Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Embrodak]

Let’s be real, Tony Khan could do this for 30 years and prob still be basically an e-fed guy at heart.

[strobogo]

It's almost 2023, who the fuck cares if a guy from one promotion pins a guy from another promotion while heading to another promotion?

[NintendoLogic]

WWE would certainly care if the shoe were on the other foot and, say, Karl Anderson were booked to drop the NEVER Openweight Championship to someone who had signed with AEW.

[strobogo]

Well that's fucking dumb. It was also dumb 30-40 years ago, but entirely stupid today.

[Dav'oh]

52 minutes ago, strobogo said:

It's almost 2023, who the fuck cares if a guy from one promotion pins a guy from another promotion while heading to another promotion?

Especially as it's Dragon Who?, to most people. (We are not most people.)

[Jmare007]

Will the narrative war start to make a turn?

[NintendoLogic]

Dave also wrote that there's no such thing as forever in wrestling and Punk at least appears to be willing to play ball. He did say that an apology from Punk would probably be necessary to smooth things over, but he doesn't know how likely that is. In the end, the chances of Punk returning will probably depend on how things are business-wise when Punk is physically ready to return. If business is struggling when they're in the middle of negotiations for a new TV deal, the odds are much better than if business is strong and they look to be getting a major rights increase.

[Timbo Slice]

Also, Jericho headlining a WON report. Color me shocked. 

[Coffey]

I'm in the camp that if AEW is put into a position where they have to choose between Chris Jericho or C.M. Punk & they choose Jericho that they're wrong. Granted, to me this just feels like 1. Jericho trying to protect his spot (because we know Punk is a bigger star than him, he's the biggest star in AEW) and 2. he's trying to get him name in the mix with the Elite/Punk drama because so much time/effort has been spent on these stories the last couple of months.

I'm also in the camp that I think AEW would be better off without Chris Jericho at all, regardless of C.M. Punk but that's a different matter altogether. I would argue that Moxley is more important than Jericho & if he wasn't wrestling jobbers & still gave a shit to be a top guy, Danielson would be too.

[C.S.]

TK is such an obnoxious opium-eating shitposter, lol.

 

[Champagne]

The very real cover of Bloomburg Businessweek's February 6th issue featuring Tony Khan:
 

 

[C.S.]

Nose Khandy strikes again.

In response to Ariel Helwani appearing on Smackdown, which - yeah, I agree - as a "legitimate journalist" he should not be doing. But I can't begrudge him for being a fan and wanting to be there to support his fellow Montreal guy Sami.

[strobogo]

That sounds like a joke to me

[KawadaSmile]

Called him a SNOWMAN

[sek69]

Considering how universally loved Schiavone seems to be, this clearly seems like TK busting balls. 

[C.S.]

Maybe, maybe not.

Ariel was massively critical of Tony after the interview they did a while back.

“He didn’t want to answer anything. You’re going to come on and promote X, Y, and Z, great. And I’ll play that dance with you. I did, at the beginning. But you got to give us something, to not even tell me how you were feeling.

I’m not asking for specifics, alright fine I am, but is Punk going to wrestle for you, is he coming back, you don’t want to get into it, fine. But tell me how you were feeling. Give me something.”

[Embrodak]

Y’know, Goofy WWE Jon Moxley sucked, but I vastly preferred his younger look to whatever he’s got going on now. He just doesn’t look intimidating enough to pull off what he’s going for with his current look, and his face goes from handsome to homely with short hair and a beard.

[MoS]

Seems like a clear joke to me, especially given Helwani's response. 

It is not news for those of us who have followed MMA for a while that Helwani is a complete joke as a "journalist". He used to be called "Access Ariel" by some fellow MMA media members, and was once indirectly on UFC's payroll while reporting on it, an absolute no-no as far as journalistic ethics is concerned. Seems like it's the same thing with him and WWE. The UFC thing was worse because MMA is an actual sport. 

[C.S.]

If it's a joke, neither of them are funny.

Ariel is being rightly called out for his lack of journalistic ethics, but TK's response is so clumsy and hamfisted that he has once again made himself the story in the worst and most counterproductive way. For all their faults, Vince and Trips would never fall into this trap.

 

[MoS]

TK is still a message board poster at heart, he just can't resist 

[MoS]

This is what I was talking about - 

https://deadspin.com/blackballed-mma-reporter-admits-he-was-ufcs-paid-shill-1780851837

 

[Embrodak]

If TK meant it as a joke, AH calling TK “snowman” seems to imply he didn’t take it as a joke.

[NintendoLogic]

I think TK was trying to say that Ariel is for WWE what Schiavone is for AEW: a paid shill.

7 hours ago, C.S. said:

Ariel is being rightly called out for his lack of journalistic ethics, but TK's response is so clumsy and hamfisted that he has once again made himself the story in the worst and most counterproductive way. For all their faults, Vince and Trips would never fall into this trap.

There are probably dozens of instances of Vince behaving far more embarrassingly in dealings with the media. To take just one example:

And HHH used his HOF induction speech to take shots at the "pissant company." In a wrestling war, taking the high road is the equivalent of unilateral disarmament. Regardless, this is yet another example of how TK would benefit from a hatchet man who would handle the dirty work and allow himself to remain above the fray.

[fakeplastictrees]

This is an interesting thread that is worth a read:

www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/114kziv/aews_storytelling_is_terrible/?

Saraya's arrival to AEW seems to be the final straw of my AEW fandom. I am now in the sunset phase. My biggest issue with late WCW was its desire to be WWE. I tuned out. When TNA decided to ramp up the WWE lite nonsense, I tuned out. And now, AEW is fully committed to adapting WWE aesthetics to its programming. I wanted a true alternative and there were a lot of positives at first, but now it seems Tony Khan is unable to help himself. I know I am weird and this is a me thing, but I am not a fan of the forced stagey-ness of everything currently.

We have,

Sign pointing.

Heels stopping beatdowns because they hear a babyface's theme music.

Constant references to WWE.

Stagey video game entrances.

Wrestlers constantly looking at PPV banners hanging in the rafters.

Champions raising their belt above their head at the most inappropriate and weird times (a wrestlers wins a match and that wins sets them up for a championship match, the champion's music hits and the champion stands on stage with the title raised above their head until commercial break).

The completely exaggerated shocked faces (because that's the only way wrestlers know how to show surprise).

BAD acting that can and should be completely avoided (and rather easily to do). 

Stuff like The Gunny Family Therapy segment.

Half assed and completely fake looking fan attacks.

Debuting or just turned heel wrestlers standing still and mugging for the hard camera as if they are Hogan at BATB 96.

The adoption of the 20+ year WWE stage design.

All of this and more is leaving a bad taste in my mouth and there are no signs its changing. I think this might be my last year watching AEW. My interest in modern pro wrestling is sunsetting due to the above and  because a lot of wrestlers entitlement to be in this business whether they are good or not. Their weird obsession with presenting themselves as fans and not stars. The happy to be there looks and smiles. Its just all around terrible.

[El-P]

48 minutes ago, fakeplastictrees said:

Saraya's arrival to AEW seems to be the final straw of my AEW fandom. I am now in the sunset phase. My biggest issue with late WCW was its desire to be WWE. I tuned out. When TNA decided to ramp up the WWE lite nonsense, I tuned out. And now, AEW is fully committed to adapting WWE aesthetics to its programming.

They recruited Kevin Dunn's second hand man. Although there have been progress made at the beginning of the year with how the show was formated (there are still issues though, such as the total lack of highlight reel following a hot match), the aesthetic, especially with the red and blue color scheme and the giant screen, definitely looks more like every other WWE-lite show done in the last 20 years.

And although I gave her the benefit of the doubt for a while, Saraya at this point really comes off like a TNA moment.

As far as the rest goes, there are some flagrant booking issues that I won't go into details about (the reddit thread goes pretty hard on those, and I agree about most if not all of it), as really I'd rather focus on what I enjoy in the promotion (but really, Ass Boys tag champs, Jade Cargill going in circles, Hayter's reign and teased feud against Britt now sucked into a vortex of bad Saraya & Ruby Soho stuff, Christian Cage random comeback, making Takeshita tap out to MJF already, no follow-up on Willow, Eddie Kingston in general, where is Miro, where is Riho, where is Deeb, and I could go on), and the in-ring product has been ridiculously great these last two months, so I remain pretty positive about the whole thing. As long as AEW gives me great in-ring pro-wrestling, I'm gonna keep watching and enjoy it.

But yeah, sadly, WWE is such a powerful looming influence, that it seems hard to escape it in any way shape or form. That's why Lucha Underground was so great for a while (although unsuccessful and with a dreadful management), because it was so very different. AEW needs to distance from them in every way, which they do to some extents (the in-ring work and working as an integral part of the entire pro-wrestling landscape, which is great), not so much in others.