AEW TV 11/23 - 11/25

[Flyin' Brian]

3 hours ago, El-P said:

I died at the CM Punk trolling. These guys are just on another level. Especially a few days after Omega had that "I wish people would let it behind" interview. They are just the master shitposters meta pro-wrestlers that elevates the entire thing into an artwork. Oh, the match was awesome too. As was Jericho vs Ishii. For a second I thought they would go into Taichi vs Ibushi territory, but hey, awesome nonetheless.
 

Glad we're done with the interim stuff. And now we're setting up the split with Baker again. Okay. Good.

The Danielson promo was too much WWE-lite to me, and it did not get over one bit. Moxley was terrific. For a second there I thought Regal was actually done with the company too.

House of Black comeback. Yes ! Here's hoping they get that big-ass push. 

Jake Hagger's calling is comedic matches and vignettes. The two highlights of his AEW career as single talent have been this match and the vignettes before the big Mox title match, with his wife and kids.

If the Punk trolling leads to something good, sure. If not, it’s going to lead to more people not watching, buying tickets, PPV’s, merchandise, etc. What’s more important? If it’s just to troll Punk they are proving him right. 

[El-P]

21 minutes ago, Flyin' Brian said:

If the Punk trolling leads to something good, sure. If not, it’s going to lead to more people not watching, buying tickets, PPV’s, merchandise, etc. 

You forget something more important. They were gonna get booed. They knew it. They did what pro-wrestlers do. They worked the crowd. And boy did they. And there are two levels of people booing them : the ones who chanted "Fuck the Elite !" yet probably had fun being triggered by all the trolling and then chanted some more, and had a blast doing it; and the ones who were legit annoyed and guess what, they got worked to boo even more, that's old-school pro-wrestling. And then there's the entire other part of the crowd, who died laughing and had a blast just because it was funny as fuck. Worked on three different levels already in term of the actual night and audience that was there. 

As far as turning people away, my guess is that most of the hardcore Punk fans are gone already. And you always hear the most vocal people who complain anyway. In the grand scheme of things, I doubt it matters much. And really, if that kind of stuff offend some people *so much* that they quit watching AEW.... well, again, don't think it'll represent much of the audience, really. 

If Punk comes back, it would be incredible, but to me the odds are about 0% (but of course, as it happened I was thinking "Wait.... what if ?" which is also part of the beauty of pro-wrestling, but in the end I took it as old-school MNW era troll job updated).

And really now, sorry but this guy is a fucking genius. The GOAT, as they say.

 

[MoS]

Doing low-effort lowest-fruit trolling that around 500 million anonymous nameless Twitter users do every day makes someone the GOAT? By this logic Triple H and Steph are Gods, and Shotzi is the best wrestler in the world.  

[El-P]

The joke is just awesome, that's all. My God, all of this is almost worth it by the incredible amount of salt by Serious Sams everywhere.

Also, let's be real for two fucking seconds. If the situation was reversed and the Elite were gone, is there ANY doubt whatsoever, considering his track record (including what he did in AEW in his last months), that CM Punk would have dropped some bombs on them during a promo, totally unrelated to anything, and all the Punk fanboys would be like "OMG THIS IS THE GREATEST PROMO EVER, THE ELITE ARE OWNED !" despite the fact it would lead to, well, nothing either ? 

Come on now.

[MoS]

Yes I do believe Punk would not have taken any public shots at the Elite. He never took one at Colt Cabana after all. He barely took any shots at WWE during his one year at AEW, and that was despite so many opportunities to do so being served on a platter to him.

In any case, whataboutery and engaging in hypotheticals is pretty weak. It is indeed funny to see fans act like referring to KENTA and his GTS is some awesome joke and genius level trolling, when a thousand random Twitter users going by the handle of shit like ILUVBOOBIES69696969@420 have been making this exact joke for more than a decade. 

[El-P]

9 minutes ago, MoS said:

Yes I do believe Punk would not have taken any public shots at the Elite. He never took one at Colt Cabana after all. He barely took any shots at WWE during his one year at AEW, and that was despite so many opportunities to do so being served on a platter to him.

He fucking did it to Hangman Page and that was the first occurence of him being unprofessional on live TV !  

The amount of triggering Omega & The Bucks proceed to produce is absolutely fascinating. 

[MoS]

Starks v. MJF should be great. It's a pity Starks is almost always injured. I'm ready to see both him and Hobbs elevated to the main event

[MoS]

Just now, El-P said:

He fucking did it to Hangman Page and that was the first occurence of him being unprofessional on live TV !  

He felt Hangman went into business for himself. In any case, the Hangman thing was completely out of line, no argument about that. But he has always treated wrestling more seriously than the Elite do. 

Also, mocking someone after an investigation has cleared you is just being an ungracious winner. You can't ask the people to move on from that, and then refuse to do the same and take passive-aggressive digs as soon as you hear some unfriendly chants. It was weak when Punk did it, and it is weak now when the Elite are doing so. In a lot of ways, it's a pity if nothing comes out of this, because in so many ways, Punk & FTR v. Elite is the perfect money-drawing, territory-popping wrestling feud. Two completely opposite personalities with a natural attraction and affinity towards one another. 

[El-P]

15 minutes ago, MoS said:

You can't ask the people to move on from that, and then refuse to do the same and take passive-aggressive digs as soon as you hear some unfriendly chants. 

Masters at work. 

15 minutes ago, MoS said:

In a lot of ways, it's a pity if nothing comes out of this, because in so many ways, Punk & FTR v. Elite is the perfect money-drawing, territory-popping wrestling feud. 

Of course it is. I'm not gonna lie, I say I think there's 0%, but deep down inside my pro-wrestling fan heart, there's still a little voice that says "never say never" and a minuscule hope that maybe, one of these days, when his injury has healed up, we hear Cult of Personality again and we get those Punk & FTR vs Elite matches leading to Punk vs Omega. Just a tiny, little, small voice... Anything bigger would lead me to disappointment. In the meantime, I had a good laugh, and it's much needed. I take whatever I can.

[NintendoLogic]

Only promoting things you intend to deliver is pro wrestling 101. The Elite surely knew that doing what they did would lead to speculation about Punk returning. If that isn't in the cards, then it was DX-tier pointless jerking off. And it bears repeating that the Elite are management and thus have a responsibility to be the adults in the room. With that said, if Punk does come back and they're all able to do business, my opinion of everyone involved will improve significantly.

[Jmare007]

40 minutes ago, El-P said:

 

Also, let's be real for two fucking seconds. If the situation was reversed and the Elite were gone, is there ANY doubt whatsoever, considering his track record (including what he did in AEW in his last months), that CM Punk would have dropped some bombs on them during a promo, totally unrelated to anything, and all the Punk fanboys would be like "OMG THIS IS THE GREATEST PROMO EVER, THE ELITE ARE OWNED !" despite the fact it would lead to, well, nothing either ? 

Come on now.

I hope you realize you are basically the same but with The Elite. Stans are gonna stan.

[El-P]

5 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

I hope you realize you are basically the same but with The Elite. Stans are gonna stan.

Nope. Because I was pretty much ready with the perspective of the Elite being gone and ending up at the Royal Rumble or something at one point (early on after the debacle I mean, I really thought this would be the end for all of them basically), and as an old CM Punk fan I would have popped at his promo too, just like I laughed at the in-ring trolling. Again, I'm a fan of ALL involved. I just don't take this stuff either too seriously nor, god forbid, personally. 

[Jmare007]

14 hours ago, Flyin' Brian said:

Think the BCC is dead. Jericho’s group’s don’t help anyone but Jericho. Maybe he helped Sammy a little, but he’s still just a Jericho flunky. 

One of the most disappointing stables ever?

It's also a perfect example of TK's booking philosophy having glaring flaws. The whole thing started after Danielson came up with a promo off the cuff trying to do something different. Turned out that Mox loved the idea and pitched it to Tony, who bought it. From there they basically had the first month of the stable set: Regal coming in, the "auditions" to join them and elevating the picked guy (Yuta) and that awesome video package of them training.

From then on it was a disjointed mess. They didn't have each other's back (very rarely did they save one of the members from a beatdown or confrontation), they barely interacted with each other (unless it was to have a confrontation within the group) and the group didn't have any purpose whatsoever after Blood & Guts.

[Jmare007]

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

Nope. Because I was pretty much ready with the perspective of the Elite being gone and ending up at the Royal Rumble or something at one point (early on after the debacle I mean, I really thought this would be the end for all of them basically), and as an old CM Punk fan I would have popped at his promo too, just like I laughed at the in-ring trolling. Again, I'm a fan of ALL involved. I just don't take this stuff either too seriously nor, god forbid, personally. 

I never read you being happy or finding funny the exact type of shit when it happened in WWE. And boy did it happen in WWE for a long time. But it's whatever breh, you do you. If you disagree with my take that's fine. I don't think it's worth discussing over more than this.

[El-P]

18 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

I never read you being happy or finding funny the exact type of shit when it happened in WWE. And boy did it happen in WWE for a long time.

I'm not a WWE fan. I only follow what happens there because I follow the business aspect of it. I barely watch anything anymore from them since they are knee deep with "his excellency Prince LGBT Killer". So not sure what you are referring to, really. What type of exact same (funny, I guess) shit ? 

[Flyin' Brian]

17 minutes ago, El-P said:

I'm not a WWE fan. I only follow what happens there because I follow the business aspect of it. I barely watch anything anymore from them since they are knee deep with "his excellency Prince LGBT Killer". So not sure what you are referring to, really. What type of exact same (funny, I guess) shit ? 

The WWE trolling of Punk. Playing Cult of Personality in Chicago and Paul Heyman coming out for one example.

[El-P]

1 minute ago, Flyin' Brian said:

The WWE trolling of Punk. Playing Cult of Personality in Chicago and Paul Heyman coming out for one example.

What a dickhead move.  

[Sean Reedy]

21 minutes ago, Flyin' Brian said:

The WWE trolling of Punk. Playing Cult of Personality in Chicago and Paul Heyman coming out for one example.

At least in that one Heyman put Punk over and tried to pivot to Taker-Brock. And they had to do something because the whole building was chanting for Punk before the show even started. This was just, what, sticking it to AEW fans who liked the top guy in the company who was presented as being the most important thing on the show for a year? It's Russo level thought process. 

[Dale Wolfe]

If you ignore the die hard nerds on both side, you do also have the casual viewers who may just look at this and think what's the fucking point of this then fast-forward or turn off

I think far too often in modern promotions these lads are just so in love with themselves they can't see the bigger picture

Unless its all a work ofc

[KawadaSmile]

Bucks and Omega have always been passive aggressive dickheads. Not surprising they would go for that, regardless of a Punk/Omega match taking place down the line.

 

4 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

One of the most disappointing stables ever?

It's also a perfect example of TK's booking philosophy having glaring flaws. The whole thing started after Danielson came up with a promo off the cuff trying to do something different. Turned out that Mox loved the idea and pitched it to Tony, who bought it. From there they basically had the first month of the stable set: Regal coming in, the "auditions" to join them and elevating the picked guy (Yuta) and that awesome video package of them training.

From then on it was a disjointed mess. They didn't have each other's back (very rarely did they save one of the members from a beatdown or confrontation), they barely interacted with each other (unless it was to have a confrontation within the group) and the group didn't have any purpose whatsoever after Blood & Guts.

When I see people talking about Bryan "working younger talent" I do wonder what the fuck they are refering to. He pent most of his time there working people he already did in the indies/Fed, and the one guy he had a program with, Garcia, ended up not getting much of a spotlight. Wardlow vs Bryan when? 

I know he had some matches with other talent, but his AEW stint so far has been spent with BCC/JAS bullshit which was nothing but running around at the speed of sound, they got places to go and were following their rainbow. 

[Dale Wolfe]

Jake Hager comedy work surprisingly good 

[sek69]

It's interesting seeing the reactions AEW gets nowadays. People complaining that Bryan is being "wasted" despite him saying on multiple occasions that this is what he wants to be doing in this stage of his career. The Elite knew they were going to get booed out of the building in Chicago and leaned into it and people are upset that it was "low rent".. 

I've noticed in this era of Prestige Multi-Star Matches, people get really fucking mad online if heels do heel shit to get heat. LIke somehow that became a distasteful thing to do. 

[NintendoLogic]

3 hours ago, sek69 said:

It's interesting seeing the reactions AEW gets nowadays. People complaining that Bryan is being "wasted" despite him saying on multiple occasions that this is what he wants to be doing in this stage of his career. The Elite knew they were going to get booed out of the building in Chicago and leaned into it and people are upset that it was "low rent".. 

I've noticed in this era of Prestige Multi-Star Matches, people get really fucking mad online if heels do heel shit to get heat. LIke somehow that became a distasteful thing to do. 

Too many people have forgotten that heat is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The goal is to draw money. Getting heat by building anticipation for a match that isn't going to happen is bush-league and embarrassing any way you slice it.

[ragemaster]

Its Tony company, if they ran it by him and he said it's cool, go for it then it's on him. If they just did it off their own backs, then Tony needs to toughen up and lay down the law.

Personally, I found it funny, and punk did piss on the company and wrestlers in the press conference.  Then he started a backstage fight, so I can see the Bucks and Kenny saying a big fuck you to him.

The best thing would be for this to be a start to an elaborate angle and for punk to come back and join FTR to feud against the Elite for business. 

[sek69]

If Punk could swallow his pride, this could be one of the biggest feuds ever, but all available evidence shows he's way too stubborn/petty/dickheaded to do it.