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Did anybody not picture Brandon Cutler trying to defuse the situation by capering around ineffectually in a zubaz jumpsuit spraying deep freeze in the air wildly

At this point, they should start Dynamite with an homage to the opening of Rashomon and have some random-selected wrestlers telling each other overlapping/conflicting stories of the chain of events that led to Nick Jackson getting KTFO'd.

Hello my name is Kevin, I have been a wrestling fan for 31 years and I am currently being worked by AEW.

It's really hard to come off as the biggest herb in a situation you aren't even involved with, so kudos to Bobby Fish for pulling it off.

Saw a few people running with "the gripebomb."

Give Jeff Cobb a night stick and some aviators and change his name to Jeff Cobb County

I'm beginning to think that Punk shouldn't have agreed to go on Cabana's podcast

Okay, so I need FTR vs MCMG best of four million. Motor City Machine Guns are fucking awesome ripping Cash Wheeler's knee apart. This match is fucking great.

At this point the "best case" scenario is that everyone calms downs, offers apologies, doesn't press charges, works things out like adults, and decides that they can do business and they make some big angle out of very dire real life things. And I don't think any of them need the money enough for it, but there's that carny spirit of redirecting truth into artifice that motivated the Andy Kaufmans of the world to understand and embrace the sheer wonder of pro wrestling. It's just that Punk is driven more by spite than by bs carny glory.

Just a couple of more thoughts on this before I start my workday: * One of the most interesting things about this is it really has popped a balloon in a lot of AEW's marketing. They always talk up on the podcast and generally speaking about what an awesome locker room it is and how it's such a breath of fresh air and etc. Maybe that was the case before all of this happened. But that's never the case in anything related to the entertainment industry. People always want more screen time and there are egos at play and etc. But this being such a public friggin' thing - and Punk's stuff was so completely public - really just lifted that veil. * However much of this is a shoot or a work or a shoot that ends up in the work -- it's really friggin' clear that Punk throwing all of that at Colt is ridiculous. That's not building to a match or a feud. That's an actual lawsuit that happened between two people. It ended a friendship and probably caught all kinds of other people in the mix. That's just completely f'd up to be tossing things out about Colt's bank account with his mom (a lot of people have something like that set up if you want to move money between people/share assets/etc.) because that's just taking a shot at a dude in public who didn't take a shot at you. He also brought it all up without being prompted at all. Fuck that. * That's just bullying and total hypocrisy from some dude who spouts off pro-labor stuff. I'm pro-labor. But one of the things about labor issues is the power imbalance in workplaces. Punk has the power. He's the one at the press conference with a title sitting next to the owner of the company. You don't get that opportunity without having someone's ear. He could have just not mentioned the Colt stuff but went out of his way to spill that tea. * I started watching AEW after Punk arrived. That was part of why but the main reason was because everyone on here and rasslin' fans I'm friends with IRL was talking about how good it was. And I lost interest in NXT and Raw/Smackdown. And I really like it! They put out a product I really enjoy watching. It's not perfect, but nothing is, and the pros are better than the cons. All of this is just such a waste of time and distraction from the actual good product they put out. I'd be so friggin' mad if I was The Acclaimed and Swerve/Keith Lee, for example. Or even someone like Orange Cassidy who has just been putting on these weirdo borderline masterpieces this year. Or Danny Garcia who has been bringing it. All of the good stuff everyone is doing is just getting eaten up by people having hissy fits and Tony Kahn not knowing how to manage people.

Nick Jackson finally selling a chair shot is probably the most far-fetched part of this whole episode.

Think they slapped their thighs when they kicked it down?

I wish we got our news from Bob Sapp instead.

I posted this over at PWO but this is how it is from the 10,000 foot view at this point: Everyone did this to themselves: -The Bucks and Omega did it because they’re the leakers to Meltzer and the like to sow the seeds of discontent with Punk. -Punk did it because he reacted with the unheralded vitriol that made him leave the business in the first place and the first sign of malice was an opportunity to give into his worst impulses. -Page did it because he worked himself into a shoot and it made things difficult to actually confront Punk about it because in his eyes, he should be the face of the company, worked it into multiple promos related to Punk, and then more or less did what his on-screen character did in the locker room. -Tony did it because he grew up reading dirtsheets and thought using them as a vessel to drive “organic” interest in the product no matter how it actually manifests itself is worthwhile because that’s what got him interested in wanting to do this shit in the first place. -And the sheets did it because they run a perpetual motion machine that when actually confronted with needing to report on something, show their collective asses because their sources are obvious and their behavior screams, “How can I get more clicks off this?” The ecosystem that allowed this to fester is something that won’t go away anytime soon, and the fallout from it is not going to be as interesting as anyone hopes. It will be sudden, it will be dumb, and it’ll end with whoever decides to take a side saying the other person did it.

And then there's this.

Nothing in that screams Punk is going to be let go. If anything, this still sounds like the dumb as fuck "wrestling journalism" that is fanboys chasing their tails, clout chasing, or trying to type the most interesting wordz to get more attention than someone else. Also, no part of me thinks this is a work. If I were to guess, Steel gets released because he fucking bit someone and threw a chair at someone else and he's not even a worker there. Punk, the Bucks, and maybe even Kenny get pulled into a meeting with TK and maybe Jericho too where they're told enough is fucking enough and this bullshit isn't going to happen again. Top wrestlers having been throwing hands at each other for what feels like forever now. Having Jericho be in the meeting would just be for funny irony purposes considering the amount of other wrestlers he's fought over the years. No suspensions, just a final warning that this bullshit can't continue. Punk gets told to never to go off on that in a scrum ever again and if he wants to talk about that shit then do it on his own time. The Bucks get told to stop doing their cutesy bullshit in BTE to not fan the flames. Everyone needs to get over the "but but but but he got into a fight with his bosses!" Nick and Matt aren't his bosses. The EVP designation is fucking meaningless. TK probably regrets the designation at this point.

Mental health guy here. They say that you aren't supposed to diagnose someone without a proper evaluation. You can't go off a public persona. That being said, personality disorders, especially in the Cluster B arena (borderline, narcissistic, antisocial, histrionic), are so beholden to their public presentation that it's very much a part of their diagnosis. All that to say: VERY likely.

With the current level of disarray, this probably results in like Luchasaurus and *throws dart* QT Marshall holding one another at gunpoint on a rooftop like it's the climax of The Departed.

Me: "Please let 2022 be the year that gets me back into modern wrestling. I want to have multiple tabs open to keep up with the latest discussion about the graps because it's so enthralling." **the index finger on the mystical monkey's paw curls** Me: "Aw, come on. Okay, let me specify: I am not talking about executives being pushed out of the company they've run for fifty years. I want my interest to be raised by the wrestlers themselves." **the middle finger on the mystical monkey's paw curls** Me: "Man, fuck you."

We are THIS close to having a moment like when a slightly befuddled Sting and Randy Savage with a severely atrophied arm are standing there while Hogan burned one of the "rags" at World War 3 1995. Good times are here again.

I think TK needs to figure his shit out. Sitting there like an adoring fan while Punk pulled all this was absolutely a terrible look.

Didn't Punk say come find him in his locker/dressing room and his door is always open? Like he literally said that during the scrum.

Sapp reporting that Punk didn’t let the Bucks and Omega into his locker room and they basically forced themselves in. Well, the Bucks did, supposedly Omega didn’t even really care about any of this until he got bit ?

There is such a feeling in the air that Punk is gone that any other outcome is going to feel like a huge surprise.

Uh, he tried to KILL Christian with his car. That’s way worse than any of this.

OBSERVE THIS BROTHER~!

Man, fuck you.

Garcia vs Yuta, baby. They have every incentive to go for that Kip Allen Frey best match of the night bonus. Put the company on your shoulders and shoot for the 5.25 inflation star rating special, you bastard heroes. These two jerks wrestled for an hour in front of a small crowd in a scorching hot building for glory and a title most people have never heard of and the right to say that they did it. And Garcia has wrestled the best going since then and Yuta has become a whole new man forged in fire and blood. They are tomorrow today and they will carry all of our hopes forward, a shining beacon in this dark night.

Khan needs to get Haku barging into a mandatory talent meeting like this guy ALRIGHT YOU LISTEN UP YOU LITTLE FREAKS: THIS IS ONE EXECUTIVE VP OF TALENT RELATIONS YOU'RE NOT GONNA SCREW AROUND WITH ...Tony Schiavone!

Do the Jags count as professional?

The family business owns multiple professional sports franchises. I'm pretty sure their contracts aren't hastily written on cocktail napkins lol

I agree. They never should've taken the belt off of Jon Moxley on Sunday.

Put the AEW World Championship on Bryan Danielson as he should have in the first fucking place.

If this is all true, no one comes out of this situation looking good. After you suspend Kingston for pie-facing Guevara, it will be a joke if no one gets punished here.

You know, string theory says there's a world where we're talking about how it was the right move to keep the belt on Mox and how fun BCC vs. MJF and Stoke's Army could be.

obviously it's a very serious decision or else it would have leaked out already because the reputation is that no wrestlers can keep a secret i'm getting ready for a Casino Battle Royal tournament to determine the new champion 8 battle royals, the 8 winners then face each other in another battle royal to determine the champion

I made my feelings known. It takes a special kind of asshole to make me side with the young bucks. But, for the record, one of the Jackson’s getting pieced up by known tomato can cm punk is the least surprising bit of this whole thing…

Dave is now leaning towards suspensions/people not being at TV tomorrow, which is…strangely the right move?

"EVP" is the same as every rapper in the 90s having their own record label.

Now I really wish Ray Traylor was still alive; imagine Dynamite opening with all involved parties being called to the ring, and then Tony K. announces to them all that "starting now, there's going to be some Law and Order around AEW!", whereupon "Hard Times" (which has amazingly somehow been licensed to AEW) begins playing on the PA, and Old Man Traylor comes out in the original Big Bossman outfit and begins clubbering everyone in the ring into unconsciousness with his nightstick. Cutler tries macing him with his cold air cannister, but Bossman does that crescent/wheel-kick thingie move and knocks it out of his hand.

Miro just went into business for himself.

Another awesome thing we aren’t talking about because of all this: we appear to be on the road to Wardlow/Hobbs, and soon

Latest from Fightful. More we hear, the likelier it sounds to me that Punk is done. Re: Fish, he filmed himself giving groceries to a homeless person to put himself over. That is scumbag material and a huge red flag so nothing surprised me after that.

Ok there, InfoWars.

I have a degree of sympathy for Punk in situations like this. Based on what we know about his childhood/family history, I understand why he feels he needs to always be on guard for signs of betrayal and nuke relationships from orbit at the earliest signs in order to keep himself safe from emotional harm. But that level of hypervigilance can lead to a pretty self-destructive pattern where shit that can be fixed gets blown up anyway, and I fear we’re headed down that path here.