I have not enjoyed wrestling since he’s been back. All In was the first PPV I didn’t but since AEW started because I am just so unexcited for the show knowing there’s such toxins shit going on. I know I might be in the minority here because people seem to like CM Punk for whatever reason, but he makes omen of my favorite things so much less enjoyable. I only watch stuff when I hear that a specific match was really good now
Don’t let it ruin your enjoyment of the product. All-In was incredible. You need to catch it despite the Punk stuff.
And I’m still open to the idea that this is a work/shoot-turned-work. If anyone’s seen Tales From the Territories (or anything where old-school wrestlers talk about the trade), you’ll know the one thing that puts a massive smile on their faces is when they talk about working the fans. Those guys beam like children whenever they tell those stories. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if twenty years from now we see TK, Punk, Matt and Nick Jackson sitting around a table, laughing their asses off about how they got us all.
At the end of the day, everyone involved in this is a carny. Including the “journalists.” They all want attention and drama like this gets it.
I'd love that, and I even said in the All In thread I think this is a work, if it isn't cut the cancer out now and move on.
AEW just had it's biggest show
AEW just had Wrestling's biggest show
AEW put on a banger card despite injuries, court cases, travel issues and death.
But
We aren't talking about Mox looking like a porcupine
Or
That Carny piece of shit Don Callis
Or
Any other high point on a great show.
We are talking about Phil, I'm not ever gonna call him anything else this isn't a character waging war against an "Evil" owner of the company he's a bitter man who couldn't swallow a drop of his own pride and demanded a level of respect that he never deserved when he showed up, and certainly doesn't deserve now.
In a perfect world The Elite open the show
TK has time to plan and have Joe go over and that's the last we ever hear of Phil, he fades into obscurity.
I definitely agree that if this is all shoot then Punk needs to go. And Tony needs to learn and grow from the whole situation. Big time lol.
But I don’t think we’d be talking about any of those spots as much as we’re talking about this Punk drama. They were all great but there’s no way they would generate this much attention in the media. This kind of drama sells.
It’s all hypothetical, but if this Punk stuff doesn’t happen then the media/social media is probably talking about something else. Maybe more coverage of Funk’s death, Wyatt’s death, RAW/NXT, or WWE’s up-coming PPV instead of AEW’s. Who knows? All we know is that right now, in our version of the multiverse, everything is about Punk and AEW.
The news cycle moves fast these days. That this Punk story is still talk-of-the-industry could be seen as a net positive in AEW’s eyes. They are in the entertainment business, where the saying: There’s no such thing as bad PR is absolutely true.
And I’m not arguing against this whole thing being a headache. We’re definitely on the same page there lol. I’m just pointing out why AEW might be okay with it: because—good or bad— it keeps their name in the news.
I really wish I could not let it hurt my enjoyment of the product but I just have no desire to watch when that guy is such a big part of the show. I was actually looking at the card for All In to see what matches were happening because I wanted to try to get back into it. But then I saw that CM Punk had a match and also there was some storyline of him pretending to be champion. So that tells me that they were eventually going to have him in the title picture again. So I lost interest. Why get invested in a story if you know they are going to make it worse later? It may indeed be a shoot turned into a work, but I don’t have any desire to see CM Punk be beat in a match. I just don’t want to see him at all.