Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[DR Ackermann]

And every year the TV audience decreases, so any rise whatsoever in ratings is a bigger deal than it appears on paper. And when you look at it segment by segment Punk draws numbers. 

We are on the outside looking in, so we don't know how things went down exactly. Punk is a unique talent. And some people would say the same about The Bucks and Omega. I think as wrestling fans the ideal situation is for everyone to stay and we get the best product possible (as long as everyone is able to work together going forward).

 

[The Man in Blak]

29 minutes ago, strobogo said:

One thing for sure is that no one respects Tony Khan.

Why should they? The Elite have their name on the branding of the promotion itself and, under that banner, it looks like they get to do whatever they want to do. They don’t have to have wield formal power as EVPs to reap the benefits; that they’ve been mostly benevolent actors up to this point is a huge factor in AEW’s success, so it’s not exactly surprising that the wheels seem to be falling off right around the same time that they decide to start playing petty games with the other talent. “WWE guys” or not, they’re pissing away an obscene amount of money here.

Punk can definitely be an impossible asshole, but it’s not hard to understand why he’d feel like he’d have to take matters into his own hands here, because nobody’s at the wheel and, even worse, nobody appears to have the capability to take charge. TK can fire Punk and be justified in doing so, but the core problem behind all of this isn’t going to go away when Punk leaves the locker room.

[strobogo]

20 minutes ago, The Man in Blak said:

Why should they? The Elite have their name on the branding of the promotion itself and, under that banner, it looks like they get to do whatever they want to do. They don’t have to have wield formal power as EVPs to reap the benefits; that they’ve been mostly benevolent actors up to this point is a huge factor in AEW’s success, so it’s not exactly surprising that the wheels seem to be falling off right around the same time that they decide to start playing petty games with the other talent. “WWE guys” or not, they’re pissing away an obscene amount of money here.

Punk can definitely be an impossible asshole, but it’s not hard to understand why he’d feel like he’d have to take matters into his own hands here, because nobody’s at the wheel and, even worse, nobody appears to have the capability to take charge. TK can fire Punk and be justified in doing so, but the core problem behind all of this isn’t going to go away when Punk leaves the locker room.

Pretty sure TK took full control and stopped allowing The Elite guys to book their own stuff like 2 years ago. It's also reported that Kenny and the Bucks absolutely were not the sources for the Cabana rumors, and Kenny hadn't been around since November, so it seems hard to believe he'd be involved in leaking stuff about Punk or his impact on the locker room. It's also obviously not just those guys anyway. A lot of people seem to not get along with Hey Phil for some reason. No idea what it could be.

[funkdoc]

Again: what evidence do we have of the Elite "playing petty games" with Punk here?  i said earlier that SRS & Dave both flat-out denied them giving those stories, so you either have to say they're completely lying or Punk was full of shit on that particular point.  i ain't even denying the Bucks have a history of being assholes themselves (and would agree with suspending them since that's not how EVPs should handle this) but people seem to be ignoring that part.

This board in general is massively pro-Punk because he did great stuff in WWE and wrestles slower and makes Bret Hart references, and anti-Elite bc they're shitposting theater kids who just happened to become pro wrestlers and work matches the way hardcore punk bands play rock songs.  From where i stand that's clearly influencing a lot of the takes here.

[Timbo Slice]

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. 

[strobogo]

I have two theories about why Punk has a bee in his bonnet:

 

1. Steve Austin came back and gave Kevin Owens a WM main event that he didn't get

2. Guy had this apparently Kerry Von Erich tier foot injury and surgery, somehow comes back in 3 months with a noticeably bigger upper body and suddenly developing gyno at 43. Just saying.

[C.S.]

Even the nobody jabronis are taking shots at the company now. 

What a mess!

This is funny though.

 

[Dav'oh]

“Everyone agrees Punk punched Matt, maybe several times.”

Seems unanimous… 

(This guy and his “uh…legal people” mate are the top sources? “Everyone agrees on a maybe”? Top, top shelf stuff right there.)

Questioning the validity of stuff that goes on in fucking pro-wrestling makes me a flat-earthier type? Just the opposite, I’d suggest.

[Embrodak]

28 minutes ago, funkdoc said:

Again: what evidence do we have of the Elite "playing petty games" with Punk here?  i said earlier that SRS & Dave both flat-out denied them giving those stories, so you either have to say they're completely lying or Punk was full of shit on that particular point.  i ain't even denying the Bucks have a history of being assholes themselves (and would agree with suspending them since that's not how EVPs should handle this) but people seem to be ignoring that part.

This board in general is massively pro-Punk because he did great stuff in WWE and wrestles slower and makes Bret Hart references, and anti-Elite bc they're shitposting theater kids who just happened to become pro wrestlers and work matches the way hardcore punk bands play rock songs.  From where i stand that's clearly influencing a lot of the takes here.

I don’t necessarily know why we should take the word of Dave and SRS here, but even if we do, it’s not like The Elite don’t have ways of getting out their agenda without sending it to Meltzer themselves. FTR already said Dave was full of shit when he said very confidently that the Bucks weren’t holding FTR down or ducking them, so at the very least, there are, uh, differing interpretations of what’s happening in the AEW locker room that are not necessarily represented in the wrestling press.

[Jmare007]

1 hour ago, strobogo said:

Eagerly awaiting the story 7 months from now that Punk and Ace have had a bad falling out.

No doubt. Do we get the details of that fall out on a Conrad Thompson sponsored podcast?

[The Man in Blak]

 

22 minutes ago, funkdoc said:

Again: what evidence do we have of the Elite "playing petty games" with Punk here?  i said earlier that SRS & Dave both flat-out denied them giving those stories, so you either have to say they're completely lying or Punk was full of shit on that particular point.  i ain't even denying the Bucks have a history of being assholes themselves (and would agree with suspending them since that's not how EVPs should handle this) but people seem to be ignoring that part.

As far as I’m aware, SRS denied getting it from the EVPs, but that doesn’t rule out the leak coming from Adam Page - that’s pure speculation, though, to be clear.

And I haven’t seen Dave’s denial yet, but yeah, I’m not inclined to trust him at all on this one; I can understand how others could land differently.

The really crappy thing is that I’m a fan of all the wrestlers involved and of AEW in general, which is why all of this feels so needless. And, as such, I’m more inclined to criticize the people in power (TK especially) and the others that seem to be operating with relative impunity in or around his inner circle.

[Jesse Ewiak]

1 hour ago, strobogo said:

I didn't say he didn't bring in higher ratings, I said they leveled off fairly quickly and overall the ratings from September 2021 to September 2022 are pretty close to what they were in 2020 and even 2019. There was a clear spike for 3-4 weeks of Punk's debut and then that spike leveled off to what they were doing in the months before Punk arrived. They had Punk/Cole/Bryan all debut at the same time and the viewership spiked but didn't really grow like everyone assumed it would.

I don't think AEW needs Punk. If I'm given an us or him situation between Bucks/Omega and Punk, I'm absolutely taking Kenny and the Bucks.

It's undoutably true that Punk (and to a lesser extent, Danielson & Cole) brought some eyes in when they debuted, as seen by the ratings directly after they debuted. The problem is, whether said booking was the wrestler or Tony's idea, the booking of those big stars after they came in pushed those new people away, so AEW is basically back where they are before Punk, Cole, and Danielson showed up. 

People wanted Punk vs. Omega, Punk vs. Moxley, Punk vs Jericho, etc., not Punk wrestling a bunch of lower card guys until freakin' February (yes, Punk vs. Darby was a bad idea for Punk's 1st big match - it was fine for his 2nd big match if you wanted to set it up), and even with Danielson, after initially starting off w/ Danielson vs. Omega, he was wrestling midcarders on TV for weeks. 

Then again, I'm still the guy that thinks Moxley should've beat Jerich for the title on the 1st Dynamite and gone from there. 

[Embrodak]

If the Bucks kicked the door down, it A) makes Punk look a little more sympathetic if he jumped to violence, and 2) continues the trend of literally every detail that comes out being funnier than the last.

[strobogo]

Do you think they slapped the leg when they double superkicked the door

[ohtani's jacket]

Man, the Elite wish they were as cool as a hardcore punk band playing rock songs. 

[Embrodak]

7 minutes ago, strobogo said:

Do you think they slapped the leg when they double superkicked the door

Only if god is real. But they believe He is, so who’s to say.

 

Was Ace hitting Nick with a chair a callback to a kid in preschool throwing the timeout chair at him?

[KawadaSmile]

53 minutes ago, strobogo said:

Do you think they slapped the leg when they double superkicked the door

hahahahahahahahaha

[sek69]

Did Brandon Cutler hit them with the cold spray after Nick got clobbered with a chair?

[NintendoLogic]

If the allegation is that the Elite were planting stories about Punk trying to get Cabana fired, that's plainly absurd when you look at the timeline. Punk shows up in AEW and the guy with whom he had a public bitter falling out and was barely being used to begin with starts being used even less and is eventually shunted off to the secondary brand. Who on Earth wouldn't put two and two together in that scenario? Hell, just about everybody was speculating that Cabana's days in the company were numbered when the Punk-to-AEW rumors started picking up steam.

[Big Pete]

The issue stems from the Hangman promo where he painted Punk as a hypocrite before their big PPV title program. It hardly gained any attention despite it being really awkward and out of place in the build up. Then everybody forgot about it except for CM Punk who fired up about it in Page's home state. Then the wrestling journalists started taking sides, with Alvarez and Meltzer in particular making it clear where their loyalties lied. It led into all this speculation and reporting around Cabana, so much so, TK had to address it in the Forbes interview so Punk decided to have it out at the press conference.

[Tetsujin]

Is not like they were doing something with Cabana to begin with, though. Why are people surprised he was one of the talents sent to ROH? Why does everyone believes Meltzer and/or the vultures known as wrestling journalists when they say the Elite arent their sources? That's exactly what somebody whose sources are the Elite would say. C'mon guys.

This whole thing is extremely hilarious to me, but I can't avoid being just a tiny bit bothered about the hate Punk's getting. Suddenly, the Bucks and Omega don't have any toxic stories anywhere they went. Suddenly, Triple H (Triple fucking H of all people) was right when he did that cool promo against Punk a lot of years ago. Suddenly, Colt Cabana is everyone's favourite wrestler, deserving of prime time tv time, and he only doesn't get it because Punk hates him.

The roster being mostly pro-Elite means nothing to me. They're literally their bosses and founded the company, of course they have more people on their side. Punk is an asshole because he has no problems getting dirty with people who is dirty against him, but that doesn't mean he can't be right. He's almost never being wrong in previous stuff back at WWE, iirc.

Also, Tony Khan is the main responsible for all of this. He just doesn't have what it takes to control a wrestling lockerroom. But he's surrounded by people who does (Arn, Henry, Lynn, etc) so I hope more discipline is forced, everyone gets suspended, Punk drops the title as soon as possible to MJF, and the Elite loses their EVP charges. None of that it's gonna happen (Tony will just send them to a coach or something like that, and then he will try to make it a storyline), but something needs to change around Khan. Maybe Tony himself.

[strobogo]

1 hour ago, NintendoLogic said:

If the allegation is that the Elite were planting stories about Punk trying to get Cabana fired, that's plainly absurd when you look at the timeline. Punk shows up in AEW and the guy with whom he had a public bitter falling out and was barely being used to begin with starts being used even less and is eventually shunted off to the secondary brand. Who on Earth wouldn't put two and two together in that scenario? Hell, just about everybody was speculating that Cabana's days in the company were numbered when the Punk-to-AEW rumors started picking up steam.

And apparently Omega/Bucks were "absolutely not" the sources for Punk getting Cabana fired/sent to ROH, so Punk's ire wasn't even directed at the right people, which makes it even more lol. And if he got injured either in the match or in the fight, what an incredible art imitates life imitates art situation with the Moxley quote in the hype video.

[fakeplastictrees]

15 hours ago, Phil Schneider said:

BTW I wrote this for the Ringer

https://www.theringer.com/2022/9/5/23338456/cm-punk-aew-all-out-2022-media-scrum-young-bucks-adam-page-explainer

 

My first top of the site piece

Good stuff! I will check it out!

[Flyin' Brian]

It’s entirely possible that the source of the rumors about Punk getting Cabana fired/demoted/transferred was Cabana himself. Either way, Page brought it up on live tv which was the wrong thing to do. Maybe Kenny and the Bucks in Punk’s mind were just guilty by association, but at the same time they are EVP’s. Whether they have any actual power or not, there is the perception that they do and as such they should be trying to help rein in guys like Page from going and doing what he did instead of possibly encouraging or enabling it. I’m sure the Elite and company have discussed Punk among themselves, and could have played a part in riling Page up to the point where he felt he needed to go off script to address it in public for whatever reason. Tony Khan could have definitely put a stop to this nonsense by saying the Cabana decision was his and his alone a lot sooner. At the same time it seems like maybe it’s a means to an end. I think a lot of people want Punk gone, whether he’s fired or quits doesn’t matter, and this is the opening for them to make that happen. Those people may then get ‘their’ company back, but at what cost? 

[Jesse Ewiak]

Again, there doesn't even have to be anybody telling anybody anything, but a bunch of wrestlers doing the simple math and looking at what's in front of them. Hell, Punk didn't have to say anything, because Tony was likely planning to send Cabana into the Phantom Zone before perhaps Elite members or other people on the roster, seeing what was going to happen, argued against it. 

After all, Tony deciding to appease his favorite new toy before he has to say anything about it is I guess, "making a decision without Punk's input," in a way.