Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[C.S.]

46 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

"Been mentioned" where? Because it's been reported by Dave and Sapp that there was "no heat" on Storm for her comments, and AEW was still quite explicit that she was still an "Interim" champion last night.

No heat on Storm by management or the other wrestlers is obviously what that meant. 

[PeteF3]

Okay, gotcha. "Other wrestlers" would include Rosa, so until we get some hard substantiation I'm writing that off.

[Embrodak]

8 month recovery time if Punk has a torn tricep, oof. They should not have brought Danhausen in, he is not good at aiming his curses apparently. Bad, bad year for this company.

[SirEdger]

The curse was definitely in Danhausen's boots before he lent them to Punk.

[C.S.]

Did Christian borrow those boots too?

Apparently the same injury as Punk and same long recovery time.

[SirEdger]

So the elbow injury for Christian was kayfabe then and it was the pec too?

[Jmare007]

Listened to Dave on WOR and I think it's the most I've agreed with him in a long ass time, I wonder how Punk took his words because I'm sure he was listening or will read the snippets

[strobogo]

I think the most fascinating thing to me is Punk has become exactly the type of vet he hated when he was younger, and also the things he's mad about are exactly the kind of things he did when he was a younger man (shit talking co-workers, starting fights, not listening to vets he didn't want to listen to, etc.). There seems to be no introspection or self awareness at all.

[Embrodak]

Punk having the heel John Cena run we never got would actually be the only way I could see him coming back and not feeling awkward, but I can’t imagine Tony ever wants to put his title on him again, if only for the questionable state of his musculoskeletal functioning. And I guess Roman is kinda sorta having that run already, idk.

[sek69]

The more info that drips out, the less it looks like AEW is a den of chaos with everyone at each others throats and more like everyone there got gradually more tired of Punk until it finally boiled over.  It probably didn't help that a lot of people there had to put up with older wrestlers telling them to stop doing what would end up making them stars and as such would be not be predispositioned to listen to Punk's  (largely unsolicited) gems of advice. 

[DR Ackermann]

https://twitter.com/LetThemWrestle/status/1566660709341171712?s=20&t=xB1KBylYf9siAbYFLE8CmA

Best part of the weekend that's getting overlooked is deranged Tony at the press conference.

[sek69]

The whole issue with Punk is reminding me of the famous XKCD comic about free speech:

 

[Flyin' Brian]

20 hours ago, Zoo Enthusiast said:

I uttered the phrase “WCW speed run” earlier.

Sadly, I’ve thought this too but I hope not. We just had another merger, this time Warner/Discovery instead of Time/Warner. No guarantee that they decide they want to keep wrestling on the networks when the current deals are up. 

[Flyin' Brian]

Honest question, before the Page promo, what did anyone in AEW have a problem with Punk about? Maybe Cabana getting moved to ROH, but it’s been shown that wasn’t Punk’s doing and people were assuming/lying that it was. What else has Punk said or done that was a problem in the past year before being put in a program with Page?

[sek69]

5 minutes ago, Flyin' Brian said:

Honest question, before the Page promo, what did anyone in AEW have a problem with Punk about? Maybe Cabana getting moved to ROH, but it’s been shown that wasn’t Punk’s doing and people were assuming/lying that it was. What else has Punk said or done that was a problem in the past year before being put in a program with Page?

From what I gather (and from what Punk has said), he seemed to have an expectation folks would be coming to him for advice/listening to his wisdom and got salty when that didn't happen. Which granted sounds incredibly petty and dumb, but *gestures wildly at AEW*

[The Man in Blak]

2 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

Listened to Dave on WOR and I think it's the most I've agreed with him in a long ass time, I wonder how Punk took his words because I'm sure he was listening or will read the snippets

Yeah, Meltzer comparing Punk to Bill Watts -- and, specifically, how Watts went from being one of the smartest people in wrestling in the 80's to being out of touch in the 90's -- was definitely a choice, but not totally unexpected considering where Dave's loyalties lie.

I think the only things I agreed with were that:

• Tony Khan had an opportunity to address all of this long before now and he completely whiffed.
• One interesting point I actually hadn't seen elsewhere: even by Punk's own standards, he actually blew off questions related to MJF in the media scrum in a way that was totally counter-productive to the build to the next PPV. He had an opportunity to put MJF over outside of all of this crap and he was too set into his own agenda to even try to be professional there.

[Flyin' Brian]

2 minutes ago, sek69 said:

From what I gather (and from what Punk has said), he seemed to have an expectation folks would be coming to him for advice/listening to his wisdom and got salty when that didn't happen. Which granted sounds incredibly petty and dumb, but *gestures wildly at AEW*

But there was no indication or reports of that being a problem before Page’s promo. I don’t think it’s just that attitude towards Punk but it seems any veteran, at least where Page is concerned. Page said he’d rather learn by trial and error, well I guess we see the fruits of that. 

[The Man in Blak]

11 minutes ago, Flyin' Brian said:

Honest question, before the Page promo, what did anyone in AEW have a problem with Punk about? Maybe Cabana getting moved to ROH, but it’s been shown that wasn’t Punk’s doing and people were assuming/lying that it was. What else has Punk said or done that was a problem in the past year before being put in a program with Page?

Dave insinuated on WOR that there were numerous people backstage that have been "rubbed the wrong way" by Punk for a while, with some allusions to folks resented being told that they were doing something wrong even though they had been successful. And then he went onto note that AEW is set to gross more money in 2022 than any non-WWE company in history as though it would have happened without Punk, Danielson, Cole or any of the other signings over the last year or so. Yeah, okay.

[Flyin' Brian]

1 minute ago, The Man in Blak said:

Dave insinuated on WOR that there were numerous people backstage that have been "rubbed the wrong way" by Punk for a while, with some allusions to folks resented being told that they were doing something wrong even though they had been successful. And then he went onto note that AEW is set to gross more money in 2022 than any non-WWE company in history as though Punk, Danielson, Cole or any of the other signings last year had anything to do with it. Yeah, okay.

Did he mention any of that before now? Had anyone? It’s been a year of Punk in AEW. If people had problems surely it would have come out before now. Just seems like the tail wagging the dog. 

[sek69]

5 minutes ago, Flyin' Brian said:

I don’t think it’s just that attitude towards Punk but it seems any veteran, at least where Page is concerned.

Yeah, that's kind of the point everyone is trying to make. Page's comments that set this whole nonsense in motion weren't even directed at Punk, he basically just said "yeah we got a lot of veterans here, but I'm the type that wants to learn on my own" and Punk created an entire blood feud in his head over it.

[The Man in Blak]

2 minutes ago, Flyin' Brian said:

Did he mention any of that before now? Had anyone? It’s been a year of Punk in AEW. If people had problems surely it would have come out before now. Just seems like the tail wagging the dog. 

To be fair, MJF took an explicit swing at "WWE guys" in his last promo before his hiatus, and I don't think that was necessarily a fresh talking point then, even if Punk wasn't singled out specifically.

[Jmare007]

BTW, the ratings were marginally better than last week. The precious demo was up but not by that much so all this fuckery didn't gather that many eyes.

14 minutes ago, The Man in Blak said:

Yeah, Meltzer comparing Punk to Bill Watts -- and, specifically, how Watts went from being one of the smartest people in wrestling in the 80's to being out of touch in the 90's -- was definitely a choice, but not totally unexpected considering where Dave's loyalties lie.

I think the only things I agreed with were that:

• Tony Khan had an opportunity to address all of this long before now and he completely whiffed.
• One interesting point I actually hadn't seen elsewhere: even by Punk's own standards, he actually blew off questions related to MJF in the media scrum in a way that was totally counter-productive to the build to the next PPV. He had an opportunity to put MJF over outside of all of this crap and he was too set into his own agenda to even try to be professional there.

The Watts comp made sense to me in the context of someone coming in after a long hiatus and "not getting" that the stuff he doesn't agree with, because they didn't work before while they were active, actually work nowadays and it actually draws money.

It's one thing to be a throwback and still make shit work but it's another to treat your whole company like it ain't shit because a portion of the locker room are too set in their ways and don't see stuff the same way you do. Not realizing that those people feel that way because they worked in manner they were always told it was "wrong" and it actually lead to creating the n°2 promotion in the world is a big part of the rift that occurred.

A lot of us aren't fans of The Elite and the style they work but it would be really dumb for any of us to argue they haven't been successful. Punk being a moron by publicly stating their former champion hasn't done shit in this business or that The Bucks couldn't manage a target is the type of shit the old timers Punk hated their fucking guts would tell him when he was young so yeah, spot on by Dave to call him out on that.

[Jmare007]

15 minutes ago, Flyin' Brian said:

Did he mention any of that before now? Had anyone? It’s been a year of Punk in AEW. If people had problems surely it would have come out before now. Just seems like the tail wagging the dog. 

I could be remembering wrong but reports of festering issues inside AEW's locker room were out there before Punk's promo on Page.

Of course it all comes down on much we believe wrestling media (and I for sure understand not wanting to believe most of what they report) but it seems to me AEW's fuckery has been known for a while. Went underreported because a lot of outlets didn't want to cause too much noise and in the last month, as shit began to unfold they either started to connect the dots or just release shit they've been hearing about for a while, most likely pushed by the anti-Punk side.

 

[Dale Wolfe]

I would think the message board shitposter part of Tony Khan must be loving all this in a way

[The Man in Blak]

19 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

The Watts comp made sense to me in the context of someone coming in after a long hiatus and "not getting" that the stuff he doesn't agree with, because they didn't work before while they were active, actually work nowadays and it actually draws money.

It's one thing to be a throwback and still make shit work but it's another to treat your whole company like it ain't shit because a portion of the locker room are too set in their ways and don't see stuff the same way you do. Not realizing that those people feel that way because they worked in manner they were always told it was "wrong" and it actually lead to creating the n°2 promotion in the world is a big part of the rift that occurred.

A lot of us aren't fans of The Elite and the style they work but it would be really dumb for any of us to argue they haven't been successful. Punk being a moron by publicly stating their former champion hasn't done shit in this business or that The Bucks couldn't manage a target is the type of shit the old timers Punk hated their fucking guts told him so yeah, spot on by Dave to call him out on that.

How often were people calling Page's title reign a flop or a disappointment on this board over the last few months? He got to ride the wave of one of the best long-term storylines in AEW history, got two wins over Danielson as a champion, and where did he end up?

And how hard was it really for AEW to rise above Impact and the shambling husk of ROH to become the No.2 promotion in North America? Punk talked about how Page jeopardized the promotion's first million dollar house - whether you agree with him or not, what does that say about the financial success of the company before he was signed?

When it comes to the Bucks, they seem to be a case of Schrodinger's EVPs - are they just guys with "vanity titles" (as it's been argued here and elsewhere) or are they incredibly successful front office people that created a ton of jobs in wrestling, as Meltzer suggested? If it's the latter, how do they not bear some responsibility along with TK for not getting in front of this nonsense and de-escalating things before it exploded?

As I see it, the critical question for AEW to answer -- especially now that WWE seems like it could be a friendlier home to people that were previously desperate to escape -- is whether Punk was truly the root cause of everything here or whether his blow-up is symptomatic of a bigger issue with how talent relations are handled in the company. There's a host of other issues as well (particularly with regards to TK's booking over the last few months), but I feel like the answer to that question is going to be what really determines how the company fares going forward. As somebody that's been watching from the beginning, I really hope they figure it out.