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And my final thoughts on Punk, because man this is going to take up too much oxygen: * The dude got into at least two fights with co-workers. That’s so lame. * He went off-script on TV because ha had boo boos about Adam Page (that alone should have benched him) and then he did so even worse in his press conference where he put Colt Cabana’s mom on blast. * His biggest beef were apparently with The Bucks and Omega and etc. I am not a fan of their in-ring style. But those guys have done everything outside of the corporate wrestling structure, built up a brand completely on their own, and essentially started a new national TV promotion. Want to talk about DIY punk ethos? * Punk got paid a lot of money to perform in the promotion they were the backbone of. Punk had creative freedom, which he abused. Then TK even gave Punk his own TV show and he flamed out on that for who knows why. That is not a guy who should be rewarded with a big spot in any promotion. The WWE has been REALLY great and for a while now. I know a lot of big wrestling fans will never like WWE, and that’s fine, different tastes. But for people who like big US mainstream wrestling — it has been awesome. The Bloodline story was awesome. They do things like have a 20-minute Raw Main Event with Chad Gable and Gunther (as good a Raw TV match as anything)or will have Ivar of the Viking team go for a multi-segment match against Kofi. The anchor of the promotion right now is arguably Rhea Ripley. Cena ate like 19 Samoan Spikes. And the main core of dudes — Sami/KO/Cody/Seth/Jey Uso/Finn/Damian Priest/Drew/Dom Mysterio— is a really weird and awesome mix, and they can all chew up TV time with good mic work and back it up with high-end matches. I really don’t want those guys or a lot of other people a little further down the card like Santos Escobar to get less time because of a guy who is a spoiled brat AND also does a mic work style I am completely over.

I used to put on shows with my wrestling figures. When my stuffed animals started complaining about the stories I booked them even harder in spite.

ECW lost top stars for years and kept their core fanbase till the end. TK won't have Heyman's check-cashing problems. AEW can survive this, and should. They just need to stay the course, keep their fanbase, which is still pretty good, and slowly try to draw new folks with a mixture of continued quality and occasional surprises.

I'm still playing catch up, but we're getting Andrade vs Garcia, Kingston vs Danielson, and King vs Claudio on Saturday, right? Because that sounds like the best wrestling TV show of the year maybe.

I’ve been enjoying AEW lately. But then I head on over here and it’s all doom and gloom. Last few PPVs have been awesome. There’s a round robin tourney with literally twelve of the best wrestlers in the world going on right now on free (ish) tv. I mean, I get that some stories aren’t really firing right now, but let’s be honest. That’s been AEW all along.

at this rate i'm expecting Jeff Jarrett to show up because nobody noticed that his contract expired a few weeks ago

@TheVileOne was right. This really is the beginning of the end.

Wasn’t Punk getting boo boos because he couldn’t main event WM but The Miz did? The Miz is a pretty remarkable WWE performer and also a very solid wrestler who does absolutely anything needed and works to get everything he can over. Or he makes others go above and beyond to cement their spot — LA Knight. He is a PROFESSIONAL and the kind of performer who should get big spots.

"Do the opposite of what I did and you'll be golden"

This could probably go in the media section but it works here, too. Alex Smith calls out Tom Brady for criticizing "this era" of the NFL and then says the quiet part out loud - that Brady and the Pats benefited from "the softest division in history". All while sitting next to Randy Moss, Teddy Bruschi, and Rex Ryan: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/alex-smith-roasts-espn-colleagues-while-calling-out-tom-brady

I’ve been away since Friday. When I left everyone was really excited about the tournament. Did they cancel it because of CM Punk? What a jerk, that guy.

This is definitely a heat-of-the-moment overreaction, BUT... I also think losing QT is unironically worse than losing Punk. Not for anything on-screen obviously, but having a never-WWE guy in a position of creative and development is an underrated aspect of having and sustaining a truly alternative product. That said, I think if they build around their real 4 pillars of MJF, Ospreay, Swerve, and Hangman, they'll be fine.

I think Rush/Briscoe has some serious potential to get crazy.

The QT tweet is a work to distract from the fact that he's obviously the Devil.

Wearing the Hawaiian shirt from TNA.

I hope he just keeps getting fired from places until he's in the middle of a Coliseo Coacalco ring talking about how he's "en casa".

That promo sucked ass. Let's hurry up and get to the Punk and Rollins pissing contest. Maybe one of them will go too far.

holup let this man cook.

Enough top guys get injured and they'll have to push RUSH dammit.

Not joking, I was pulling for Impact to close the deal so bad, just give him the book and let him turn it into the Collision Zone. Praying for better times.

somehow WBD fumbles the ball and AEW ends up with 5 hours a week on the NFL Network because Shad called in a favor.

considering the pacing of this angle, maybe he's training the Devil at his wrestling school

Finally watching the whole card. God bless The Miz for making me give a shit about a match that looked like a joke the second they booked it

I'd have to assume this poster's thoughtless hot takes have long earned them an ignore. For those not ignoring I'd have to think the relentless negativity has earned little more than a few yawns. But if you're going to give weight to this spicy stand then go ahead and show the arithmetic.

would the NDA apply if CM Punk had a ventriloquist dummy, can't prove that the dummy wasn't the guy saying the things!

I try not to say anymore if a match is “good” or “bad.” Just whether I liked/enjoyed it or not.

One thing is for sure, Punk got me to watch Dynamite and Collision but nobody can get me to watch all of Raw live. If he ain’t opening the show I’ll see him on YouTube

Meltzer has no conviction when it comes to his opinions on star ratings. All I heard on his show was criticism about the match. He clearly overrates all the AEW matches than he normally would any other promotion. Same thing happened with Omega and Moxley’s death match. But this is why I don’t like star ratings anymore. There’s no true standard. I used to think if a match was five stars it was nigh perfect or a standard of excellence. But if you are suddenly rating things six or seven stars, you’ve lost the plot.

I understand the grander point you're trying to make but after seeing how he's run ROH it's pretty clear he'd just create Elite Club if he couldn't get legitimate TV for AEW. Is that sustainable? For a normal person no. But TK is a billionaire. AEW will exist as long as TK wants it to exist. This is his baby. This is his first really big lone business venture. He's not pulling the plug unless it somehow drains him of a significant portion of his wealth. We are all in agreement AEW's product is down. But they sold 80k tickets to a single event. All this doom and gloom and pontificating about a war eradicating them is crazy. Their highest paid attendance is more than TWICE the biggest paid attendance WCW ever had. My final point is this, TNA. They've existed for 20+ years. With and without TV. If a small hillbilly carry turned semi professional Canadian carry can last two decades I think AEW's future is pretty secure.

I think (and hope) what happened over the weekend lights a fire under Tony and AEWs top players asses. Just go balls out and make the product as hot as it was a year and a half ago, there are some things they can’t do on the same level as WWE but if they focus on what works for them it should make it a great time for fans.

really the main cause for concern would be over TV rights and WBD being run by careless idiots

I've decided the funniest storyline for CM Punk in the WWE would be "CM Punk, insincere Triple H stan/superfan". Where CM Punk is going after various people for not being as loyal to Hunter as him, while Hunter keeps insisting he doesn't want Punk doing that and the fact that Punk will keep doing variations of his "who farted" face that he made in the Double Fingerpoint pic from last night. Maybe add an element of Punk just acting like he hasn't worked a match since 2014 to make fun of the whole "WWE doesn't acknowledge history" thing that they did at times.

"You staying out of jail, kiddo?" "Well, I try my best"

I think for me, I don't personally feel as though AEW respects my time as a viewer. The breakup of Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland is probably the best example of this. They were building tension between the two, they lost the titles, they stayed together for nearly three months after, then they just... did nothing. Swerve started his own group, but there was never a match between him and Keith Lee to play off of the tension that they had. If the story they wanted to tell was that Swerve turned and as a result Keith drifted away from him, fine. If it was a health thing from one of them, fine. But we didn't get a true conclusion to their story, it just sort of ended, and to me, I struggle to see why I should have gotten invested in Swerve and Keith as a team or in the tension they had because it was all just thrown away to move onto the next story. All it takes is one angle someone really enjoys being blown off with an unsatisfactory conclusion to completely tank someone's interest. The primary hook a lot of people fall on is "but there are great matches", but there are great matches everywhere. What's the incentive if you want more than that? Not only that, but there's six hours of regular TV each week. How do I know which show will have my favorites, if any? I don't. AEW used to be really good about advertising what matches would happen the next week, and nowadays you might not get an announcement of what's happening on each show until the day before. It's almost as if AEW relies on their audience to just watch each week and they don't need to say what they're going to be delivering. You can't try and sell as much product as AEW does while also not saying what's inside the package.

Yeah just because I love Punk doesn’t negate my love for AEW. Obviously there are things I’m not too hyped for currently within the promotion, mainly the World champion, but the rise of Swerve and this tournament (even though the mere existence of points for a draw makes me think there’s gonna be more than a few) still has me excited. If Omega could get away from Jericho & Ibushi and just do top tier matches again I’d be stoked. I’ve been the board’s biggest Toni Storm in AEW fan since she debuted. I don’t know where this bizarre narrative came from that I’m “jumping ship”. Oh no, I’m watching Raw, that must mean I’m not an AEW fan anymore. Get the fuck outta here.

It is for me! This is the final straw w/r/t AEW moving hard away from being a great big loveable indie promotion and shifting full on into a granda-pandering nostalgia generator and Burger King second-tier mainstream corporate content generator. Good luck to them. Congratulations to everyone who complained whenever AEW did anything non-standard and quirky. Really. Good luck, and congrats! Obviously I am going to enjoy the rest of the tournament and continue to watch casually thereafter (and passionately during Forbidden Door Season) But as far as obsessively watching every week and commenting/discussing regularly? Given that Edge and Paige and Jarrett and other nostalgia acts are in and QT and Sonny Kiss and The Librarians and other charming/quirky indie folk are out... Given that this is the direction... Given how AEW are treating their loyal fans w/r/t Fight Forever... In terms of being a passionate fan? Edit1: Also, Bull Nakano, shouldn't you just be a WWE guy now, anyway? I kind of feel bad for Andy from Kansas probably having to Join The Universe as well, with Cody AND Punk over there now. I get the sense, though, that you (Casey) will be just fine making the switch. I'll be just fine, too. There's plenty of indie wrestling in Osaka, much of it involving my friends. I'll miss the discussion with AEW. That was fun. But there's not much point in me continuing to discuss why AEW should stick with what made them hot in 2019-2021. That's not what they are any more. Edit2: My LAST word on that specific topic, possibly: Shifting hard toward the WWE-esque mainstream sure doesn't seem to be helping ticket sales or viewer numbers in any significant way. I simply can't buy in to the "This is what they have to do if they want to grow" narrative. I really believe that AEW could have done every bit as well while continuing to be quirky and indie and different. (Edit3: Probably seems like an overreaction. Fair enough. But to me this is like Metallica headlining Lollapalooza and Perry Farrell leaving. Just a clear sign that a thing I loved and enjoyed is changing into something else. Nothing against Metallica. Or Edge. I would just prefer my fun weird thing to stay weird. My perspective is also, to be clear, WAY more "that was fun while it lasted" than "fuck them for changing.")

There was a guy who posted on here who did that! Came of DVDVR board, announced that The Rock was the greatest Worker of all time, and then pulled a YNBITR* on anyone who disagreed. And then when challenged on his own having been in the ring, told the story of how he was a Yarder, his backyard promotion got shut down by the city council and they were ordered to get proper training. So they went to one Wrestling school, acted like they were too good to be there and all got kicked out after a couple of sessions for refusing to learn day one basic drills. They found another... not school, but veteran worker and persuaded him to train them, and then they did shitty backyard garbage spots in front of him for a few weeks until he told them that they were fully trained and were ready to turn pro (it's fairly obvious he said that so that they would go away and leave him alone, and he knew they were going to ruin their bodies or get shot on pretty quickly if they tried to work any actual shows). * You've never been in the ring.

I look for did a match work for its intended purpose, and sometimes a one minute squash works better than an extended epic

And on this - per almost all the reporting, Reich and staff wanted CJ Stroud but David Tepper suddenly was all NO! I WANT BRYCE YOUNG! and Reich and staff agreed as to not cause any issues. And look what that got him

And anything other than Cody vs Roman at WM would be monumentally bad.

Wasn't this more or less Mass Transit?

4. That's how many shows it would take for Ian to mess with his pay or flights and he'd be outta there lol

A big question that needs to be answered.............. How is Jericho going to latch on to Punks crest of a wave?

That was a fun episode. Tennant is always such a joy. I like how things changed for Donna.

What if Tony Shiavone is the devil with his history of hating MJF (and he wants frame Adam Cole as well)

If AEW goes out of business, a lot of people lose jobs. A lot of wrestlers lose jobs. They go back to grinding or maybe not wrestling at all. The top performers lose a lot of money too because there's nobody to drive the price tag up. Wrestlers themselves LOVE that AEW exists. I'm not sure why this is a topic anyway, AEW has hit a rough patch but they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

CM Punk's return made the BBC. British Broadcasting Corporation, you vulgar fucks ;). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-67536339

WWE Subfolder.... He's your problem now .

He's the cousin who is REALLY into cryptocurrency even though he himself doesn't fully understand it yet. He also overuses the word "mid".