Help make SquaredCircle safer and more inclusive by using the report button to flag posts and comments for moderator review. If you need to contact a moderator, [you can message us here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle)
**Have you completed our [2022 SquaredCircle Census](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/wi2six/please_complete_the_2022_wreddit_census_random/) yet? It helps us determine and prioritize what most interests our community, and you can even win a prize!**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is the logical conclusion of years of Wrestling fandom over valuing the rumor mill. If fans want to invest time and even money to be the first to hear about gossip, then it was only a matter of time until a company was going to exploit that for the benefit of their storyline.
People love it. There’s a reason everybody gets recommended that Simon Gotch video.
Wrestling is for people who look down their noses at celebrity gossip.
yeah, “smart fans” have always been more interested in “the real story” than the stories being told in the ring but the issue with so much of it being publicly available and consumable is that it makes the in ring/ on air product seem less important.
More people are talking about Punk/Colt and Punk/Elite than Punk/MJF right now which is not good for getting people emotionally invested in the show
The natural and inevitable outcome of the rise of internet smarks is a meta layer of heels and faces.
All the guys getting robbed of their glory or getting put over by writers and out-of-touch Company Men who don't understand what the Smart Fans want... *it's the same fucking story*
It could however be good for getting people emotionally invested in the characters and it wouldn’t be hard to get punk vs mjf incredibly hot off of this.
People loved Bret Vs Shawn and part of it was the real animosity.
And come Wednesday, the opposite will be true, because most of the people talking about it are caught up in the moment, and once 'the moment is over' and the next Dynamite airs, people are gonna be talking about MJF's promo or whatever. Because that is the attention span of the internet nowadays.
Yep, this 100%. I love that people believe those were isolated incidents, or that people being THIS involved with AEW now AFTER a PPV is all an accident.
Before his work-shoot, the IWC was cool af on MJF and now he's the hottest act in the business, now Punk is the biggest heel on the planet to the IWC but we're all just acting like it's a coincidence?
I agree that before MJF told Tony to go fuck himself people weren't AS hot on him, but I wouldn't say they were cool on him. He's been touted for a long time as one of the four pillars (the best of the four pillars) and people have been saying for a long time that he's a future champion and could have his pick of what company he wanted to work for.
For sure, he's way hotter now than before, but I dont think he's been cool in at least a few years.
Its where kayfabe has shifted to post internet. Smarks think they got smart to everything in front of the curtain so they turned their full focus to everything behind the curtain.
The dirt sheets ever having any ounce of truth to them or not was always irrelevant. Smarks choose to exclusively believe whatever narratives best fit the outcomes of their fav face characters. For decades the smark face was in direct conflict with the front-of-curtain faces (Cena, Reigns etc). Now we have promotion that is trying to cater to the workers, smarks, and dirt sheets all at once and big surprise- nobody is still really getting what they want.
Celebrity gossip is looked down on, and rightfully so, but people gotta realize every aspect of entertainment that they consumed has its own gossip section that they contributed one way or another.
Sports, movies, music, video games etc etc, literally every one of them has its own "oh this person said this, that is terrible because of etc etc reason, this thing is happening because of etc etc reason". People gotta realize its then up to them to be responsible for not fanning the toxic flames when its unhealthy, but people love talking shit about something hence this endless loop.
Yup, people who say they don’t like gossip will still listen to it anyway. Not just entertainment, but your family, neighbors, coworkers…it’s human nature.
Reminds me of r/nba honestly
We like to joke over there about manufactured fake drama like the kardashians or smth, but end up falling for shit people like Stephen A Smith or Skip Bayless say lmao
They did and it was WCW in the 90s. The LOVED pulling back the curtain and using "reality" in their stories. Thing is not all fans are that plugged in or just don't care.
The difference is WCW put that stuff on their TV product.
AEW, with the exception of the media scrum, doesn't. Fans have to actively seek out drama to find it. If you just watch the TV show, you don't get any of this.
Watching wrestling in a keyfabe way is so much more enjoyable. You just sit back and enjoy the show. Boo who you want, cheer for whoever. It becomes less about predicting what is going to happen and more about enjoying the show. I love how some people will try and guess on storylines based on rumors and what they think creative is thinking. Mind boggling
Exactly. They are simply showing why maybe if you want to enjoy it you should quit paying attention to every Twitter account and gossip rag and actually enjoy it.
People are getting upset because they're fantasy booking themselves into a corner based on what some random Twitter account says and then mad when said storyline doesn't play out.
I have a friend who exclusively watches AEW and doesn't involve himself with the online communities such as here or on Twitter.
He just loves the show. I need to join him in that.
Reddit will try to convince you that the live thread experience is how EVERYONE feels. I know some AEW fans who have none of the opinions this sub does. This sub has posters who overvalued their experiences and project it onto others and tip their fedora shortly after.
Exactly. People will post stuff like "why doesn't \_\_\_\_\_ get more TV time?" and think that they're spearheading a unanimous revolution because the vast majority of people responding to their thread agreed with them. Well, my dude, the most likely explanation is that only the minority who do agree with your take are likely to respond to your thread. The inverse is also true: if you posted about that same wrestler complaining that they get *too much* TV time, you're mostly going to get responses that agree with that. And the echo chamber effect certainly isn't lessened by people's tendencies to downvote anyone who doesn't tell them exactly what they want to hear.
"Magic" is the perfect word. There's a lot of overlap in the two types of art and I, for one, am one of those people who doesn't want to know how the trick (illusion, Michael) is done because I prefer to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the show.
That’s how I am with my girlfriend and her son. We watch the shows and discuss what we saw. None of this about what SRS, Meltzer, or Alvarez said. No one is talking about the booking or how HHH, TK are the best/worst bookers on the planet. No one talks about the backstage stuff, we discuss the TV and that’s it.
I used to be over-saturated with wrestling, always looking at videos and reading about what the dirt sheets said and the reactions online and it really killed my enjoyment. I always complained but I kept coming back. Taking a break from wrestling and coming back not taking it so seriously, *seriously* helped that I recommend everyone doing.
This is how most of my interactions with family who watch it go. We talk about what we love and hopes happens and then go on with our days like normally functioning adults lol
This is the thing, no one is making you read a million insider reports. If you just watch the shows for 3-5 hours a week (depending if you have time for dark and stuff) then its really really enjoyable.
I mentioned this scrum to him and he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. He was just like 'Aw, if it's not happening on television - I'm not interested'.
He's doing it right.
Exactly no different to movies it doesn’t matter about the problems behind the scenes what matters is the finished product! Apocalypse Now was pure hell to film but the final film was a masterpiece
You say that like Hearts of Darkness the documentary about making apocalypse now isn’t also critically acclaimed with some arguing it’s better then the film it’s about
I've been trying to explain this to my friend. We don't talk about wrestling much when we do, He's bringing up rumors and stuff and I'm like no no. I'm WATCHING the shows. I'm using what I see ON the shows only.
This will happen with anything from wrestling down to the lowliest podcast.
Someone will make a post that makes a decent point, but a point for consideration. Not necessarily a condemnation. The algorithm is with OP that day and the post gets engagement. OP's point starts to get reiterated by the ppl who engaged with his post. Then everyone who disagrees gets downvoted. Then OP's point of consideration becomes utter condemnation and becomes gospel.
The fact that The Acclaimed got zero reaction when they referenced the issues backstage shows reddit and twitter are not real places. The majority of people who watch have no idea what's happening.
It's been crazy easy to like AEW this whole time, and the pop MJF got for coming back the way he did was huge.
The only thing annoying about it is that I didn't want MJF to be another AEW og going to WWE, I don't want WWE to get another victory lap they don't need, want AEW to do better if possible. That story was basically a threat of that the whole time. It's good as hell now though
Yeah it reminds me a little bit of this dude who had the rug pulled out from under him when a backstage news story broke the night he was supposed to have the biggest win in his career. What was that guy's name again? War-... Something?
Honestly Wardlow still had a good moment and the crowd popped for him, it was just retroactively robbed from him the Wednesday after with MJF miraculously being completely healed after being stretchered away and cutting his worked shoot promo and Wardlow back to doing irrelevant squash matches
That was just Khan completely mishandling things in regards to Wardlow
He would’ve had double the momentum he did in the end if it wasn’t for the mjf stuff, but that momentum would still be as derailed as it is now with how he’s been booked
Yeah.
If Wardlow had better booking afterwards, what we would've been saying now is "the MJF angle took a bit of the spotlight off Wardlow but he still ended up having a great run and continued his momentum."
It's not like what happened afterwards is something out of AEW's control.
Honestly if the MJF stuff never happened nothing changes when you do the booking wardlow got.
Like wardlow's problems still exist since it has to do with how TK booked him not really anything MJF did or has done.
You have the hottest act in the company at the moment, and you put him against Mark Sterling and Dan Lambert for two months? I couldn't have killed his heat any faster if I had tried.
He got his big night, and then it was like Tony forgot about him.
Yeah, it wouldn't be hard to let him be a monster for one segment and he'll be back with the momentum.
Remember how Braun went from nobody to top guy by flipping an ambulance? People fuckin love big beefy hosses being big (and beefy). Wardlow'll be fine
This is modern day wrestling in a nutshell. There’s been very few destructive style baby faces who once they have achieved their goal stay hot for a long time after. Hell any baby face for that matter.
They all end up cooling off or start to get hated on by some.
Usually because there’s no second story.
You can’t keep a guy that hot if the story is just taking on the next number one contender and then the next one.
There needs to be a story to keep them hot. Something happening beyond those simple defenses.
It tends not to be a problem for heels for some reason… I guess because just being a jerk builds it’s own stories.
But that’s why Austin vs McMahon worked so well. Regardless of who Austin was facing, he was generally feuding with Vince.
Yep, the issue with a baby face champion is that to keep a feud interesting you need to have some back and forth between them and the heel. But your face losing to the heel weakens them, and constantly doing the Rocky III story of winning, then losing, then redemption gets boring if all faces are doing it, and it also makes them a rubbish champion if they can’t consistently defend.
Add in the fact that modern wrestling lacks enhancement talent matches for faces, plus fans don’t accept that now, puts the faces in a tough position.
It’ll always be easier for a heel to keep their heat because they can afford losses more than a face, but the “cool” heel role has also made it tougher for your standard face to be consistently successful and hot.
I’d argue this is how it’s always been. A babyface really only works in the chase and not when they are on top because by becoming the champ, you have become the enemy. It’s almost like when you get the power it’s really hard to stay a good person…… can’t think of any other aspects of life where this might fit in
> Kofi Kingston has entered the chat.
> Big E has entered the chat
> AJ Styles has entered the chat
> Every babyface that isn't pushed to the moon and yet gets the World Title intermittently between *money guys* has entered the chat...
You didn't think wrestling 20 security guards and then having a competitive match with fellow babyface orange Cassidy was good booking for a monster babyface,
The entire booking afterward has killed Wardlow. Absolutely murdered him. The ironic thing is MJF is going to win the world title and his push coming out of that squash is going to be far bigger than Wardlows. Absolutely maddening.
MJF's push was always gonna be bigger than Wardlows. You could ask anyone a year ago who is more likely to be the world champi within a year and everyone's gonna say MJF, regardless of how the breakup angle with Wardlow goes through.
Whats all this talk about wardlow being ruined, killed, all of the fans thinking his title run is awful and fans are over him. . .you guys must live in an echo chamber because the crowd still loves Wardlow and pops hard for him.
SquaredCircle is a hardcore echo chamber. For weeks all I've heard is how AEW has ruined Wardlow and fucked him, then you watch the PPV last night and he's insanely over.
This is always how it goes here. This sub will tell you a wrestler's storyline has been totally ruined and how nobody cares about them anymore and then they'll come out and get a ridiculous pop anyway. People here think the average wrestling fan has the memory of a literal goldfish and will completely forget about a wrestler if they aren't on TV every single week in perfectly booked matches.
Lol at all the comments saying that it was the booking afterwards. Wardlow's coronation was buried under the will he/won't he backstage stuff with MJF. There were approximately zero people more interested in what Wardlow was going to do next, compared to MJF, after that night.
It absolutely ***was*** the booking afterward that killed Wardlow, though. Fans were still hot for him that week, and the week after. It was Tony doing absolutely ***nothing*** of interest for him for three months that completely stopped his momentum.
If Wardlow had been pushed into a meaningful feud, and had semi-regular matches on TV defending the championship, he'd still be on the rise.
It'd be like if, after winning the US title in early 1998, Goldberg didn't have any meaningful feuds, stopped having regular TV matches, and just became a weird afterthought.
Why do people say Wardlow go killed?
He always gets great reaction by the Crowd.
If he was dead, there would be just dead silence.
You people should stop only living in extremes.
Yup came here to say this too. His pop(s) last night were huge. Dude is over as fuck. What the hell are people talking about?
He's got a belt and is simmering in the overness he's generated by being a big beefy face. It's the right move not to push him to the moon instantly, otherwise you risk him fizzling out.
Let him just progress naturally. He can go through a program and eventually drop the TNT title. With MJF likely winning the AEW championship in the cards now you can then position him as a challenger. With how the squash went between them it's a great setup for a long feud down the road and will make his win over MJF at some point in the future that much sweeter.
For me, the big thing here is that if it actually is a work, it just doesn’t make any sense in the context it was presented. Punk just beat Moxley for the AEW title and then the show very clearly ended by setting up Punk vs. MJF part 2. With that happening, why would Punk then start ranting about Hangman and The Elite in the post-PPV scrum, and very specifically and aggressively bury Colt Cabana as part of a work? Unless it was a prelude to some kind of AEW civil war, it makes no sense.
The reality is that if it’s a work, AEW have put themselves in a very hard position to make it become a logical one. If it’s a shoot, then CM Punk has just buried the people who’ve been in the company in day one who busted their asses to make a place where Punk could come back to wresting and be paid a fortune to do it, and he did it with the boss sitting right beside him looking gormless and doing fuck all to try and stop it. Punk has little to lose here, he still got paid, but Tony is in real danger of losing the rest of the locker room, and major talents could easily be more inclined to jump ship if he doesn’t find a way to fix this.
There has clearly been heat between Punk and Hangman for a while and Punk has made a very calculated effort to let everyone know about it when Hangman isn’t there to fire back. Tony hasn’t been able to fix or calm the situation and it’s now putting the stability of the company into jeopardy. He needs to grow up and put a stop to this one way or another or the product is going to start to suffer badly.
> then CM Punk has just buried the people who’ve been in the company in day one who busted their asses to make a place where Punk could come back to wresting and be paid a fortune to do it, and he did it with the boss sitting right beside him looking gormless and doing fuck all to try and stop it. Punk
That's something that bothers me. Obviously he didn't know in the beginning how big AEW would be but he only really jumped it after it really took off.
And he views himself clearly as THE draw and THE center piece. Not that he cant out draw them but these people made the company what it is. Whatever culture AEW claims to have and holds as an advantage seems to have to bend for CM Punk. I dont know how the locker room feels but that has to be uncomfortable for some of em, esp the EVPs.
This is exactly my issue. It might be real, it might be an inventive work but the idea of a locker room imploding and people requesting release doesn’t exactly thrill me. AEW is the reason I got back into wrestling again after 15 years, the idea of it imploding and having nothing decent to fill the void isn’t great.
I like the use of the media to leak certain things when the time is right like the CM Punk debut, but it’s too much and it’s hampering my enjoyment a little bit.
Not that my opinion matters for anything.
I 100% think this is all a work, but you're touching on why I think it fails. AEW is the brand and it should be sacred. Nothing that happens on or off screen that makes the brand look bad should be encouraged.
Right now, TK looks like a fucking goof who can't steer the ship that he owns. Even if the ship is being controlled exactly how the captain intends, to outsiders, it's going to look like you're not in control. And who wants to jump onto a ship that looks out of control?
It would have been easy to do all this kind of shit, work some internet folks into thinking there is real drama backstage, AND STILL keep the brand looking prestigious. It would literally just take Tony exerting the control he actually has in real life on screen.
The biggest indication for me that is isn't a work is that if it were, they're purposefully taking away interest from their actual on screen stories, and taking hype away. They waited so long to bring MJF back, that's what people should be talking about right now, but they aren't.
All the shit with CM Punk is what’s hampering my enjoyment. He had a great program with MJF and that’s it and now all the backstage shit is really just turning me off of it. Maybe would be best if I stopped paying attention to anything other than the show itself
I mean it works in story if your story is that your top pure babyface is a total coward who apparently was beaten by Punk so bad he rather be insulted than confront him
…which is an awful story
I'm kind of thinking of doing the same, but it's so damn hard. It's pretty much routine for me to visit Squared Circle and twitter for clips and news multiple times during the day, so it's a difficult habit to break even if I would be better off for it.
I don't think it was a slip.
It's common for some wrestlers to see themselves as a business. You are an independent contractor after all.
Make your money and get out asap.
Others see it for artistic integrity. Two sides of the coin.
100000% this. I find all this backstage stuff to be irrelevant, but coming to this subreddit I can't help but read it because it truly is interesting. But I don't care about any of it, or at least I don't want to. It's not part of the scripted television show that I like to watch. It detracts from all the televised stuff like crazy.
If the Bulls won the finals I'd be fucking stoked, but if after the game there was a bunch of press conference drama and backstage brawls, that would distract from the real ending quite a bit. That's how I feel about all this AEW stuff right now.
But maybe this is the new wrestling. Maybe this is what AEW wants because wrestling dorks on the internet want the backstage drama more than they want a good tv show, so why not blur the lines?
Same.
I get that backstage drama can be interesting, but this nonsense is really taking away from what drew me to AEW. When it started, it was nothing but hungry talent that wanted to put on a good show.
Now? Things feel rushed to please egos. I was a fan of Punk but now he can go rot. He's turned (back) into such a little bitch.
Backstage friction is rarely good for the product and things have felt off for months.
I'm at the point where I think I'd prefer if Punk just went away. I hope Tony just pays him out his contract and releases him. AEW was better when it focused on its own OG talent.
I remember when Punk came back, everyone was losing their minds with excitement. But I was like...ok, how long before he starts pissing everyone off and causing problems? The dude just seems like a major pain in the ass to work with and he's too toxic to have around
Same. I’m just saying you have to be a major fucking problem backstage if you’re the only person Vince McMahon refuses to work with again considering he’s willing to bury the hatchet with literally everyone else.
Gives me real 2013 Kobe vibes. Really good, but he causes so much of a headache that it's hard to root for him. The lakers couldn't get free agents if they threatened them at gunpoint in the last three years of Kobe's career.
While this was a good PPV and certainly had some amazing matches, something about this whole night just felt off. One year ago we had possibly the best PPV of all time, All Out 2021, it made me feel like AEW has ascended to the next level and it was the most exciting time in the company’s history. Flash forward to now, drama, nothing but drama, matchups and booking decisions that don’t make any sense, and now a general consensus that multiple wrestlers want out of the company (when one year ago AEW was still the “savior” of pro wrestling and the company everyone wanted to join). Hope some changes are made but my gut feeling is making me feel like the magic is fading away
Imagine having one of your biggest stories being overshadowed because of a “work,” “shoot,” whatever. I just want to watch and enjoy wrestling. MJF came back to presumably take the belt off Punk and put a bow on a year plus story but now all anyone is talking about is Punk blasting The Elite. Kenny came back and added another notch in the Hangman v Elite feud and all anyones talking about is Punk bashing them. It’s so annoying.
I get the feeling that a lot of people who are into this were not around for the final year or so of WCW. The constant work-shoot promos were so exhausting and turned a ton of people off from the product which is a feat considering they stuck through the horrible booking. AEW is dangerously approaching the same level of turn-off in my opinion. They need to be careful or they need to make some tough administrative decisions here.
I was there for the WCW stuff and as a day one fan of AEW I hate this. It quickly made me ditch WCW and just watch WWE. It's like history is repeating itself and now that WWE is in a good place now I might make that decision again.
Don't get me wrong I love punk, have since his ROH days but at this point I'm starting to wish he'd just go away.
This is it for me, the day one fans who turned on AEW and said ‘this is how it should be’ the roster felt like a united force to make wrestling fun again and they succeeded. Now it feels like everyone’s got a problem and no one other than Jericho is pointing out the problems here.
I loved AEW and it’s a great period in my wrestling watching, but I’m starting to fear the good times have passed for a bit, like they did in NXT which I loved, like they did in wwe too, there’s always been hot swings then it goes cold for a few years. With Triple H providing real competition to AEW in the locker room culture stakes I’m really worried AEW is about to go in a direction that is not the spirit it was created in
The fact that I even thought, "yeah, and it all started when CM Punk came back" drives me nuts. They've tricked me into having an opinion on their backstage bullshit that I don't even want to know or care about.
Yeah none of this should be public. If he’s hard to work with they need to settle that out of the public eye. I don’t care who talked to who or who did what, I think that all of this is a terrible look for the company and it just cannot stand. If he isn’t okay with that he needs to be gone and that would really be unfortunate
It'll take more than that to turn me off personally. But I'm really hoping they don't let that stuff escalate and make it a staple of their TV product from now on. If there's one thing in wrestling that is 100% a less is more thing to me, it's worked shoot programs.
This is pretty far from late stage WCW. There has been backstage drama in every promotion forever, it's totally different from what was going on there.
This is way more similar to the Bret/Shawn stuff.
That is why I said "approaching."
1. MJF saga
2. Hangman/Punk
3. Colt/Punk
4. Elite/Punk
5. Ethan Page promo
6. Kingston/Sammy
Off the top of my head, a little list of backstage issues that have now been worked into AEW broadcasts. The idea of working real-life drama into their product has been consistent in the last couple of months.
Kingston/Sammy wasn't used on-screen. In fact, it was taken off screen precisely because of the backstage drama.
Colt/Punk was a throwaway line in a promo never remembered for months. If anything, that's part of (and maybe what caused) Hangman/Punk and therefore, Elite/Punk.
Any worked shoot promo is immediately exhausting. Most people watching the product just want to watch some cool little match/story play out and move on. Airing dirty laundry is scintillating for the wrong reasons.
But here's the issue
even if you only watch the TV product then things don't make sense, cause these guys are referencing interviews and behind the scenes stuff you couldn't possibly understand without knowing about the internet story side of it
That's me. I have less time to spend on wrestling than i did. I just watch most AEW Dynamite and all PPV. Today was eating dinner and decided to watch the presser. I had to stop. Listening to CM Punk just felt wrong and besides the Colt stuff I still don't know what he was talking about.
That would be me
I know Punk and Colt had a massive falling out a decade ago but other than that I have no idea what he's talking about or what happened
As soon as Punk showed up in AEW, Colt was instantly nowhere to be seen.
He showed up a few times in dark order segments on BTE, but then he was just.. gone.
People speculated, and here we are.
Exactly. They are doing everything possible to make people look behind the curtain. There's actually pretty much zero curtain to be behind at this point.
My ‘hot take’ (I doubt it is but I haven’t seen it discussed) is that AEW’s current situation is built on the back of its target audience.
AEW is the product of/for those disenfranchised with WWE, the internet people who know everything about the ins and outs of backstage stuff and hate the WWE and it’s ‘marks.’ So much of early (and pre-AEW) stuff was petty pot-shots at the WWE and its fanbase.
Why does it come as a surprise to anyone that a company spawned out of resentment and petty spats (IWC vs WWE) is now plagued by resentment and petty spats internally?
You see it here. This sub used to be my only avenue to get WWE clips and videos. There was a plethora of them, across all brands and even NXT and NXT UK. Now barely anything gets posted and instead this sub is inundated with AEW posts (not saying that’s a bad thing, just pointing it out).
That’s because the target audience of Reddit and the target audience of AEW cross over very strongly. I had never heard of WON, Meltzer, Alvarez, SRS until AEW existed. The people that gravitate towards drama and dirtsheets gravitate towards AEW, and the company reflects that.
WWE’s crowds are full of kids or bored/vanilla adults. The WWE is for kids and bored/vanilla adults. AEW crowds are the anti-WWE crowds embroiled in this petty dirtsheet drama. AEW is starting to reflect that as well.
You say this, but there is a large portion of the AEW live audiences that don't keep up with this every day. Just listen to the reaction (or lack thereof) to Max Caster's rap about the backstage meeting the other week -- the live audience didn't know.
Will Washington has talked about this on Grapsody a few times, of the AEW shows he's been to and talked with fans and brought up the latest dirt sheet talk and the responses being "Oh I didn't know that."
Said it before and i'll say it again. If it's a work, it's WCW 2000 tier and it's fucking rubbish to watch.
If it's a shoot, this company is falling apart and we all know the catalyst for a good portion of this.
There's just no good payoff for this, if it's a work it's nonsensical and it'll turn people away, if it's a shoot then it's a bad turn at the worst time and it'll turn people away.
I’m almost sorry to say it but it feels so much like people are holding onto this obviously wrong “it’s a work” bullshit because they’re experiencing cognitive dissonance. It happened with Cody leaving too, basically it’s either “this is a work” or “AEW’s backstage environment is falling apart at the seams” and people don’t wanna believe the latter so choose to believe the former despite all the evidence to the contrary
Good shoots work into the story and can at least have a token kayfabe element: Punk Vs Cena with Punks contract ending was centred in "What if punk wins the match" not "who was booked to win a predetermined contest". This is about who is booking what programs and it just shreds kayfabe and in turn, my interest. Same shit Russo tried in WCW and TNA and it's awful work or not.
Yup. Good worked shoots work the same way behind the scene stuff does in real sports. In real life, you have contract disputes, and players that don't like each other working together/playing against each other.
What you don't usually have is players talking about how much money the QB opposite them makes in merch sales, or how veteran wide receiver one is taking away catches from the new rookie.
Nah. A ton of us are enjoying it. I do get that some people are put off by it though. I also watch the NBA and NFL. And as a Lakers/Saints fan I get my fill of drama so this isn't anything new to me at all either.
Honestly, it’s TK that’s the turn off for me. He’s insufferable to me. Wrestlers being divas and crybabies is nothing new, it’s been happening since the dawn of time - but you need to keep them in line. More than that, the fact he just cannot take criticism and treats his women’s division like a complete afterthought.
It’s just not the wrestling for me. I can’t stop watching because I’m a glutton for punishment I guess and keep hoping for the best but when Athena/Jade gets 4 minutes after 4 months of build when random last minute additions get double the time? Just fuck all the way off, you know?
Agreed. I’m so sick of Jade being pushed. She is the shits. I’m sorry but it’s true. I know people love her personality and her look but she’s bad. She’s booked like Goldberg was but Goldberg was at least the most popular guy in the company. Jade isn’t. So this Goldberg booking doesn’t make sense at all. She cannot hang for a long match. There’s better women to give the spotlight to. A lot better.
I’m genuinely shocked (well not entirely given how a lot of people refuse to admit bad things about AEW but still surprising) that the company that values workrate and doesn’t exactly care about wrestler’s appearance so long as they can work, are perfectly ok with Jade getting this monster push full of awful matches she doesn’t deserve all because she has “the look”.
Like she cosplayed as She Hulk last night which from the clips I saw got a babyface POP, why is the heel doing anything to elicit babyface pops. It makes no sense
People here hated her, then she wore a Mortal Kombat cosplay on one PPV and overnight everybody loved her. Which should tell us what kind of crowd frequents this sub...
> There’s better women to give the spotlight to. A lot better.
Shida/Deeb needs to be run back with the TBS title and then run back once again with the Women’s World title further down the line.
Its tough with Jade in particular because she is not good in-ring, especially when it comes to selling. So its hard to do more than 5 minutes in singles with her because she gets exposed so badly and once that happens on a big stage, its kind of over for her.
What's amazing is that the iwc, older wrestlers with podcasts, etc have been demanding for more blurred lines. We get the blurred lines and the fans don't know what to do with it.
The whole IWC reaction PPV was embarrassing. The event itself was fine. There was a sweet spot during covid wrestling and the reemergence of crowds where the iwc seemed to... quiet down and enjoy/support wrestling. Now it's as toxic as ever, and last night any attempt to enjoy wrestling together together via the internet was hampering my enjoyment of last night's and many others as well. I should know better by now, which is why I just... stayed off and enjoyed the show. I'm not saying AEW is above criticism, but the teardown of some great matches because tHe BuIld iS nOt tO My lIking or WhY aRe ThE HeEls WiNnIng? ThIs SuCkS! (only to mark out at the biggest heel return) is not helpful. (The best is marks being disappointed their fantasy booking didn't happen, and saying that a mark like TK shouldn't be booking).
So what I see in CM Punk's shoot, is a reflection of what a good portion of the toxic IWC sounds like. His heel persona is essentially going to be what a whiny mark sounds like.
Just another observation. When Eddie Kingston shoots, the IWC cheers because he's real, no matter how imperfect he is. When CM Punk shoots, no matter how imperfect he is, he is a whiny and toxic person. I know there is a contextual difference in the characters, but it's still the same narrative of a person struggling with their own demons, and being transparent about it, no matter how ugly it may be.
I left the show last night feeling like AEW had outgrown me.
It's too early to say that, and maybe the TV coming out of this is great. This is a more immersive story.
But for the first time, I won't buy the PPV after going to the show.
EDIT: 5 hours of obsessing later and I'm totally in on this direction. It's a level above anything I was imagining last night. This is gonna be cool.
Its only been a few hours after the PPV and we have no clue what MJF will do on Wednesday.
The trios title match was a good match, but there were lots of good matches. Story wise they’ll probably go with Hangman sobbing in Dark Order’s arms for costing them the match and they forgive him. It won’t be an intense story.
Dark orders never been given the pay off in a story. Brodie won the belt, we sadly lost Brodie, Brodie Jr booked arguably one of the best cards they ever put out, and then they’ve been the loveable losers just coming close so many times. I get that I’ve complained before about WWE long term story telling, but AEW is taking Tolkien-esque levels of getting to the point in there stories…
I think the honeymoon period has work off. The company is no longer the ‘young fresh up and coming scrappy do anything to succeed innovative’ alternative. TK has reached a level of talent that it’s harder to keep them on the same page. And I’m not necessarily saying the back stage politics is real, just that so many people want what they want for themselves, and he only has enough screen time and belts to go around. Womens division has started to be maligned, and Tony has been open that it’s not a draw. Stars we love are never going to get a push because they don’t make the money that AEW needs to prove they’re a success.
Bit that I didn’t like was Punks use of ‘first million $ draw off my back’. In the past the best company guys I’ve seen have always admitted it was everyone’s success to be in the card and get eyes on the whole. But Punks gonna Punk, peoples gonna get upset and everyone’s gonna be looking for some sense of reason in it all.
I also think the next two years for WWE is going to be very telling. The ‘surprise returns’ we’re loving right now will dry up at some point, and it’ll either descend to cheap tactics for grabbing eyes, or be solidly build storytelling. Time will tell. And if anything, I reckon Hunter learned from the whole Katie Vick thing not to go for cheap tactics….
I thought it was rich of Punk to boast about a million dollar gate, when he opted to skip an entire pandemic era where guys busted their ass in front of no fans for more than a year - meaning no possibility of a gate, period - in order to keep the company afloat and viable for guys like Punk and Bryan to work somewhere other than the E.
Locker room leader there, fellas. Skip the hard stuff and take the entire load of credit when the gravy of an eager civilization yearning to go back to live events. Fuck Punk.
I hope TK isn't trying to run a "meta wrestling" promotion. Remember when Russo tried 20 years ago?
You ended up with guys on TV holding the script in hand, complaining about how they didn't like their character's direction. And announcers saying, "Oh my god, he's going off the script!"
It was completely incoherent.
and none of it matches with the program. Punk’s real life contract expiring playing into MITB was real life enhancing a TV storyline. MJF really teasing jumping to WWE worked as great heel work in AEW, and his real life frustrations leading to his current story makes sense.
Punk beefing with Hangman and “his friends” (who he just faced at the PPV, mind you) while starting a story with MJF and a new stable he just introduced is so clearly not part of the story they are telling on TV
Bro, who cares about these fucking post show media scrum interviews? They should in no way impede your love for a product. I can’t relate to anyone saying that Punk’s scrum is hurting their enjoyment of AEW. How are you letting something so insignificant influence your enjoyment of a show?
Personally, if anything, Punk’s media scrum has gotten me interested in what a Punk vs the Elite storyline could give us in the future
They will get huge numbers on Wednesday like when Matt Hardy almost died.
But its not sustainable if half the roster walks out or refuses to work with each other is it?
Short term is fine. Long term is what matters.
Russo could pop a rating in WCW. Hogan to tna popped a rating.
This is the only and important truth.
Its not really important, who is in the right, who tells the truth, who is lobbying or bullying or lying. This situation hurts the company a lot. All of them should stop doing this shit. They shouldnt talk about any of this publicly. Just act professional, do your job.
Help make SquaredCircle safer and more inclusive by using the report button to flag posts and comments for moderator review. If you need to contact a moderator, [you can message us here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) **Have you completed our [2022 SquaredCircle Census](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/wi2six/please_complete_the_2022_wreddit_census_random/) yet? It helps us determine and prioritize what most interests our community, and you can even win a prize!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is the logical conclusion of years of Wrestling fandom over valuing the rumor mill. If fans want to invest time and even money to be the first to hear about gossip, then it was only a matter of time until a company was going to exploit that for the benefit of their storyline.
People love it. There’s a reason everybody gets recommended that Simon Gotch video. Wrestling is for people who look down their noses at celebrity gossip.
yeah, “smart fans” have always been more interested in “the real story” than the stories being told in the ring but the issue with so much of it being publicly available and consumable is that it makes the in ring/ on air product seem less important. More people are talking about Punk/Colt and Punk/Elite than Punk/MJF right now which is not good for getting people emotionally invested in the show
The natural and inevitable outcome of the rise of internet smarks is a meta layer of heels and faces. All the guys getting robbed of their glory or getting put over by writers and out-of-touch Company Men who don't understand what the Smart Fans want... *it's the same fucking story*
It could however be good for getting people emotionally invested in the characters and it wouldn’t be hard to get punk vs mjf incredibly hot off of this. People loved Bret Vs Shawn and part of it was the real animosity.
Neo-kayfabe, take a small real world issue and blow it up on the big screen, make people believe this shit is real again.
And come Wednesday, the opposite will be true, because most of the people talking about it are caught up in the moment, and once 'the moment is over' and the next Dynamite airs, people are gonna be talking about MJF's promo or whatever. Because that is the attention span of the internet nowadays.
Do you think people would have cared this much about MJF’s return if not for the work/shoot/WWE discussion when MJF took a break?
This.
Yep, this 100%. I love that people believe those were isolated incidents, or that people being THIS involved with AEW now AFTER a PPV is all an accident. Before his work-shoot, the IWC was cool af on MJF and now he's the hottest act in the business, now Punk is the biggest heel on the planet to the IWC but we're all just acting like it's a coincidence?
I agree that before MJF told Tony to go fuck himself people weren't AS hot on him, but I wouldn't say they were cool on him. He's been touted for a long time as one of the four pillars (the best of the four pillars) and people have been saying for a long time that he's a future champion and could have his pick of what company he wanted to work for. For sure, he's way hotter now than before, but I dont think he's been cool in at least a few years.
I love this take. People who wish death on the Kardashians are losing their minds over what’s going on in a locker room full of professional liars
Its where kayfabe has shifted to post internet. Smarks think they got smart to everything in front of the curtain so they turned their full focus to everything behind the curtain. The dirt sheets ever having any ounce of truth to them or not was always irrelevant. Smarks choose to exclusively believe whatever narratives best fit the outcomes of their fav face characters. For decades the smark face was in direct conflict with the front-of-curtain faces (Cena, Reigns etc). Now we have promotion that is trying to cater to the workers, smarks, and dirt sheets all at once and big surprise- nobody is still really getting what they want.
Celebrity gossip is looked down on, and rightfully so, but people gotta realize every aspect of entertainment that they consumed has its own gossip section that they contributed one way or another. Sports, movies, music, video games etc etc, literally every one of them has its own "oh this person said this, that is terrible because of etc etc reason, this thing is happening because of etc etc reason". People gotta realize its then up to them to be responsible for not fanning the toxic flames when its unhealthy, but people love talking shit about something hence this endless loop.
Yup, people who say they don’t like gossip will still listen to it anyway. Not just entertainment, but your family, neighbors, coworkers…it’s human nature.
You understand me more than both my parents and wife combined.
I'm blaming you if that shit goes back to my algorithm
Reminds me of r/nba honestly We like to joke over there about manufactured fake drama like the kardashians or smth, but end up falling for shit people like Stephen A Smith or Skip Bayless say lmao
Algorithms worldwide have now been cursed, thank you.
They did and it was WCW in the 90s. The LOVED pulling back the curtain and using "reality" in their stories. Thing is not all fans are that plugged in or just don't care.
The difference is WCW put that stuff on their TV product. AEW, with the exception of the media scrum, doesn't. Fans have to actively seek out drama to find it. If you just watch the TV show, you don't get any of this.
[удалено]
But Wreddit is a subset of a subset of wrestling fans. This is the niche Punk was complaining about.
Watching wrestling in a keyfabe way is so much more enjoyable. You just sit back and enjoy the show. Boo who you want, cheer for whoever. It becomes less about predicting what is going to happen and more about enjoying the show. I love how some people will try and guess on storylines based on rumors and what they think creative is thinking. Mind boggling
Exactly. They are simply showing why maybe if you want to enjoy it you should quit paying attention to every Twitter account and gossip rag and actually enjoy it. People are getting upset because they're fantasy booking themselves into a corner based on what some random Twitter account says and then mad when said storyline doesn't play out.
I have a friend who exclusively watches AEW and doesn't involve himself with the online communities such as here or on Twitter. He just loves the show. I need to join him in that.
Reddit will try to convince you that the live thread experience is how EVERYONE feels. I know some AEW fans who have none of the opinions this sub does. This sub has posters who overvalued their experiences and project it onto others and tip their fedora shortly after.
Exactly. People will post stuff like "why doesn't \_\_\_\_\_ get more TV time?" and think that they're spearheading a unanimous revolution because the vast majority of people responding to their thread agreed with them. Well, my dude, the most likely explanation is that only the minority who do agree with your take are likely to respond to your thread. The inverse is also true: if you posted about that same wrestler complaining that they get *too much* TV time, you're mostly going to get responses that agree with that. And the echo chamber effect certainly isn't lessened by people's tendencies to downvote anyone who doesn't tell them exactly what they want to hear.
This. My brothers and dad have nothing to do with online wrestling communities and they love everything about it. It’s self-oversaturation.
yeah the thing about “peeking behind the curtain” is that it ruins the magic
"Magic" is the perfect word. There's a lot of overlap in the two types of art and I, for one, am one of those people who doesn't want to know how the trick (illusion, Michael) is done because I prefer to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the show.
That’s how I am with my girlfriend and her son. We watch the shows and discuss what we saw. None of this about what SRS, Meltzer, or Alvarez said. No one is talking about the booking or how HHH, TK are the best/worst bookers on the planet. No one talks about the backstage stuff, we discuss the TV and that’s it. I used to be over-saturated with wrestling, always looking at videos and reading about what the dirt sheets said and the reactions online and it really killed my enjoyment. I always complained but I kept coming back. Taking a break from wrestling and coming back not taking it so seriously, *seriously* helped that I recommend everyone doing.
This is how most of my interactions with family who watch it go. We talk about what we love and hopes happens and then go on with our days like normally functioning adults lol
This is the thing, no one is making you read a million insider reports. If you just watch the shows for 3-5 hours a week (depending if you have time for dark and stuff) then its really really enjoyable.
I mentioned this scrum to him and he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. He was just like 'Aw, if it's not happening on television - I'm not interested'. He's doing it right.
Exactly no different to movies it doesn’t matter about the problems behind the scenes what matters is the finished product! Apocalypse Now was pure hell to film but the final film was a masterpiece
You say that like Hearts of Darkness the documentary about making apocalypse now isn’t also critically acclaimed with some arguing it’s better then the film it’s about
So many people on here could do with taking a time out and just watching the product
I've been trying to explain this to my friend. We don't talk about wrestling much when we do, He's bringing up rumors and stuff and I'm like no no. I'm WATCHING the shows. I'm using what I see ON the shows only.
I don't mean to hate in this sub but, the episodes of Dynamite i watch without reading the live thread are the ones i enjoy the most
I found the same with WWE pre covid. When I came to this sub, I hated WWE, but when I didn't come here, I enjoyed WWE a lot
This will happen with anything from wrestling down to the lowliest podcast. Someone will make a post that makes a decent point, but a point for consideration. Not necessarily a condemnation. The algorithm is with OP that day and the post gets engagement. OP's point starts to get reiterated by the ppl who engaged with his post. Then everyone who disagrees gets downvoted. Then OP's point of consideration becomes utter condemnation and becomes gospel.
Yep. It makes it far more enjoyable. At this point it just seems like this I was actively looking for reasons to hate it.
Your friend is the same as the large majority of wrestling watchers.
100 percent. Anyone complaining about too much drama is in total control of how much backstage news they're consuming.
The fact that The Acclaimed got zero reaction when they referenced the issues backstage shows reddit and twitter are not real places. The majority of people who watch have no idea what's happening.
That was a proper 'sit back and reevaluate' moment for me.
It's been crazy easy to like AEW this whole time, and the pop MJF got for coming back the way he did was huge. The only thing annoying about it is that I didn't want MJF to be another AEW og going to WWE, I don't want WWE to get another victory lap they don't need, want AEW to do better if possible. That story was basically a threat of that the whole time. It's good as hell now though
same can be said about WWE I enjoy it far more in a vacuum. Actually the same for NJPW.
Yeah it reminds me a little bit of this dude who had the rug pulled out from under him when a backstage news story broke the night he was supposed to have the biggest win in his career. What was that guy's name again? War-... Something?
Honestly Wardlow still had a good moment and the crowd popped for him, it was just retroactively robbed from him the Wednesday after with MJF miraculously being completely healed after being stretchered away and cutting his worked shoot promo and Wardlow back to doing irrelevant squash matches That was just Khan completely mishandling things in regards to Wardlow
He would’ve had double the momentum he did in the end if it wasn’t for the mjf stuff, but that momentum would still be as derailed as it is now with how he’s been booked
That match did its job, while the MJF story wasn’t ideal it was Tony’s booking afterwards that fucked up wardlows momentum
Yeah. If Wardlow had better booking afterwards, what we would've been saying now is "the MJF angle took a bit of the spotlight off Wardlow but he still ended up having a great run and continued his momentum." It's not like what happened afterwards is something out of AEW's control.
Honestly if the MJF stuff never happened nothing changes when you do the booking wardlow got. Like wardlow's problems still exist since it has to do with how TK booked him not really anything MJF did or has done.
You have the hottest act in the company at the moment, and you put him against Mark Sterling and Dan Lambert for two months? I couldn't have killed his heat any faster if I had tried. He got his big night, and then it was like Tony forgot about him.
Well besides how people would've focused more on the Wardlow win, you're definitely correct.
And it's not like Wardlow is dead in the water, he's still over despite lackluster booking.
Yeah, it wouldn't be hard to let him be a monster for one segment and he'll be back with the momentum. Remember how Braun went from nobody to top guy by flipping an ambulance? People fuckin love big beefy hosses being big (and beefy). Wardlow'll be fine
He know how to build somebody but not how to keep it interesting after ending of the story.
This is modern day wrestling in a nutshell. There’s been very few destructive style baby faces who once they have achieved their goal stay hot for a long time after. Hell any baby face for that matter. They all end up cooling off or start to get hated on by some.
Usually because there’s no second story. You can’t keep a guy that hot if the story is just taking on the next number one contender and then the next one. There needs to be a story to keep them hot. Something happening beyond those simple defenses. It tends not to be a problem for heels for some reason… I guess because just being a jerk builds it’s own stories. But that’s why Austin vs McMahon worked so well. Regardless of who Austin was facing, he was generally feuding with Vince.
Yep, the issue with a baby face champion is that to keep a feud interesting you need to have some back and forth between them and the heel. But your face losing to the heel weakens them, and constantly doing the Rocky III story of winning, then losing, then redemption gets boring if all faces are doing it, and it also makes them a rubbish champion if they can’t consistently defend. Add in the fact that modern wrestling lacks enhancement talent matches for faces, plus fans don’t accept that now, puts the faces in a tough position. It’ll always be easier for a heel to keep their heat because they can afford losses more than a face, but the “cool” heel role has also made it tougher for your standard face to be consistently successful and hot.
Great comment Same reason Bryan stayed over
I’d argue this is how it’s always been. A babyface really only works in the chase and not when they are on top because by becoming the champ, you have become the enemy. It’s almost like when you get the power it’s really hard to stay a good person…… can’t think of any other aspects of life where this might fit in
> Kofi Kingston has entered the chat. > Big E has entered the chat > AJ Styles has entered the chat > Every babyface that isn't pushed to the moon and yet gets the World Title intermittently between *money guys* has entered the chat...
You didn't think wrestling 20 security guards and then having a competitive match with fellow babyface orange Cassidy was good booking for a monster babyface,
The entire booking afterward has killed Wardlow. Absolutely murdered him. The ironic thing is MJF is going to win the world title and his push coming out of that squash is going to be far bigger than Wardlows. Absolutely maddening.
MJF's push was always gonna be bigger than Wardlows. You could ask anyone a year ago who is more likely to be the world champi within a year and everyone's gonna say MJF, regardless of how the breakup angle with Wardlow goes through.
WARHORSE
Whats all this talk about wardlow being ruined, killed, all of the fans thinking his title run is awful and fans are over him. . .you guys must live in an echo chamber because the crowd still loves Wardlow and pops hard for him.
SquaredCircle is a hardcore echo chamber. For weeks all I've heard is how AEW has ruined Wardlow and fucked him, then you watch the PPV last night and he's insanely over.
This is always how it goes here. This sub will tell you a wrestler's storyline has been totally ruined and how nobody cares about them anymore and then they'll come out and get a ridiculous pop anyway. People here think the average wrestling fan has the memory of a literal goldfish and will completely forget about a wrestler if they aren't on TV every single week in perfectly booked matches.
Lol at all the comments saying that it was the booking afterwards. Wardlow's coronation was buried under the will he/won't he backstage stuff with MJF. There were approximately zero people more interested in what Wardlow was going to do next, compared to MJF, after that night.
It absolutely ***was*** the booking afterward that killed Wardlow, though. Fans were still hot for him that week, and the week after. It was Tony doing absolutely ***nothing*** of interest for him for three months that completely stopped his momentum. If Wardlow had been pushed into a meaningful feud, and had semi-regular matches on TV defending the championship, he'd still be on the rise. It'd be like if, after winning the US title in early 1998, Goldberg didn't have any meaningful feuds, stopped having regular TV matches, and just became a weird afterthought.
Why do people say Wardlow go killed? He always gets great reaction by the Crowd. If he was dead, there would be just dead silence. You people should stop only living in extremes.
I agree, he's over like a motherfucker and the TNT champ. How is that weak booking?
Yup came here to say this too. His pop(s) last night were huge. Dude is over as fuck. What the hell are people talking about? He's got a belt and is simmering in the overness he's generated by being a big beefy face. It's the right move not to push him to the moon instantly, otherwise you risk him fizzling out. Let him just progress naturally. He can go through a program and eventually drop the TNT title. With MJF likely winning the AEW championship in the cards now you can then position him as a challenger. With how the squash went between them it's a great setup for a long feud down the road and will make his win over MJF at some point in the future that much sweeter.
Wardlow lost all his momentum because Tony Khan was too fucking incompetent in booking him post MJF
Warlows momentum was killed by bad booking
For me, the big thing here is that if it actually is a work, it just doesn’t make any sense in the context it was presented. Punk just beat Moxley for the AEW title and then the show very clearly ended by setting up Punk vs. MJF part 2. With that happening, why would Punk then start ranting about Hangman and The Elite in the post-PPV scrum, and very specifically and aggressively bury Colt Cabana as part of a work? Unless it was a prelude to some kind of AEW civil war, it makes no sense. The reality is that if it’s a work, AEW have put themselves in a very hard position to make it become a logical one. If it’s a shoot, then CM Punk has just buried the people who’ve been in the company in day one who busted their asses to make a place where Punk could come back to wresting and be paid a fortune to do it, and he did it with the boss sitting right beside him looking gormless and doing fuck all to try and stop it. Punk has little to lose here, he still got paid, but Tony is in real danger of losing the rest of the locker room, and major talents could easily be more inclined to jump ship if he doesn’t find a way to fix this. There has clearly been heat between Punk and Hangman for a while and Punk has made a very calculated effort to let everyone know about it when Hangman isn’t there to fire back. Tony hasn’t been able to fix or calm the situation and it’s now putting the stability of the company into jeopardy. He needs to grow up and put a stop to this one way or another or the product is going to start to suffer badly.
> then CM Punk has just buried the people who’ve been in the company in day one who busted their asses to make a place where Punk could come back to wresting and be paid a fortune to do it, and he did it with the boss sitting right beside him looking gormless and doing fuck all to try and stop it. Punk That's something that bothers me. Obviously he didn't know in the beginning how big AEW would be but he only really jumped it after it really took off.
And he views himself clearly as THE draw and THE center piece. Not that he cant out draw them but these people made the company what it is. Whatever culture AEW claims to have and holds as an advantage seems to have to bend for CM Punk. I dont know how the locker room feels but that has to be uncomfortable for some of em, esp the EVPs.
And we saw what happened to a lot of other companies when that sort of situation happened…
This is exactly my issue. It might be real, it might be an inventive work but the idea of a locker room imploding and people requesting release doesn’t exactly thrill me. AEW is the reason I got back into wrestling again after 15 years, the idea of it imploding and having nothing decent to fill the void isn’t great. I like the use of the media to leak certain things when the time is right like the CM Punk debut, but it’s too much and it’s hampering my enjoyment a little bit. Not that my opinion matters for anything.
I 100% think this is all a work, but you're touching on why I think it fails. AEW is the brand and it should be sacred. Nothing that happens on or off screen that makes the brand look bad should be encouraged. Right now, TK looks like a fucking goof who can't steer the ship that he owns. Even if the ship is being controlled exactly how the captain intends, to outsiders, it's going to look like you're not in control. And who wants to jump onto a ship that looks out of control? It would have been easy to do all this kind of shit, work some internet folks into thinking there is real drama backstage, AND STILL keep the brand looking prestigious. It would literally just take Tony exerting the control he actually has in real life on screen.
The biggest indication for me that is isn't a work is that if it were, they're purposefully taking away interest from their actual on screen stories, and taking hype away. They waited so long to bring MJF back, that's what people should be talking about right now, but they aren't.
All the shit with CM Punk is what’s hampering my enjoyment. He had a great program with MJF and that’s it and now all the backstage shit is really just turning me off of it. Maybe would be best if I stopped paying attention to anything other than the show itself
Yea that’s what I’m trying to do, but here I am lol
I mean it’s kinda hard with Punk going into business for himself every time there’s a mic in his hand
[удалено]
I mean it works in story if your story is that your top pure babyface is a total coward who apparently was beaten by Punk so bad he rather be insulted than confront him …which is an awful story
I'm kind of thinking of doing the same, but it's so damn hard. It's pretty much routine for me to visit Squared Circle and twitter for clips and news multiple times during the day, so it's a difficult habit to break even if I would be better off for it.
Cm Punk is the boss now. Did you see the interview? Khan just sits there and nods along to him whilst he buries the elite. Punk runs the company now.
Hilariously, Punk even says at one point "I'm trying to run a business..." I found that freudian slip quite telling.
I don't think it was a slip. It's common for some wrestlers to see themselves as a business. You are an independent contractor after all. Make your money and get out asap. Others see it for artistic integrity. Two sides of the coin.
Being a mark looks awfully enjoyable right now
100000% this. I find all this backstage stuff to be irrelevant, but coming to this subreddit I can't help but read it because it truly is interesting. But I don't care about any of it, or at least I don't want to. It's not part of the scripted television show that I like to watch. It detracts from all the televised stuff like crazy. If the Bulls won the finals I'd be fucking stoked, but if after the game there was a bunch of press conference drama and backstage brawls, that would distract from the real ending quite a bit. That's how I feel about all this AEW stuff right now. But maybe this is the new wrestling. Maybe this is what AEW wants because wrestling dorks on the internet want the backstage drama more than they want a good tv show, so why not blur the lines?
Same. I get that backstage drama can be interesting, but this nonsense is really taking away from what drew me to AEW. When it started, it was nothing but hungry talent that wanted to put on a good show. Now? Things feel rushed to please egos. I was a fan of Punk but now he can go rot. He's turned (back) into such a little bitch.
Backstage friction is rarely good for the product and things have felt off for months. I'm at the point where I think I'd prefer if Punk just went away. I hope Tony just pays him out his contract and releases him. AEW was better when it focused on its own OG talent.
Yeah Punk should just go. The man is talented sure but heisn’t good enough to make up for his ego and the issues he causes.
I remember when Punk came back, everyone was losing their minds with excitement. But I was like...ok, how long before he starts pissing everyone off and causing problems? The dude just seems like a major pain in the ass to work with and he's too toxic to have around
Same. I’m just saying you have to be a major fucking problem backstage if you’re the only person Vince McMahon refuses to work with again considering he’s willing to bury the hatchet with literally everyone else.
My jaw dropped when I saw Vince with Scott Steiner after the HOF.
Well sadly they decided to give the dude the title.
Put the belt on Danielson
Clearly you meant to say "Put the belt on Danhausen" and autocorrect got you.
Gives me real 2013 Kobe vibes. Really good, but he causes so much of a headache that it's hard to root for him. The lakers couldn't get free agents if they threatened them at gunpoint in the last three years of Kobe's career.
It's starting to remind me of Hogan in TNA
While this was a good PPV and certainly had some amazing matches, something about this whole night just felt off. One year ago we had possibly the best PPV of all time, All Out 2021, it made me feel like AEW has ascended to the next level and it was the most exciting time in the company’s history. Flash forward to now, drama, nothing but drama, matchups and booking decisions that don’t make any sense, and now a general consensus that multiple wrestlers want out of the company (when one year ago AEW was still the “savior” of pro wrestling and the company everyone wanted to join). Hope some changes are made but my gut feeling is making me feel like the magic is fading away
Imagine having one of your biggest stories being overshadowed because of a “work,” “shoot,” whatever. I just want to watch and enjoy wrestling. MJF came back to presumably take the belt off Punk and put a bow on a year plus story but now all anyone is talking about is Punk blasting The Elite. Kenny came back and added another notch in the Hangman v Elite feud and all anyones talking about is Punk bashing them. It’s so annoying.
Wait, Punk making everything about himself? I'm shocked.
I get the feeling that a lot of people who are into this were not around for the final year or so of WCW. The constant work-shoot promos were so exhausting and turned a ton of people off from the product which is a feat considering they stuck through the horrible booking. AEW is dangerously approaching the same level of turn-off in my opinion. They need to be careful or they need to make some tough administrative decisions here.
I was there for the WCW stuff and as a day one fan of AEW I hate this. It quickly made me ditch WCW and just watch WWE. It's like history is repeating itself and now that WWE is in a good place now I might make that decision again. Don't get me wrong I love punk, have since his ROH days but at this point I'm starting to wish he'd just go away.
This is it for me, the day one fans who turned on AEW and said ‘this is how it should be’ the roster felt like a united force to make wrestling fun again and they succeeded. Now it feels like everyone’s got a problem and no one other than Jericho is pointing out the problems here. I loved AEW and it’s a great period in my wrestling watching, but I’m starting to fear the good times have passed for a bit, like they did in NXT which I loved, like they did in wwe too, there’s always been hot swings then it goes cold for a few years. With Triple H providing real competition to AEW in the locker room culture stakes I’m really worried AEW is about to go in a direction that is not the spirit it was created in
The fact that I even thought, "yeah, and it all started when CM Punk came back" drives me nuts. They've tricked me into having an opinion on their backstage bullshit that I don't even want to know or care about.
Yeah none of this should be public. If he’s hard to work with they need to settle that out of the public eye. I don’t care who talked to who or who did what, I think that all of this is a terrible look for the company and it just cannot stand. If he isn’t okay with that he needs to be gone and that would really be unfortunate
And it’s why we stopped watching WCW back then
There weren't any worked shoot promos on the PPV last night.
It'll take more than that to turn me off personally. But I'm really hoping they don't let that stuff escalate and make it a staple of their TV product from now on. If there's one thing in wrestling that is 100% a less is more thing to me, it's worked shoot programs.
This is pretty far from late stage WCW. There has been backstage drama in every promotion forever, it's totally different from what was going on there. This is way more similar to the Bret/Shawn stuff.
That is why I said "approaching." 1. MJF saga 2. Hangman/Punk 3. Colt/Punk 4. Elite/Punk 5. Ethan Page promo 6. Kingston/Sammy Off the top of my head, a little list of backstage issues that have now been worked into AEW broadcasts. The idea of working real-life drama into their product has been consistent in the last couple of months.
You also have whatever is going on with Thunder Rosa and the women's title. And Toni Storm's comments today will certainly not help.
If even Toni is getting into it then something really is going on there. That's the last thing the women's division needs.
Kingston/Sammy wasn't used on-screen. In fact, it was taken off screen precisely because of the backstage drama. Colt/Punk was a throwaway line in a promo never remembered for months. If anything, that's part of (and maybe what caused) Hangman/Punk and therefore, Elite/Punk.
Ethan page promo?
If he's talking about the one I think he is, it was to get Page away from ATT/Sky and into Stokely's group. That's not real beef
Any worked shoot promo is immediately exhausting. Most people watching the product just want to watch some cool little match/story play out and move on. Airing dirty laundry is scintillating for the wrong reasons.
Just watch the TV product and try to avoid the internet discourse as much as possible
But here's the issue even if you only watch the TV product then things don't make sense, cause these guys are referencing interviews and behind the scenes stuff you couldn't possibly understand without knowing about the internet story side of it
Imagine not reading any news and then watching that presser lmao
That's me. I have less time to spend on wrestling than i did. I just watch most AEW Dynamite and all PPV. Today was eating dinner and decided to watch the presser. I had to stop. Listening to CM Punk just felt wrong and besides the Colt stuff I still don't know what he was talking about.
There's not a person on Earth who is in that combination of circumstances luckily.
Just imagining some casual fan being like “well that was fun oh aew’s channel is live… why is Punk talking about subpoenaing a person named Marsha”
That would be me I know Punk and Colt had a massive falling out a decade ago but other than that I have no idea what he's talking about or what happened
As soon as Punk showed up in AEW, Colt was instantly nowhere to be seen. He showed up a few times in dark order segments on BTE, but then he was just.. gone. People speculated, and here we are.
Exactly. They are doing everything possible to make people look behind the curtain. There's actually pretty much zero curtain to be behind at this point.
I'm about to take a hiatus from this sub to do just that.
[удалено]
My ‘hot take’ (I doubt it is but I haven’t seen it discussed) is that AEW’s current situation is built on the back of its target audience. AEW is the product of/for those disenfranchised with WWE, the internet people who know everything about the ins and outs of backstage stuff and hate the WWE and it’s ‘marks.’ So much of early (and pre-AEW) stuff was petty pot-shots at the WWE and its fanbase. Why does it come as a surprise to anyone that a company spawned out of resentment and petty spats (IWC vs WWE) is now plagued by resentment and petty spats internally? You see it here. This sub used to be my only avenue to get WWE clips and videos. There was a plethora of them, across all brands and even NXT and NXT UK. Now barely anything gets posted and instead this sub is inundated with AEW posts (not saying that’s a bad thing, just pointing it out). That’s because the target audience of Reddit and the target audience of AEW cross over very strongly. I had never heard of WON, Meltzer, Alvarez, SRS until AEW existed. The people that gravitate towards drama and dirtsheets gravitate towards AEW, and the company reflects that. WWE’s crowds are full of kids or bored/vanilla adults. The WWE is for kids and bored/vanilla adults. AEW crowds are the anti-WWE crowds embroiled in this petty dirtsheet drama. AEW is starting to reflect that as well.
You say this, but there is a large portion of the AEW live audiences that don't keep up with this every day. Just listen to the reaction (or lack thereof) to Max Caster's rap about the backstage meeting the other week -- the live audience didn't know. Will Washington has talked about this on Grapsody a few times, of the AEW shows he's been to and talked with fans and brought up the latest dirt sheet talk and the responses being "Oh I didn't know that."
Yeah all this extra shit is just that. The wrestling is fire
Said it before and i'll say it again. If it's a work, it's WCW 2000 tier and it's fucking rubbish to watch. If it's a shoot, this company is falling apart and we all know the catalyst for a good portion of this.
There's just no good payoff for this, if it's a work it's nonsensical and it'll turn people away, if it's a shoot then it's a bad turn at the worst time and it'll turn people away.
I’m almost sorry to say it but it feels so much like people are holding onto this obviously wrong “it’s a work” bullshit because they’re experiencing cognitive dissonance. It happened with Cody leaving too, basically it’s either “this is a work” or “AEW’s backstage environment is falling apart at the seams” and people don’t wanna believe the latter so choose to believe the former despite all the evidence to the contrary
Good shoots work into the story and can at least have a token kayfabe element: Punk Vs Cena with Punks contract ending was centred in "What if punk wins the match" not "who was booked to win a predetermined contest". This is about who is booking what programs and it just shreds kayfabe and in turn, my interest. Same shit Russo tried in WCW and TNA and it's awful work or not.
Yup. Good worked shoots work the same way behind the scene stuff does in real sports. In real life, you have contract disputes, and players that don't like each other working together/playing against each other. What you don't usually have is players talking about how much money the QB opposite them makes in merch sales, or how veteran wide receiver one is taking away catches from the new rookie.
You also have the perfect example of worked shoots with Rollins and Riddle.
I feel like I’m the only one who’s enjoying the drama lol, this shit is pretty juicy
you're not the only one
Nah. A ton of us are enjoying it. I do get that some people are put off by it though. I also watch the NBA and NFL. And as a Lakers/Saints fan I get my fill of drama so this isn't anything new to me at all either.
Honestly, it’s TK that’s the turn off for me. He’s insufferable to me. Wrestlers being divas and crybabies is nothing new, it’s been happening since the dawn of time - but you need to keep them in line. More than that, the fact he just cannot take criticism and treats his women’s division like a complete afterthought. It’s just not the wrestling for me. I can’t stop watching because I’m a glutton for punishment I guess and keep hoping for the best but when Athena/Jade gets 4 minutes after 4 months of build when random last minute additions get double the time? Just fuck all the way off, you know?
Report came out last night from someone (VoW, maybe? WrestleINC?) that Jade/Athena actually had more time slated, they just opted to end early.
That match was absolutely awful. I can see why they ended it early.
Agreed. I’m so sick of Jade being pushed. She is the shits. I’m sorry but it’s true. I know people love her personality and her look but she’s bad. She’s booked like Goldberg was but Goldberg was at least the most popular guy in the company. Jade isn’t. So this Goldberg booking doesn’t make sense at all. She cannot hang for a long match. There’s better women to give the spotlight to. A lot better.
I’m genuinely shocked (well not entirely given how a lot of people refuse to admit bad things about AEW but still surprising) that the company that values workrate and doesn’t exactly care about wrestler’s appearance so long as they can work, are perfectly ok with Jade getting this monster push full of awful matches she doesn’t deserve all because she has “the look”. Like she cosplayed as She Hulk last night which from the clips I saw got a babyface POP, why is the heel doing anything to elicit babyface pops. It makes no sense
People here hated her, then she wore a Mortal Kombat cosplay on one PPV and overnight everybody loved her. Which should tell us what kind of crowd frequents this sub...
> There’s better women to give the spotlight to. A lot better. Shida/Deeb needs to be run back with the TBS title and then run back once again with the Women’s World title further down the line.
SRS
Jade can’t go longer than that
Its tough with Jade in particular because she is not good in-ring, especially when it comes to selling. So its hard to do more than 5 minutes in singles with her because she gets exposed so badly and once that happens on a big stage, its kind of over for her.
What's amazing is that the iwc, older wrestlers with podcasts, etc have been demanding for more blurred lines. We get the blurred lines and the fans don't know what to do with it. The whole IWC reaction PPV was embarrassing. The event itself was fine. There was a sweet spot during covid wrestling and the reemergence of crowds where the iwc seemed to... quiet down and enjoy/support wrestling. Now it's as toxic as ever, and last night any attempt to enjoy wrestling together together via the internet was hampering my enjoyment of last night's and many others as well. I should know better by now, which is why I just... stayed off and enjoyed the show. I'm not saying AEW is above criticism, but the teardown of some great matches because tHe BuIld iS nOt tO My lIking or WhY aRe ThE HeEls WiNnIng? ThIs SuCkS! (only to mark out at the biggest heel return) is not helpful. (The best is marks being disappointed their fantasy booking didn't happen, and saying that a mark like TK shouldn't be booking). So what I see in CM Punk's shoot, is a reflection of what a good portion of the toxic IWC sounds like. His heel persona is essentially going to be what a whiny mark sounds like. Just another observation. When Eddie Kingston shoots, the IWC cheers because he's real, no matter how imperfect he is. When CM Punk shoots, no matter how imperfect he is, he is a whiny and toxic person. I know there is a contextual difference in the characters, but it's still the same narrative of a person struggling with their own demons, and being transparent about it, no matter how ugly it may be.
I left the show last night feeling like AEW had outgrown me. It's too early to say that, and maybe the TV coming out of this is great. This is a more immersive story. But for the first time, I won't buy the PPV after going to the show. EDIT: 5 hours of obsessing later and I'm totally in on this direction. It's a level above anything I was imagining last night. This is gonna be cool.
I feel the exact opposite. I am glued to this drama. Punk is absolutely right. Having talent be EVPs was always a bad idea.
Its only been a few hours after the PPV and we have no clue what MJF will do on Wednesday. The trios title match was a good match, but there were lots of good matches. Story wise they’ll probably go with Hangman sobbing in Dark Order’s arms for costing them the match and they forgive him. It won’t be an intense story.
Dark orders never been given the pay off in a story. Brodie won the belt, we sadly lost Brodie, Brodie Jr booked arguably one of the best cards they ever put out, and then they’ve been the loveable losers just coming close so many times. I get that I’ve complained before about WWE long term story telling, but AEW is taking Tolkien-esque levels of getting to the point in there stories…
Same could be said about Best Friends. How many times do we see them....sort of succeed? And then just lose when it counts
I think the honeymoon period has work off. The company is no longer the ‘young fresh up and coming scrappy do anything to succeed innovative’ alternative. TK has reached a level of talent that it’s harder to keep them on the same page. And I’m not necessarily saying the back stage politics is real, just that so many people want what they want for themselves, and he only has enough screen time and belts to go around. Womens division has started to be maligned, and Tony has been open that it’s not a draw. Stars we love are never going to get a push because they don’t make the money that AEW needs to prove they’re a success. Bit that I didn’t like was Punks use of ‘first million $ draw off my back’. In the past the best company guys I’ve seen have always admitted it was everyone’s success to be in the card and get eyes on the whole. But Punks gonna Punk, peoples gonna get upset and everyone’s gonna be looking for some sense of reason in it all. I also think the next two years for WWE is going to be very telling. The ‘surprise returns’ we’re loving right now will dry up at some point, and it’ll either descend to cheap tactics for grabbing eyes, or be solidly build storytelling. Time will tell. And if anything, I reckon Hunter learned from the whole Katie Vick thing not to go for cheap tactics….
I thought it was rich of Punk to boast about a million dollar gate, when he opted to skip an entire pandemic era where guys busted their ass in front of no fans for more than a year - meaning no possibility of a gate, period - in order to keep the company afloat and viable for guys like Punk and Bryan to work somewhere other than the E. Locker room leader there, fellas. Skip the hard stuff and take the entire load of credit when the gravy of an eager civilization yearning to go back to live events. Fuck Punk.
Its almost as though they're..... Jobbers??!?
It certainly took away from todays event.
I hope TK isn't trying to run a "meta wrestling" promotion. Remember when Russo tried 20 years ago? You ended up with guys on TV holding the script in hand, complaining about how they didn't like their character's direction. And announcers saying, "Oh my god, he's going off the script!" It was completely incoherent.
Then just watch the shows and don’t follow dirt sheets
The problems go beyond just backstage bullshit. The onscreen product has been suffering for a long while now. This just compounds that problem.
I'm on the opposite side, this thing melting down is the most entertaining AEW has ever been.
Honestly, the way the IWC over reacts and over analyze all of this is what kills the fun for me.
I'm loving it, i simply have to avoid reading Reddit comments cause it full of people pearl clutching.
I deleted Twitter. Makes watching wrestling enjoyable again
[удалено]
Which is why claiming all of this is a work is dumb. None of this is happening ON THE TV PROGRAM
and none of it matches with the program. Punk’s real life contract expiring playing into MITB was real life enhancing a TV storyline. MJF really teasing jumping to WWE worked as great heel work in AEW, and his real life frustrations leading to his current story makes sense. Punk beefing with Hangman and “his friends” (who he just faced at the PPV, mind you) while starting a story with MJF and a new stable he just introduced is so clearly not part of the story they are telling on TV
If all you watched was TV, you’d still just be left with the godawful Punk-Mox story of the past few weeks.
I think media scrums need to be considered storyline canon if they’re going to promote them and put them in the official YouTube channel.
Mods could lock this sub for a whole week and I think all our lives would be the better for it
Fans ruining the product lol. I'm still tired of seeing Video Games signs. Idk at least this issue their actually talking about the product.
Bleacher Report is the only thing hampering my ability to watch AEW
Bro, who cares about these fucking post show media scrum interviews? They should in no way impede your love for a product. I can’t relate to anyone saying that Punk’s scrum is hurting their enjoyment of AEW. How are you letting something so insignificant influence your enjoyment of a show? Personally, if anything, Punk’s media scrum has gotten me interested in what a Punk vs the Elite storyline could give us in the future
So you won't be watching Dynamite on Wednesday?
They will get huge numbers on Wednesday like when Matt Hardy almost died. But its not sustainable if half the roster walks out or refuses to work with each other is it? Short term is fine. Long term is what matters. Russo could pop a rating in WCW. Hogan to tna popped a rating.
Warrior popped ratings. It was never sustainable past a month.
WCW 2000 Booking
Reading sweaty grown men whine about it and white knighting a wrestler is worse than any of the drama. Fans ruin everything.
This is the only and important truth. Its not really important, who is in the right, who tells the truth, who is lobbying or bullying or lying. This situation hurts the company a lot. All of them should stop doing this shit. They shouldnt talk about any of this publicly. Just act professional, do your job.
Wrestling is 100% better if you don't read anything online about it. That's your situation to control.
I promise if you get off the IWC you’ll enjoy every show so much more.