It’s All Happening — AEW and WWE Now: AEW goes full ‘Use Your Illusion’ Tour

For the primary time this previous weekend, and deliberately it doesn’t matter what they could say, WWE and AEW ran PPVs/PLEs on the identical weekend, maybe being in direct competitors with one another for the primary time since NXT was backed off Wednesday nights. Feels like pretty much as good of a time as any to see the place the businesses are individually and in relation to one another with huge adjustments, huge tales, and the longer term as thrilling and intriguing because it’s ever been. Today, we do our greatest to get a deal with on simply what’s occurring with AEW.

Whether Tony Khan truly is aggrieved or secretly loves that WWE got here for him on Labor Day weekend, we’ll by no means know. He claimed in his pre-show media name that one of many issues which have upset him about the way in which WWE has “treated” him was the scheduling of Clash At The Castle the day earlier than All Out, as AEW’s greatest PPV has been on Labor Day weekend for all 4 of its installments. It has been, and relying in your views until is, AEW’s weekend. But deep down, you get the sensation that Khan relishes getting to place his product on in such shut proximity to New York’s.

What precisely Khan thinks is the AEW product and all that comes with it’s one other query.

Before diving into the nuts and bolts of AEW’s “Rough Night” weekend, it’s inconceivable to overlook that AEW had all these mishegas to the purpose the place nobody within the business is speaking about Clash At The Castle now (although there weren’t loads of speaking factors popping out of that present, which we’ll get to in our subsequent installment). It’s just a bit good, no? Maybe I’m studying an excessive amount of into it, however the entire level of wrestling is attempting to determine what’s actual and what isn’t and what’s story and what isn’t, and that every thing is up for that precise debate.

Still, AEW has been bonkers for weeks now, and one wonders if it’s a part of the plan. Khan has been out entrance to say it’s a very good factor to have intrigue and rumors and unrest behind the scenes as a result of it will possibly enhance the product in entrance of it. But a few of these claims have an actual “Baghdad Bob” really feel to them, as Khan tries to inform us there’s nothing to see right here. We know Khan hasn’t handled battle or criticism effectively previously (Big Swole would really like a phrase), and there’s a feeling that fairly merely he doesn’t know what to do when issues don’t go in line with his plan. The extra you scream, “This is fine! This is fine!” the extra the home burns across the coffee-sipping canine, as anybody on the web is aware of.

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It’s a horribly dated reference, and I’m a horribly dated man, however the entire thing has felt like Guns N’ Roses within the Use Your Illusion period. If you weren’t round, or don’t bear in mind, GNR was the largest band on the earth in a manner that few have approached since. But their world tour to assist the Use Your Illusion albums was an entire circus. Yes, many of the reveals have been nice, however the tales off-stage swallowed up as a lot because the reveals did. It was always one thing, as Axl began two riots, Slash died for eight minutes, Duff McKagan’s pancreas exploded a 12 months later, Izzy give up, reveals have been canceled as Axl dodged the cops over stated riots, or a number of the reveals have been terrible, as everybody was too fucked as much as play. It was very rock n’ roll, however after all, the band was completed as quickly because it was over.

That’s to not say that AEW will finish due to all this, or something shut. And a good variety of followers, perhaps even most AEW followers, love the turmoil. Or they’re simply consuming the Kool-Aid. And fuck, Dynamite on Wednesday goes to be must-see. Anything may occur! They’ll all be so till Grand Slam in two weeks when it’s probably MJF faces CM Punk, and Queens is technically a part of Long Island, so the maths is there. But there are positively followers who don’t actually need the tales of backstage politics and straight-up fights, and certainly others who don’t like listening to that AEW has been an disagreeable place to work for some for some time now, with a few beloved stars reportedly aching to get out. And there’s a symmetry to those that declare they’re lapping up the controversies now are the identical ones who mocked WWE beneath Vince McMahon and all of the distress he was inflicting backstage in WWE.

While there’s loads of leeway, what followers need probably the most is just a few small degree of stability, of understanding that the corporate A) will make it long-term and B) can put out the identical degree of reveals it has been. When you’ve tales of wrestlers threatening to stroll, or truly strolling at instances, these fears develop. And there’s a shelf lifetime of simply how lengthy you may maintain issues going when you’re an entire circus backstage. Something main will go incorrect that AEW can’t simply “great match and show” over.

On the flip aspect, most however not all of AEW’s “problems” proper now are centered round one thin-skinned CM Punk. What the reality is with Punk, what he did or didn’t do to Colt Cabana’s standing, what he cleared for promos and what he didn’t, we could by no means know for positive till somebody writes the tell-all e book in 10 years. And none of this needed to be a factor, as a result of no matter remark Hangman Page made was no completely different than what Eddie Kingston or MJF had stated of their promos for his or her matches with Punk, and nobody else thought something of. Punk simply sat on it whereas injured and stewed, after which introduced it again up in order that he may get the final phrase in after which introduced this all on himself. Whatever it was, it was petty.

Whatever you consider Punk, and it ranges the spectrum, you’ll be hard-pressed to search out anybody contained in the business or exterior that might have a nasty phrase to say about Colt Cabana, considered one of many larger sweethearts within the enterprise. Meanwhile, throw a rock and also you’ll most likely hit somebody who can inform you for positive that Punk is an authorized asshole. As a detailed good friend of mine has stated, you may’t discover somebody so proudly and outwardly straight-edge who isn’t an authorized asshole.

With every thing that spilled out from backstage and the post-All Out press convention, it was clear that Khan didn’t actually have any management. Maybe he desires it to look that manner, and it’s all a grand story, or they’ll get it there, however the feeling was that this was all occurring to Khan as a substitute of at his route. Which gave it an actual WCW really feel, and we all know how that ended. But then there’s the MJF arc, which seemed like one other factor that spun out of Khan’s management, or made to appear like it had, and ended with MJF proper the place he’s at all times been, besides perhaps simply larger on the cardboard and with a much bigger test.

It’s clearly extra than simply Punk. There’s no matter is happening with Thunder Rosa, Miro’s reported agitation, or probably what’s occurring with Malakai Black (could possibly be private points and having nothing to do with Khan), or one or two different tales. It appears like Khan is attempting to corral a thunderstorm and get it to the subsequent city, although that’s a lot within the custom of wrestling’s carny roots. While AEW’s devoted fanbase will at all times give it numerous roads and supply it with a base in attendance and scores, a part of the attraction of AEW in its first three years was that it was began by a bunch of buddies who needed to run an organization the way in which they thought it ought to, and everybody was pleased attending to do the matches and tales they needed to. This is clearly fairly completely different now.

AEW goes to burn actually brightly over the subsequent few weeks and months from the fallout from all this. But there’s a concern that for those who burn that brightly you’re going to burn out, which is what AEW followers have at all times feared.