now Brandi you can argue might have had some shit talked about her behind her back, as she seems to be itching to spill the tea now. 

[Embrodak]

13 minutes ago, sek69 said:

We never really heard of anyone claiming Cody was a troublemaker though, did we? That seemed to be a clear case of Cody's vision not matching what everyone else wanted to do so they all agreed it was best to move on. Now Brandi you can argue might have had some shit talked about her behind her back, as she seems to be itching to spill the tea now. 

We didn’t hear that Cody was a troublemaker per se, but we heard of personal falling outs and major creative differences, if I recall correctly. And we saw on the screen that Cody felt compelled to create a weird, hermetically sealed environment for himself, away from them. And depending on how one takes the word of Brian Last, he’s been claiming for a while that there’s a not-insignificant chunk of the locker room that’s been unhappy with the EVPs for a long time, well before Punk got there, but I imagine he has a smaller pool of people he’s getting info from, maybe even just FTR. But he did have scoops about the melee and fallout, so idk.

[sek69]

Funny thing is I can believe Kenny is the only one who doesn't care about the BS. He's the ultimate art-for-arts-sake guy, famously saying he couldn't work for WWE (in the Vince era at least) because he wouldn't have been able to turn his brain off for that length of time. I can see the Bucks getting full of themselves, and Cody clearly has not only his dad's mind for business but his ego too. Add Punk to the mix and its an explosion waitin to happen. 

I wouldn't be surprised that when the true story comes out on what happened in the fight it will come out that Kenny was just making sure Larry the dog didn't step on his Wrestle Kingdom booking ideas and had no idea anything was going on.

[KawadaSmile]

1 hour ago, Lukeless said:

 

To be honest, I think Starks might be leaving the company.  They take his title off him, have him get squashed in 5 minutes, and then when Hobbs cut his promo on Dynamite he said he was moving on and commentary didn't bring up Starks and only said what will Powerhouse Hobbs do next?

If this truly happens, they have lost the plot. How can you drop the ball this bad? When he's easily getting great reactions, can speak very well and be charismatic for days? Like, compare the amount of Dynamite screen time and the reactions he gets in contrast to Danny Garcia, who they clearly have tried and are still trying to get over.

[El-P]

As I had legit decided to take a break from online presence and also from following closely the news and such, I only have watched All Out yesterday and this morning, in two sessions yes because I wasn't that hyped about it after all and was kinda baffled by all the missfires, tone deaf booking and plain bullshit on the show, despite a few great things (the two six-men matches, the main event). After it was all said and done, I was kinda like, well ok, let's see what happens next, although in a very cautious way of thinking. Then before I would eventually catch-up with the weekly shows, I went to F4 to see if there was a news or two... 

HOLY SHIT.

I can't stop laughing and shaking my head since then.

After Elizabeth II died, some people talked about she had been the only constant in the world in the last 70 years. But that's wrong. The only constant is pro-wrestling being pro-wrestling.  

I mentioned WCW circa 98 feel a few weeks back. Someone said "WCW speedrun" earlier and that's a great line. I have no idea what's next, but this last week is legendary stuff. Back in pro-wrestling lurking mode in more ways than one, enjoy the ruckus everyone.