DMJ

I'm a bigger Punk fan than I am an Omega or Bucks fan, but it seems pretty obvious that Punk is the guy that needs to be let go. I'm also curious about the merchandising. Yes, Punk probably rakes in a ton in merch sales for AEW...but we don't know what percentage of that is going to AEW and what percent goes to Punk. My uneducated, unsubstantiated guess is that Punk negotiated a deal that was more favorable to him than, say, what the Acclaimed or Darby Allin were able to negotiate. Hell, it may even be more favorable than what Omega and the Bucks have (which could be another reason that Punk has found himself on a bit of an island). Of course, even if it were a 50/50 split and the average AEW wrestler had an 80/20 deal, 50% of $1 million worth of CM Punk merch sold is more than 80% of $200k worth of Ricky Starks merch sold. Still, AEW's ratings, fan engagement, and the critical reception were all trending up before CM Punk. CM Punk undoubtedly gave them a big shot in the arm upon his debut, but the company wasn't dying before him and won't die afterward. It may hit a rough patch, but you've still got a company *loaded* with talent. I know WWE has been re-attracting eyeballs recently, but the best talent under the age of 30 is still in AEW and its not even really close. As I wrote about elsewhere, I think what will get AEW to the next level in terms of drawing better ratings or doing bigger buyrates is not to look outward, but to really focus on giving everyone on the roster a meaningful, interesting direction - something that they've been inconsistent with in 2022. But the pieces are still there without CM Punk and, based on what we're hearing, it may even be easier to put them into place without the drama he brings.

This is true...but the WWE routinely held shows during the 2000s and 2010s where they'd have 15,000+ fans in the arena, but it sounded and looked like nobody was having a good time and most of the wrestlers in the ring got no reactions (remember when fans were tossing beach balls around and there was a weekly Wave going on?). The WWE was never more profitable, but, man, there were some really dreadful shows running during extended periods of the past two decades. Meanwhile, the original ECW may have been lucky to have 5000 fans (or less) in one place, but those crowds were electric. "Bigger Crowd = Hotter Crowd" is far from a guarantee. Also, while I agree that wrestling companies should be trying to broaden their fan bases, I also think the idea of getting "casuals" to watch is not how wrestling ever increased its popularity in the past. To me, its all about "buzz" and when a show or company has buzz, that is what draws in (or brings back) eyeballs. CM Punk in 2011 and Daniel Bryan a few years later had so much buzz that I had non-fans (who knew I was a fan) asking me what the deal was. The hubbub didn't happen because CM Punk or Daniel Bryan had done anything revolutionary to draw in "casual" fans - it was that they got the hardcore audience so excited that the casuals had to turn around and ask "Wait, what's happening over there? Sounds cool." The same thing just happened this summer with Vince's departure. It made people who don't usually take notice take notice. And it wasn't a scripted storyline designed to make non-casuals tune in. It was buzz. For those of us old to remember, the same was true in Austin in the 90s. Bret Hart wasn't some Nostradamus. I was 12 years old in 96' and even I knew, based on his work in WCW, based on the buzz from his ECW run that found its way into nascent internet chat rooms and RSPW, that Steve Austin was awesome. Then King of the Ring happened. Then it was the feud with Bret. All along there were the promos. Steve Austin wasn't some manufactured gimmick designed to appeal to "casuals" or fans who wanted to relive Hulkamania from the 80s. He was a pro-wrestler who became so beloved by pro-wrestling fans that non-pro-wrestling fans turned their heads and asked, "Wait, what's happening over there? Sounds cool." And to paraphrase Guided By Voices, "And shit yeah, it [was] cool." So what AEW should really be focusing on is fans like myself who watch the weekly programming, but still have yet to actually make that $50 PPV purchase, who enjoy the product but aren't gaga over it right now. Fans like myself who are watching the shows, but maybe not going that extra step to help generate more "buzz" that translates to more money in their coffers. There are 100s of 1000s of us. We know this to be true because the # of PPV purchases are far less than the weekly viewers. They don't need to expand the audience, they need to make their current audience even more passionate about it. Which is also why - and I apologize for the tangent - it blows my mind that people are now on Twitter/reddit/Facebook saying that Omega and Bucks have never drawn a dime. Like...who does everyone think actually drew the original gates and drummed up the online excitement for AEW in the first place? Are we already retconning/revision historying that Cody Rhodes was able to sell out 20,000-seat arenas single-handedly? Or was Nick Aldis just that over? I'm not saying Omega and the Bucks were 1998 Steve Austin-level draws, but to say the Elite didn't have a sizable fan base that was absolutely showing up in respectable numbers and passionate about their brand is just ignorant.

- I liked the passion and performance of Punk's promo...but I just don't like this storyline. To me, it feels like a very convoluted, illogical path to the same place that I think everyone predicted in June/July (a CM Punk title reign upon his return). I'm not against Punk winning the title, but the first "match" felt wholly unnecessary. Its just confusing. Are we supposed to think Punk was or wasn't re-injured during that match? Did he come back too early or not? Was he 98% healthy last week but 10 days later is now 100%? Or is it the other way around now? Did Punk lose because, when Mox attacked his foot, he lost his confidence (resulting in him eating two Death Riders) or because Mox actually beat him straight-up? Did Mox beat Punk physically or did Punk beat himself mentally? Just seems like a lot of time and energy spent for a match that didn't need this many extra layers.

If you'd have asked me a month or two ago if Reigns had any chance of losing, I'd have said zero, but... It does seem like Triple H has taken some legit steps towards establishing a new post-Vince era and having McIntyre win in front of his "hometown" would certainly be a huge moment and continue "the buzz" that WWE is enjoying right now. And you can always put the title back on Reigns on SmackDown or at whatever the next Premium Live Event is. If I'm not mistaken, they did some ultimately irrelevant "hot potato" things with the NXT Championship a couple times over the years, right? So, while I'm still 80% believing that Reigns leaves the show with the title, I'm not as confident as I would be if Vince were still running things.

A little late on some of the discourse because school is back in session and I gotta teach the kiddos, but some thoughts... - I've long held the suspicion that Tony Khan spent a ton of time playing Extreme Warfare Revenge/TEW. The talent relations issue seems like a pretty clear example of it. If you haven't played the game, its a wrestling simulator where you are the booker/owner. If you, say, hire someone early in the game - let's call them Crian Bage - and you realize, hey, they're not really worth putting on TV because you then hire better wrestlers, you can stop using Crian Bage, but their morale goes down, and you can either fire them (though it costs you money) or just not use them to their contract ends. Of course, who really cares in a game? Like, fuck off Crian Bage, its a video game. But in the real world, benching people without conversations and then ghosting them for months on end is not a great move for the boss...because its the real world and there's things called professional and human decency. - I was "pre-No Mercy," I guess, but when I was in middle school/high school, WCW vs. nWo Revenge was everybody's game. Same level as GoldenEye in terms of popularity and it didn't matter if you knew anything at all about WCW (just like you didn't need to know shit about the Bond franchise to get into GoldenEye). I'm not sure any wrestling game since has ever been the right game at the right time to transcend the sport the way WCW vs. nWo Revenge seemed to, but it'd be very cool if AEW's game did. Again, if my memory serves correct, Revenge's success sort of worked out the same way Tony Hawk did a few years later in that you had this game that was absolutely perfect for multi-player mode dovetailing with the N64 also maybe dropping in price a bit and becoming super affordable to lots and lots of kids. Oh, and La Parka's dance. La Parka's dance in Revenge made him the most often selected character with everyone of my friends, many of whom had probably never watched more than 10 minutes of pro-wrestling on TV.

Yeeesh. I know Jarrett is as carny as they get, but getting rid of him and hiring Road Dogg is like two steps forward, five yards back. (Or is it five decades considering Road Dogg's views on race?) This is the kind of move that I refuse to believe isn't motivated more by Triple H wanting "his guys" around than by Road Dogg actually being worthy of the job.

Speaking of Titus... Why didn't they ever do anything with him? I know the knee-jerk response is that he just wasn't very good, but he was actually a solid hot tag guy for the Prime Time Players. As far as I know, he wasn't injury prone or anything either. I can understand age being a factor in 2022, but they seemed to have given up on the guy by the mid-2010s when he was only in his mid-30s and wrestling a style that he could've managed for years and years. He, to me, is an example of why the WWE's plan to ex-college athletes with size into Superstars is not any sort of "fool proof" plan. Titus O'Neil checks every single box including wanting to be there and willing to do whatever is asked. Its easy to say, "Well, he never got over," but that didn't stop Vince from pushing guys like Lord Tensai and Vladimir Koslov for at least a short while. I dunno. Maybe Titus reached as far as he was ever going to go, but it still seems like Vince would've tried a bit harder with the guy considering how long he's been in the company.

I've actually seen more AEW merch here in Cleveland recently than WWE stuff recently (though, at the YMCA I used to go to, I saw a Roman Reigns shirt once.) The AEW stuff I've seen has been for the company too - not a particular wrestler. For example, at two different groceries near me I saw guys in AEW hoodies.

My guess it that this has something to do with Bill Simmons. Simmons' website, The Ringer, has been fairly "hands off" about this story. In fact, their most recent story about the WWE was a lengthy piece about Austin Theory...with no mention of him, y'know, potentially *cough* definitely *cough* being a pedophile. With Simmons being the exec producer of the Netflix doc, I think there's something going on here. If this blows over, the Netflix doc will come out, but it all seems to hinge on what other major news outlets pick it up and start doing their own investigating.

Totally agree with everything above. As a lifelong WWE viewer (especially pay-per-views), I've seen a lot of Triple H matches and, though he's one of my least favorite workers/personalities, I've also seen enough of his work to say that I don't hate *everything* he's ever done. He does have some great matches on his resume and this is one of them. Of course, the irony is that this is the version of Triple H we probably saw the least over the years - a babyface who can't overpower or outwit a monster but still brings the fight to him instead of trying to wrestle his way out of it. There are a handful of other times that Triple H has done this (I recall a match against Big Show on a random episode of RAW around 05' where he basically just pinballed wonderfully), but where was this Triple H in the feud with Lesnar? To be fair, Triple H wasn't a babyface against Batista or even really Taker and I don't think he ever faced Mark Henry during his Hall of Pain run, but man, this Triple H vs. Henry might've been pretty good in hindsight. I guess my point is that, when he wanted to not be "The Game" who dominates and controls every match because he's the Cerebral Assassin, Triple H could actually do "John Cena" pretty darn well. This isn't as good as Cena's match against Umaga from the Rumble of the same year, but its still a very good match with some very good spots, including Umaga missing an awesome crossbody by the guardrail, the aforementioned table spot, and a devastating sidewalk slam. I also like that, because this isn't a "kitchen sink" hardcore match with tons of weapons, when the sledgehammer does come into play, it feels like a kill shot because we haven't seen a dozen other weapon strikes. On my blog, I don't do quarters or halves, so 4-out-of-5 is where I landed (essentially a "must see" if you're at all a fan of either guy and a "should see" if you're a WWE fan who might've not caught this one before).

- Both ladder matches were fine. Not great, maybe not even good, but fine. To me, the women's match showed just how much of a gap there continues to be between the experienced "big time" performers (like Bayley, Sasha, Charlotte, and even Naomi who were all needed here) and the rest of the women. I'm only theorizing but it seems to me that, in NXT and on the indies, you are far more likely to see men wrestle gimmick matches than women. This leads to a real disparity in experience levels working with ladders so that while Becky Lynch looked fairly comfortable (because she's wrestled a bunch of gimmick matches over the years), Raquel and Lacey and Liv did not, which resulted in some really sloppy-looking moves and notable apprehension/telegraphing. That Shotzi bump, for example, looked like it could legit have crippled her and I'm just thinking, maybe its because, as much as you shouldn't be "teaching" performers to get used to bumping on ladders, there's also a major difference in experience (and size) between Shotzi doing that bump and, say, Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn (who had done countless dangerous bumps for years before they were even in the WWE). Even in the Men's match, it felt like Madcap was just there and not exactly doing anything special while someone like Ricochet, Balor, or Kofi would actually have added something to the match because, y'know, they're good at working with ladders. Its a conundrum because these performers won't get better at these types of matches unless they get opportunities, but the learning curve also means that they're going to suck at them the first few times they do them. (And, also, because they're inherently more dangerous, you don't want Madcap or Lacey Evans getting those "ladder match reps" in on house shows.) - Liv winning and then cashing in was great and much needed and made even more sense when we saw who won the Men's match. I can also understand why they wanted to give Liv her moment rather than having Rousey turn heel or attack her after handing her the belt. Hopefully, though, they will have Rousey turn sooner than later because she's just so much more natural as a heel. The match with Nattie was pretty decent, I thought, but I'd also say it was maybe the first time Rousey worked a match as a wrestler and not an MMA bad-ass, which kinda defeats the point of her being a special performer. Say what one will about Lesnar's matches - and when they're bad, they're baaad - but he'd never have a 50/50 match against someone like Nattie (and 50/50 might even be generous as Nattie controlled large parts of the match with submissions). Instead, against Bryan and AJ, it took a ton of effort and cunning to get Lesnar off his game and inflict any kind of damage. Rousey made Nattie look tremendous in a way that was kinda inconsistent with, well, everything we've ever seen and know about these two. - Having Theory added to the match last minute made it pretty obvious he was going to win. Why else would he have been added if not for that reason? What a bad call. I actually thought the Theory/Lashley match was Theory's best that I've seen - mostly because he was the chickenshit heel getting his ass kicked by Lashley, who was mega over with the crowd. Quit while you're ahead, WWE, and just give us a continuation of that rivalry because it was working. Instead, we now have Theory with the briefcase and, as others have noted, he's basically a more technically proficient Miz. I personally don't think the backlash is about him being Vince's "chosen one" (though there is that) but because Theory is just not that interesting. He's essentially gimmickless or, if you do consider "Guy who takes selfies" as a gimmick, a guy with a very thin gimmick. He doesn't have a catchphrase. He sent dirty texts to a 13 year old. He's a good in-ring worker at a time when good in-ring workers have never been in more abundance in the WWE. I can understand wanting to build up new stars, but y'know, there's also something to be said for acts like Sami Zayn and Bobby Lashley who have been killing it recently and getting huge reactions and maybe, just maybe, haven't actually hit their ceiling.

I thought the consensus was that one of the Orton/Christian matches was Orton's best? I rated their SummerSlam 2011 match very highly on a semi-recent rewatch. I don't think I've seen the Over the Limit match, but may have to check it out sometime as a cursory Google search reveals that match is also considered very good (if not better than the SummerSlam match). I hate to turn this into a match review, but I think SummerSlam 2011 is clearly the "peak Orton" performance just because it highlights everything that one could consider to be Orton's strengths. Specifically: Orton's never afraid to be vicious or to fight dirty (because he's the uncaring Viper) but he is a better in-ring babyface, character traits be damned. Christian was a bastard in this feud so Orton is 100% the face here which means that while Orton does nasty things to Christian, he's always got the fan support. Orton is also a guy who does a great job of "getting his shit in" (i.e signature moves) without them feeling shoehorned in or perfunctory (the anti-Kurt Angle) and this match has them all at least teased while still very much feeling like the counters and reversals and pacing are all organic. If you're looking for proof of how Orton does all the "little things" right or an example of him pacing a match deliberately to build suspense without boring the crowd, this is the best example of that. Its non-stop action, but its not action-for-action's sake. Everything is sold. There's plenty of breathing room between the shifts in momentum. They take a weapon that had been overused and maybe undersold to the point of losing most of its legitimacy (the kendo stick) and make it seem like the most brutal tool ever created. Triple H wishes he had a match against Orton this good but he couldn't have, even though its not like Orton wasn't capable (my impression is that when those two fought, Triple H was in the driver's seat as he was the "mentor" while this match seems like a genuine collaboration between peers). Now, the match isn't perfect - in my blog review, I noted that I didn't like the finish - but in terms of a performance, from character work to execution to playing to the crowd, I think this was Orton's best singles match and I'm not sure what other matches would necessarily be close to it. Orton is a guy with a number of "should've been" classics based on who he got to work with extensively over the years - the aforementioned Triple H, John Cena, Daniel Bryan, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio - but this match with Christian is that one notch above any of those that I've seen.

I think Roman Reigns has too much upper shelf stuff for me to see him as not having had his best match. Both Fastlane matches against Daniel Bryan, vs. Lesnar at WM31, some of the Shield six-tags, his two big matches against AJ in 2016, I remember at least one of the Strowman matches being really fun...When all is said and done, it'll be very easy to list 5-10 matches of his that represent the best of modern WWE. Booker T is more what I was thinking. The King Booker run was my favorite of his, but none of the matches from that run jump out at me. He had some good-to-great matches with Benoit, sure, but, again, there's not one specific match that I think is a "masterpiece" or really even close to one. I'll put Drew McIntyre's name on the list, though. He's had some good-to-great matches, sure, but not a single match that I think you could point to as being a Drew McIntyre Clinic or masterpiece.

Has it ever been discussed/mentioned whether Nick Khan has any sort of history, cursory knowledge, or dare I say, passion, for pro-wrestling? Because if you're Nick Khan, your biggest takeaways from WrestleMania is that the WWE would do better business if they just went ahead and made it Celebrity Deathmatch. I mean, based on crowd reactions, Logan Paul and Johnny Knoxville and Pat McAfee were right up there with Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens in terms of crowd reaction. In Nick Khan's eyes, why would the WWE need to look for the next Seth Rollins or AJ Styles when next year's WrestleMania can be headlined by Bad Bunny or the LA Rams' Cooper Kupp? And I understand that they need other wrestlers to fill their weekly TV shows yadda yadda yadda, but in terms of who they're really building the business around, I can totally get see why they see more value in Ronda Rousey and Logan Paul and less in Big E and Bayley, even though I'm not sure the numbers really support it.

- Love Orange Cassidy using the Jefferson Starship song. I didn't know it was his old music on the indies, but the song always reminds me of Wet Hot American Summer and now I feel like I'm finally connecting the dots that Cassidy's character is partially based on Paul Rudd's character in that movie? Or, if that's the not the case, the vibe is the exact same. Any which way, I also dig Ethan Page and Dan Lambert and like everyone else I'm baffled as to how you can have all these pieces and parts and the TNT Championship right there and somehow that title means absolutely zilch. I mean, in any other promotion, one would assume that OC's win would mean a match against Sky is on the horizon, but Sky is busy with Wardlow, who lost pretty much all of his heat in the span of a month. (And I say that as someone who believes he could easily get it back, but that winning a cold TNT Championship isn't the solution.) Again, just seems like have all the right ingredients for a solid midcard title feud but its just not coming together. - Jade Cargill and the Baddies are such a great act, but I didn't like Stokely Hathaway's post-match promo as he said that despite Cargill issuing an open challenge, Athena nor Statlander stepped up. Its nit-picky, but I wish commentary had been prepared for that line and said something like, "Athena and Statlander did apply, but were denied because ____" or if there had been a backstage segment explaining why they had not signed up or that they were beat to the punch. Like every other major US wrestling promotion of my lifetime, AEW has once again proven that it is way, way easier to develop and build-up a strong heel woman who gets heat, but babyfaces are much tougher to come by and lines like that don't help. - I was a bit puzzled at the lack of fire in the Bloods and Guts match. Just seems like they built it up over and over and we still didn't get the pay-off (which is also true of Jericho not tapping). Maybe they're saving it all for an Eddie/Jericho match down the line, which would be perfectly fine too. Its hard to feel disappointed by what we saw, which was a super violent match. That one guy from 2.0 looked like he was in need of a transfusion by the end and the other guy taking a back bump into the tacks was gnarly. Claudio got to shine too. Speaking of which, Claudio vs. Garcia seems like it could main event a show in the next few weeks/months and there's no reason to think it won't be a capital-B Banger.

Kane is also a huge "Back the Blue" guy (like his "brother"), which also strikes me as odd considering that the police have been used as a tool of oppression for as long as they've existed as an institution and are often immune from prosecution/accountability for aggression. So, yes, he's definitely the typical pseudo-intellectual selfish white Libertarian caricature who thinks the government should stay out of his business/home/bedroom, but absolutely should be policing everyone else's because women, people of color, working/lower class, and left-leaning people can't be trusted to "do what's right."

When we did this last time, I had a very WWE/WCW-centric list with a very small number of 2000s Indie/TNA/ECW/international talent just because, at the time, that was what I was most knowledgeable about and comfortable ranking. Kane didn't crack my top 100 but I had room for Buff Bagwell and Tom Zenk. Even if I hadn't tried to educate myself a little over the past few years and watched some of the more hyped AJPW, NJPW, and territory matches and strictly watched WWE (no AEW) since the last time we did this, Kane still wouldn't make my list. Simply put, since when we did this last time, I've seen Becky Lynch, Bayley, Charlotte, Roman Reigns, Bobby Lashley, Cesaro, and probably a half-dozen other WWE/NXT wrestlers earn a spot on my list like this before Kane would ever move up. There's just nothing I've seen - new, old, or in-between - that would propel him past those people. So, no, I contend that if Kane is making anyone's list, it's likely that he's on there as a "nostalgia pick" more than anything. Being "WWE-centric" wouldn't be enough. You'd have to be "WWE Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Era-centric," in which case, sure, I guess I'm willing to say Kane was probably in the top 100 WWE wrestlers active between 1997 and 2007. Maybe.

And there it was. Basically a message to shareholders that he wasn't going anywhere? With that, I turn it off and move on with my Friday night. What a nothingburger.

The hubris here is just mind-blowing. Reigns/Riddle was already a big match if you're a WWE fan, but this is certainly going to increase the viewership from those of us who don't tune in regularly. I mean, how can one look away from this trainwreck?

Not that I see this as being something that could bring the empire down but Vince (and John Laurenaitis) are back in the news for being sex creeps. Vince having an open marriage hasn't been a secret since that Playboy interview years ago, but an investigation into whether he paid hush money to one of his ex-girlfriends (consensual or not) is still going to be embarrassing. The summary I read suggests he "gave her" to John Laurenaitis as a "gift" at one point. Stephanie picked a great time to not be the face of the company if this gains any sort of mainstream traction.

I know that Hardy's style of wrestling hasn't helped his addiction and certainly played a big role in his reliance on pills, booze, and whatever else...but I don't think Jeff Hardy's drug addiction and alcoholism isn't singularly caused by wrestling a dangerous style. The idea that if Jeff just stuck to wrestling "safe" matches in WWE or did 24/7 comedy matches he wouldn't be a drug addict/alcoholic doesn't pass the smell test to me. Jeff Hardy's had no less than a half dozen "wake up call" moments in the past 20 years - a huge drug bust, getting kicked off a plane, 3 DUIs, a public intoxication charge, the Victory Road incidents, two firings from the WWE - and they've come at all different points of his career, dating back to 2003 and lord knows what incidents we don't really know about before then. Granted, at all different points of his career he has wrestled the "Jeff Hardy style" so I'm not denying some causal relationship in his need to self-medicate based on his bump-heavy style...but I think there are layers beyond it. Just like Jake Roberts, who didn't wrestle a dangerous style. Just like Chyna, who barely wrestled. Tammy Sytch. Louie Spicolli. If it were just a dangerous style, RVD and Spike Dudley would be notorious addicts. I know we've all faced hardships in our life, but losing your mom to brain cancer when you're 9 years old and essentially joining the circus (entering the pro-wrestling business in the mid-90s) at 16 are probably just as big of factors in his addiction as going through tables and leaping off ladders for the past two decades.

I was thinking all day about how this show needed a big story. Was hoping it would be Sasha and Naomi returning, or at least Cesaro. I'd even take Bray. Something. So, I guess we got one? I know its apples and oranges, but somebody in Vince's camp has to get into his ear about how there was zero buzz for Backlash and there was zero buzz for this show and, a week ago, wrestling fans across the country were very much excited and amped for multiple matches and storylines going into an AEW pay-per-view. This show's most anticipated match is either a rematch from the past 2 pay-per-views (Rollins/Rhodes) or the Women's Triple Threat match - mostly because Asuka has been out for so long and she's so damn good that her inclusion feels like the freshest breath of air in a long time (including Rousey's return). The rest of the card looks like it will be just fine, but "just fine" is why RAW hit another record low rating this week. Man, could you imagine if WWE actually returned to a real pay-per-view model? I'd love to see the number of actual live viewers for some of their premium events. I think it'd be a very interesting stat to compare to AEW's pay-per-view #s. (Yes, I know, this is a B-level show and AEW doesn't run monthly PPVs so the comparison wouldn't be fair, but, hey, its not like WWE doesn't have the talent, airtime, production resources, or media presence to make their monthly PPVs feel special - they did it for years and years in the late 90s and early 00s and even semi-recently had some good stretches.)

I alluded to what I would do above, but I'll fantasy book a little here just because... MJF randomly pops up every couple of weeks, sneak attacking and bloodying "Tony's guys"/ex-WWE guys - babyfaces like Dustin Rhodes and Matt Sydal, but also heels like Bobby Fish. He could also use his "millions" to buy airtime on the show ala the nWo. This would, of course, make it even clearer that this is not really a "shoot" of any kind, but as someone else posted above, the cat is out of the bag with that after last night anyway. Then maybe he goes after Keith Lee and Lee, tired of the attacks, tells Tony Khan to book a match between himself and MJF. You don't even need Tony Khan to appear on-screen for that and it doesn't break the storyline at all. Then you can even run the same story as before on a smaller scale: Will MJF actually show up to face Keith Lee? Or will he no-show to try to get himself fired? The tricky thing there is that you don't want to go the Russo way and make it about "following scripts" or laying down. That is where these angles become the stuff that kills a company (see Jarrett/Hogan at Bash at the Beach). If MJF is going to wrestle, it needs to be clear that he still wants to prove he's the best against any opponent because that's also part of his mission. I also read one fan posit that it would be beautiful if FTR turned on Punk to help MJF win the title some time down the line, but I could also see Hangman eventually coming down and being the "Who's Side Is He On?" Guy. That being said, I hope that they keep this storyline insular and don't overcrowd it. You don't need to revamp the entire company around one storyline.

As with many of MJF's promos, the conviction was strong enough for me to like it (though I don't think it was an "all-time great promo"). I agree that I wish he would've "named names" a bit, but I can understand why Tony Khan would've been angry about doing it. The last thing a Keith Lee or Swerve or some other "ex-WWE" babyface needs is to have one of your best mic workers and biggest stars come out and say these guys have bigger deals than they're worth. You already have plenty of internet voices calling Andrade and Lee and the others "flops," you don't need to put that on TV. Whoever said this reminded them of Flair's "Fire Me! I'm Already Fired!" promo, I got the same vibes, though this was more coherent. I'm also willing to see where this goes before I call it a huge misfire. The live audience clearly was engaged. There is a "buzz" around the promo and I think the majority of the AEW audience on social media/rSC liked it. It could be unpopular here, but I always remember that when I first started reading/posting here how shocked I was to read educated, well-explained criticisms about how Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle were overrated. I soon grew to see those criticisms as valid despite years of hearing/believing they were among the greatest workers of all time. God bless PWO, but I think the "objective truth" is probably somewhere in the middle re: MJF's promo. It wasn't an all-time great promo, but don't tell me it wasn't riveting or over with the crowd. I'm hoping that this leads to MJF trying to get fired every couple weeks (not every week, mind you) by doing run-ins and using his money to buy airtime ala the nWo. I know that sounds really WCW-ish and stupid, but its clear now that this is all a scripted work so, to me, it's better to "go for it" than to try to fool me into thinking MJF is going to be given a live mic despite telling the Boss to fuck off. For example, have MJF come out and decimate a Dustin Rhodes (we know Dustin will bleed for him and is still capable of great matches) or Christian one week. Then, someone like Kyle O'Reilly so that its not just babyfaces/heels - he's going after anyone who he sees as ex-WWE or undeserving of their contract or as one of "Tony's guys." The idea that there are no matches that can come from this seems a bit premature. As for Wardlow...I really wish they would've had him answer John Morrison's challenge. I know they were in LA so Morrison was likely to be more over with the "hometown" crowd than in other cities, but I like the idea of Wardlow maybe being a bit of a tweener for now, just taking out whoever (especially someone like Morrison, who has at least some name value).