Makhai
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Posts posted by Makhai
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Just now, Kamchatka said:
Yuta v Garcia for the Pure ROH as the main event feels like such a fortuitous timing moment of New Generation after the last few days.
I am hoping for some Kingston. It feels a great time to be putting him into a build. And of course more Wingmen Wednesdays #WingmenWednesday
I hope that's not actually going to be the main event. Because nothing says ratings draw like a mid-card ROH title match. Also what is an Interim Eliminator match?
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30 minutes ago, Kamchatka said:
His foot held up, he tore his tricep.
Gotta say, if the guy had 1 arm and won a 3v2. LOL!
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Pretty great column from Snowden.
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Looks like Punk's foot didn't hold up and he'll need another surgery. I don't think he wrestles again before the year is out either way.
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2 minutes ago, djskeemask said:
I bet you it's fine. He is just saying that it's still hurt so it can be an excuse when he loses to MJF. I know if I had a shattered foot and it wasn't healed properly, I would not be competing in matches, no matter how scripted and booking protected I was.
I think if you want to go to the "he doesn't want to job to MJF" conspiracy, (when he's already jobbed to MJF) the obviously premeditated press conference drive-by shooting to get himself fired is probably the one I'd go with, not the "I'm tired, I'm old, and I'm hurt." part.
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4 minutes ago, djskeemask said:
I'm also convinced Punk was never re-injured in the unification match. I think it was done to keep Mox strong, and setup the rematch to be in Chicago so Punk could win in his hometown. So the effects of that keep Mox looking like a monster by beating Punk in such a short match, also making Punk look even stronger for fighting injured and winning.
Punk is still hurt apparently. he talked about it briefly between burials. He came back to do the PPV, but the foot isn't fully healed. That's not a work.
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2 hours ago, The Blonde Bomber said:
To me punk stood up for himself against guys who have tried to sully him. So to me it’s admirable that he did it the way he did. Knowing it wasn’t being dealt with.
Punk was in the right, but, because he was pissed off, and was allowed to be a vigilante because there's no leadership or accountability in that company, he boiled over and buried himself, the company, and everyone in it.
Let's not do the dumb tribalism thing.
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6 hours ago, Dalton said:
How? I know Punk said it but that's a line that has universally been looked at as a stupid comment.
Because that house was built on babyface Punk winning the title. We were still in his return nostalgia milk mode. He was still moving the needle in a very big way. Hangman wasn't trying to "add intrigue" stop with that. He was a man baby, who didn't like a guy, and tried to damage him. That's again, the second he goes back through the curtain in Jerry Jarrett or Bill Watts land, he is beaten half to death and shipped in a box to Mexico for pig-feed.
You cannot tolerate that.
The bedrock of the buisness is implied cooperation. Trust in the person across from you. If I was a performer in that company I would tell TK I am never working with Hangman Page and probably The Elite either, if they sent him out with that idea in his head. A lot people are being very critical of the fallout, and I get that. Punk took it too far. But that should have been expected.
Better leadership cuts out the cancer before it spreads throughout your lockerroom and how clueless and stupid TK looked in his last 20 mins while one of his EVPs is trying to figure out if a road agent bit his face off is probably the most important of what happened. He goes from being Punk's sycophant, feeding him cupcakes and meming facials, to trying to bury the WWE for running a developmental show on on-demand streaming was laughable and it exposed him.
AEW do not have a Punk problem. They have a Tony Khan problem.
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21 minutes ago, Kamchatka said:
The promo battle between Hangman and Punk did actually benefit the show.
No, it did not. It was mostly confusing, and made people think the feud would continue and not climax which was what was actually happening.
Hangman tried to divide the fanbase against him and make him heel with the BTE crowd by exposing him as anti-employee status. That's what he was trying to do.
Imagine if Iron Sheik grabbed a mic and told everyone that Hulk Hogan was on steroids before Hogan came out and dropped the leg.
That's what we're talking about here.
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18 minutes ago, Kamchatka said:
People in the company will talk to each other about a lot of things thats for sure, but we dont know anything about that.
What we do know is The Bucks/Kenny/Hangman didnt go to the journalists to spread bad stories about Punk and Colt to make the company look bad.
Hangman tried to sabotage Punk on live TV. That literally happened. If you wonder why TK has been in camp with Punk for this whole thing, that is why. Hangman tried to screw him out of a million dollar gate, and 200k PPV buys.
In any other company, in any other era, he's jobbing under a mask in tijuana by now.
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1 hour ago, The Swanton825 said:
Do any members of The Elite strike you as the legit fighting type? I wouldn't trust The Bucks to not inadvertently start throwing working punches in a real fight and Omega seems like he'd flail wildly like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Meanwhile Punk's a faux tough guy who likes to talk a big game about his BJJ training and Ace Steel is from the old days when drunk fans routinely picked fight with wrestlers so he'd instinctively fight dirty.
I mean... It was 3v2 and I don't care who says what, they walked in that lockerroom, they picked that fight. I don't care who swung(or bit) first here. The Elite weren't going into that room for anything other than a confrontation. And if they got the worst of it... LOL! They deserve equal culpability. If Punk goes, so should Hangman, Omega, and The Elite. Otherwise you are rewarding them.
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1 hour ago, milamber said:
TK better make the media scrums strictly kayfabe in future. No shooting from talent or journalists.
I don't think that's necessary. kayfabe pressers are completely pointless. And if Punk is gone it's All Friends again.
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5 minutes ago, Kamchatka said:
all the dirt sheets so far confirmed it wasnt any of the Elite who were talking to them tho. That seems to have been a presumption by Punk. But you cant really get around that Punk already put people on blast in a promo before Mox came out, called out Hangman for no reason other to make him look bad, then after the whole "stand by each other", and then the big company meeting of "no one talk to the press" etc then literally sat down facing ALL the press at a media scrum and put everyone on full blast again, burying the founders, the hero of the company, while sat next to his boss.
If he was high as a kite, or angry from pain it doesnt really matter, thats whatever everyone saw and remembers. No one has seen the Elite do anything in this situation only Punk ranting on it and prior to this we saw him unload on a fan calling him fat when he was meant to be the big hero. So things are kind of stacking up on him being a super short fused asshole who cant control himself.
Reports are that even the people who are punks friends are not fully supporting him and wont go so far as to say he was in the right. Huge heat from the locker room, huge heat from fans.
All the sheets are all in agreement that this is gonna be a bomb. So I'm guessing this is going to go beyond a suspension, that this will take a while, but at the end Punk is done in AEW.
He's probably throwing a tantrum about his release so he can go sign with WWE. Which would be the saddest possible end, to a sorry, sorry return.
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22 minutes ago, Mootinie said:
I think the ratings decline is a bit more longer term than you're letting on here. They haven't done a 0.45 since September 2021. They were doing 0.30's in November and December 2021. I think this has been an issue with the company for longer than say, the last PPV cycle, the last 3 months y'know? It's been happening to them for a while.
There's a seachange happening. Always goes youngest-to-oldest. .35 is good for first or second right now.
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11 minutes ago, The Blonde Bomber said:
It might only be me but CM PunK comes off as the face in this thing against the elite faction.
All of the wind seems to be pointing in the direction of Punk walking or being pushed at the moment.
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4 hours ago, The Swanton825 said:
And yet AEW's ratings and buyrates are slipping the more they focus on worked shoots.
Buyrates are up overall, this will be the best revenue year for the company, and they will finish with 5 100k+ PPVs for the year. Ratings have gone down at the moment, but that has more to do with scattershot booking, and the WWE getting its crap together more than anything they are doing. Raw rating is up like 50% or something like that since HHH took the book. Only so much wrestling people will tolerate.
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1 hour ago, Kamchatka said:
Hangmans anxiety and lack of self belief leading to the Elite turning on him leading to his eventual rise to the title, Wardlow and MJF, MJFs leaving and return, they're all really good storytelling and built up huge stars that nobody knew a few years back. He builds up a lot of great homegrown talent.
This was all The Elite getting their boy over. They booked that angle out for 2 years. When they had a lot more pull. When Punk comes in we are back to WWE station-to-station and that is why the booking has gone real stale, real fast. Especially in the main event scene.
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1 hour ago, The Swanton825 said:
Where you've lost me is how this whole conversation started with me emphasizing the need to stick to some kind of script and stop the "is it real, is it fake" crap so the audience can suspend their disbelief over the fact that it's all predetermined
And I'm saying that's mostly crap. MJF is the most over thing in the company by a mile because real stuff is salacious, fun, and interesting, and the scripted stuff is predictable, nianceless, one-sided, and boring, by-and-large.
As long as you can keep it on the road, always run with good material. Whether it's real, or fiction, or something in-between. What is the point of the fiction in the first place? To create animosity between characters that become rivalries and feuds that you can make money selling the idea of watching them beat each other up.
That's the entire idea here. We're not going to middle earth. Walter White isn't Breaking Bad. This is man-babies in tights. Big Fight Feels. There's no suspension of disbelief, there's no fourth wall. You don't ask the actor Phil Brooks what he thinks the motivation of CM Punk is.
Because that's not what wrestling is. The whole point of wrestling is to be a worked-shoot. That's the whole concept.
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2 minutes ago, The Swanton825 said:
Note that I said "plays out in the middle of a normal episode". As in, the actual story is interrupted to do this bit to "create controversy". MJF's dispute and return was the story, same as the Summer of Punk except not half as rushed.
And wrestling is absolutely serialized entertainment in the guise of a sport. If it wasn't, then kayfabe and storylines wouldn't matter at all and every promotion would resemble UWFi and Shooto.
You are bending way over backwards here. Fox didn't pay for I Love Lucy in tights. They paid for Live Sports with scripted outcomes and high, year-round content output. That's what the market wants, that what the fans want, why are we resisting? McMahon nostalgia?
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5 minutes ago, BrokenCycle said:
You do not personally know these people. 😐
Nor do I want to.
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7 hours ago, The Swanton825 said:
I don't know why bookers keep trying this strategy. Worked shoots function on the law of diminishing returns. Not to mention it's frustrating watching something and having to question whether or not you'll see a conclusion to this story or if this time someone stormed out for real. Imagine watching a TV show where the actor's real life contract dispute played out in the middle of a normal episode. It'd kill your suspension of disbelief.
Wrestling isn't an episodic TV show.
It's Sports. It always has been, and it always will be. And in sports contract disputes, suspensions, front office decisions, etc. are value adds, not value subtracts. Look at the pop MJF got. Do you honestly think that goofy mask was the reason?
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37 minutes ago, The Blonde Bomber said:
Was glad to hear someone call out the BS of the kids in AEW.
I still find the whole thing very bizarre because I don't understand this 10 year bad blood Punk has with Colt Cabana stemming from a misunderstanding over who was paying for lawyers in a BS lawsuit from WWE that never had a hope in hell of going anyway than it did.
Punk was always gonna get that money back, so who had to pay what for who and how, seems absolutely silly to me because, frankly, it's just easier for Punk to cover everything and then be reimbursed by WWE, eventually.
I also do not understand how him being broke enough to need a joint account from his mother helps his case much here. If he's got no money, then why are you asking him to cover $800/hr lawyers, Phil? How is that anything but cruel? How does that make you look anything but petty? Especially when your boss is a trust fund baby. Sitting right beside you.
I understand everything else, the heat with the EVPs for standing with their friend, the heat with Hangman, all of that. Entirely on his side in that whole barrel of chuckleheads. But the Cabana thing doesn't completely add up with me. And he keeps coming back to it.
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2 hours ago, The Swanton825 said:
I don't know why bookers keep trying this strategy. Worked shoots function on the law of diminishing returns. Not to mention it's frustrating watching something and having to question whether or not you'll see a conclusion to this story or if this time someone stormed out for real. Imagine watching a TV show where the actor's real life contract dispute played out in the middle of a normal episode. It'd kill your suspension of disbelief.
I very much don't think any of this is a work, or a worked shoot. This is the real thing. Battlelines were publically drawn last night, and that wasn't about business. That was a Punk boilover, that he has been saving up since May, and if you looked around the room last night. It's very clear that the era of "All Friends Wrestling" is long over.
Toni Storm buried Thunder and outright implied that the injury is fake to get out of dropping the belt. Swerve bristled at what he took as disrespect from the crowd. Nobody from the Elite got to speak either. Not even The Bucks and Omega, who won the belts they made for themselves tonight. Very telling as to where Tony is on all of this. And what that likely means going forward for the EVPs. That presser is probably the biggest news moment in AEW history. Where the fault lines are and how the earth will shift in the next 3-5 years for the company.
You go back and you re-watch that infamous promo Hangman cut and the line "I love this place, this is my home. And for the first time in my life, I'm not defending the title, I'm defending All-Elite Wrestling FROM you."
Seems rather eye-opening now. Cody might be owed a massive apology. He might have been absolutely right when he texted Big Dave "It's time to leave the territory."
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2 hours ago, Mootinie said:
Tony Khan said that the buy rate for All Out 2022 will be in the Double or Nothing region, which did 155,000 buys. All Out 2021 did 205,000 buys. At this time last year, they were doing 0.45's and 0.50's for Dynamite. Now they're doing 0.35's.
However you slice it, this is it a work, is it a shoot era of AEW is not conducive to generating good business. I sincerely hope his blaming of WWE's "counter-programming" is just an elegant spin and not an opinion that he genuinely holds.
It's important to remember that cable TV this summer has had a massive exodus, and the majority of that is with the younger demo. WWE's audience is much, much older. So cord cutting is going to hit them much less hard. This is one of the reasons I feel that AEW is in danger. It is also losing a lot of its luster with the younger crowd because they are moving away from Hangman and the Elite, and their push for workers' rights, unions and the such, and towards anti-union, independent contractor-WWE guys, who appeal to the older WWE audience and don't want to rock the boat on changing the model that they are benefiting from.
When I say that AEW are in a rough spot, I feel that way because I don't see a landing spot for them on streaming, yet, and they don't have the built in brand cache the WWE have to get a big deal with one of the prime carriers. There's a real threat to wrestling again, it's a very cyclical business. Cable is dying faster than anyone anticipated, and I don't know if a 10-year plan where your revenue coming from TV is very wise anymore.
The All Elite Wrestling Discussion Thread
in The Dog Pound
Posted · Edited by Makhai
Swept everything under the rug, including MJF. Absolutely bizarre. MJF gets the EY TNA treatment.
Wow.