For almost three years AEW was the biggest babyface in wrestling.
They had five star in-ring matches. They had long term storytelling.
And they had all your favourite wrestlers that WWE had fired
But then the most perfectly executed double turn since Bret Hart and Stone
Cold at WrestleMania 13 happened. Tony Khan accidentally turned his entire promotion heel,
at the exact same time Triple H turned WWE face.
I’m Oli Davis, and this is how WWE is f****** with AEW.
As Harvey Dent once said: “You either die a hero, or you live
long enough to see yourself become the villain.” In wrestling start up terms, that time period
is 3 years, 8 months and 3 days - which is how long it took between AEW’s founding on the 1st
January 2019 to the moment CM Punk nuked both his own career, the promotion he worked for and
all of its top stars on 4th September 2022. If Punk had dropped his bitchbomb at any
other time, AEW would’ve been in a much stronger position because the
alternative was still far worse. The alternative’s name was Vince
McMahon. You might not remember him, kids. It’s been a long year. But if you want to picture him,
imagine that a horny egomaniac bully was running the world’s biggest wrestling promotion unopposed
for two decades. It was hilarious.
But after dedicating his entire career to sports entertainment, Vince decided to respectfully call
it a day… / was forced out of the company because of mounting sexual misconduct investigations.
Vince was replaced by his doofus son-in-law Triple H.
Thing is, Triple H isn’t a doofus. His nickname is the cerebral assassin for a reason.
Punk’s bitchbomb didn’t happen in isolation. It came at the exact same time Triple H took power
in WWE - creating the perfect alignment for Triple H to start really screwing with AEW.
But first, a short history on Triple H! It’s easy to forget while he pushes your
favourites and brings back Bray Wyatt, but nobody liked Triple H for the majority of his career.
He ruined other people’s pushes. He had boring matches. He was a chief plotter of
the Montreal Screwjob. He once did a racism story with Booker T, and put himself over.
That’s the message, kids: racism wins. We didn’t like Triple H for 15 years. But
then the devil played his greatest trick. He convinced us he never existed. Paul Levesque
created an indie wrestling brand that was so beloved, we all forgot he hated indie wrestling.
When indie wrestling first started to push its way into WWE, funnily enough in the hiring of CM Punk,
Hunter and many other veterans were resistant to the new style. Indie wrestlers were smaller,
vanilla midgets who wrestled in bingo halls. But this is where Hunter’s arguably most
devastating trait first became apparent: he’s adaptable.
Admirably, Triple H changed his mind about what pro wrestling is, and what a pro wrestler looked
and performed like. He did AEW before AEW, making NXT a beloved indie style brand with
the production capabilities of WWE. That’s when he proved he could be
different to Vince. He told coherent storylines. He really, really, really,
really liked entrances. He put on arguably the greatest run of back-to-back major shows of the
modern era unironically called TakeOvers. With NXT, Triple H actually made himself
the hottest young prospect in wrestling. Not building anticipation for a main roster call
up. Not to become World Champion. Not to main event WrestleMania.
But for him to take over the whole WWE. Like any good wrestling psychology,
the heel cut off the hope spots. Vince broke up NXT acts like Enzo and Big Cass, he put
Karrion Kross in a gimp mask, he even gave the black-and-gold a multi-coloured mid-life crisis.
Hello fellow kids. How about them boobs? By then Triple H’s very career
and life were hanging in doubt. After going head to head for over a year,
he lost the Wednesday Night Wars to AEW and NXT retreated to Tuesday night. At the same time,
Triple H suffered a very real life heart issue. It was so serious he had to take his
first long term break from the company to recover. Triple H was on the brink. The sleeper was locked
in tight. His arm dropped once… twice… But! Mass sexual misconduct
investigation makes the save! Vince honorably removed himself
from his position… slash hung on with the unrelenting grip of career rigor mortis until
it was prised from his cold, dead fingers. And Triple H, just months after being on the
brink of defeat, suddenly found himself booking the biggest wrestling promotion in the world.
He couldn’t have booked a better storyline for himself if he tried.
And now it was time to get revenge. If you’re enjoying this video, by the way,
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Some Greek guy once said: “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.”
But good luck for Triple H was bad luck for Tony Khan.
Just one month after Hunter replaced Vince McMahon, the locker room split between CM
Punk and The Elite became embarrassingly public at All Out. After three years of being the ultimate
wrestling babyface, AEW had multiple issues come to a head at the same time: a bloated roster,
creative frustrations, and wrestlers resenting the former WWE stars taking their spots.
Luck is when opportunity meets preparation. And not only did Triple H find himself in the top WWE
job after decades of waiting, it happened at the exact same time his newest foe was at its weakest.
So let’s grab the sledgehammer and whack ‘em in the nuts while they’re on the ropes!
But only with your hand covering the most dangerous part of the weapon.
On the 24th August, just before that night’s episode of Dynamite,
and under two weeks away from when the company imploded at All Out, Tony Khan
held a talent meeting to discuss how WWE had been approaching wrestlers under AEW contracts.
Chris Jericho had already strongly hinted he was one of those approached,
tweeting with the hashtag tampering. Fightful Select later confirmed Swerve Strickland, FTR and
Malakai Black were also amongst those contacted. It seemed like WWE, under Triple H’s new regime,
was reaching out to everyone who had a connection with Hunter from the NXT glory days. And if you’ve
been watching AEW over the last two years, that’s practically their entire midcard.
The approaches were so flagrant, AEW’s Chief Legal Officer Megha Parekh sent an
email to WWE’s CEOs Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan, saying “not to tamper” with AEW talent.
I say, if you’re an evil mastermind running a wrestling company, why not?
Strategy-wise, this would be a wickedly effective, low-risk ploy by Triple H.
At the absolute worst, WWE gets a warning from AEW while they argue implausible deniability. Oh,
we were just enquiring about your status right now, Chris Jericho.
How were we to know you’re signed with AEW? All the while sowing seeds of doubt amongst
the AEW locker room. That maybe the Triple H WWE grass really is greener.
And when I say green, I mean money. Loads of money.
But at its best, several of those wrestlers you sent light feelers to got remembering the NXT good
times and subsequently asked for their release from AEW. I’m not saying they’re connected,
but since those first contract tampering reports came out, there have been strong
insinuations that Malakai Black, Buddy Matthews and Andrade have all tried to get out of their
AEW contracts - all wrestlers who were very close to Triple H in the NXT/205 Live days.
By just making a few phone calls, WWE could have stoked those feelings of locker room resentment,
potentially adding to the kindling that would eventually explode two weeks later at All Out.
Counter programming is nothing new in the AEW / WWE war. It’s just been elevated.
Since Triple H took charge, he now has the full might of the main
roster added to his shared WWE Google Calendar. Adding to the mounting All Out weekend pressure,
piling on top of AEW’s own inner tension and WWE’s alleged contract tampering,
Triple H counter programmed NXT Worlds Collide to happen on the exact same Sunday.
And this was no Bronn Breakker vs Joe Gacy multicolour match. This was a hastily,
but effectively booked NXT UK invasion angle, unifying multiple championship belts, and putting
indie favourite Tyler Bate in the main event. Ever since, WWE has used NXT as the perfect
counter programming weapon - stacking shows with just the right level of main roster star
like Rhea Ripley or Ricochet - where if they lose, it’s no biggie. It’s not like
Brock Lesnar was on it. But if they win, they can boast about their developmental
brand beating an AEW at full strength. They loaded Halloween Havoc with main
roster midcarders when it went up against a Dynamite that had to shift to Tuesday. While
AEW suffered from not being in its regular slot, NXT was only 76,000 viewers away in the ratings.
WWE is also planning an NXT premium live event for the 10th December, the same date as Tony Khan’s
final Ring of Honor pay-per-view of the year Final Battle. Expect NXT to target ROH more and more.
It gets overlooked because of Punk’s bitchbomb, but in that same post-All Out media scrum, Tony
Khan cut a pipebomb of his own on WWE consistently counter programming shows on the same days as his.
“I have a lot more f#*^ ing money and I’m serious, I’m not gonna sit back and take this ”
A conspiracy theory of contract tampering would be enough on its own. Counter programming to
such a degree appears to have deeply affected Khan going by his response at the media scrum.
It’s a tale as old as time. WWE release your favourite wrestler. There’s an outpouring of
fan and industry support for said favourite wrestler. So then reports start to come out
to say it was said favourite wrestler’s fault. “[Keith Lee] just had, in general, attitude
issues.” - Wade Keller, PWTorch “Bray [Wyatt] was being
difficult.” - Andrew Zarian, Mat Men Podcast “[CM Punk] was hard to deal
with.” Road Dogg, Oh You Didn’t Know Podcast Ok, maybe that last one was onto something.
‘Budget Cuts’ might not be the only made-up reason WWE fires people. There’s
a theory that these negative reports on released wrestlers being ‘difficult to
work with’ are actually planted stories by WWE. And since Triple H has taken charge of WWE, we’ve
seen a very similar approach to AEW as a whole. On the 10th October episode of Monday Night Raw,
WWE celebrated 25 years of D-Generation X. Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Sean Waltman and the Road Dogg
Jesse James were all in attendance. But there was one notable name missing: Hornswoggle.
Yeah, he was a DX member for about three weeks in 2009. The definitive iteration of DX.
Billy Gunn wasn’t there either. Because he’s under contract with AEW.
Road Dogg publicly said not having his best buddy Billy Gunn there “broke my heart, and
I believe it broke his too… Hunter was not happy about it either. Shawn and X-Pac weren’t either.”
According to Road Dogg, just the day before Billy Gunn was all approved to join the reunion. After
all, he’d already made one WWE appearance while under AEW contract at the DX’s Hall of Fame 2019
induction. But then that cruel Tony Khan scrapped the plans last minute. Road Dogg continued:
“It was a big deal, and I feel like he got ripped off and didn't live it with us. I'm sorry for
that. I know he is too… I don't know the exact reason, but I was told everything that we could
do was done, and we couldn't come together." AEW is such an evil company. Imagine them,
pulling the exact same cynical stunts that WWE have done for about four decades.
Thing is, though, it’s not true. AEW had reportedly approved Gunn to
appear on Raw under one condition. Not a payment. Not a talent appearance loan the other way. Not
even to maybe stop counterprogramming Ring of Honor shows. All Tony Khan wanted in exchange
for Gunn was that WWE commentary just mention that Daddy Ass is from AEW. And WWE declined.
What was that quote again, Road Dogg? “I was told everything that we could
do was done”. Everything apart from possibly the easiest thing you could do.
Expect stories like these to come out more and more, subtly painting AEW as the promotion
that’s difficult to work with, turning fans, and potentially future wrestling company partnerships
against them. Speaking of…
The Same Thing We Do Every Night, Shawn Michaels. Try to take over the world.
There’s one unique selling point that AEW has over WWE. An entire world of wrestling promotions.
WWE under Vince McMahon was more isolationist than your angry uncle’s views on globalized supply
chains. WWE didn’t work with anyone. And in the very rare cases that they did, they would quickly
change their minds and destroy the relationship. It’s almost like WWE is difficult to work with.
But when Triple H walked into the Head Booker office, he appears to have left the door open.
Hunter’s openness to working with other promotions can be seen in his years running NXT. He brought
in Jushin Thunder Liger to wrestle on NXT TakeOver Brooklyn. When Samoa Joe first joined NXT,
he was actually free to continue working for other promotions. The first Cruiserweight Classic in
2016 saw Zack Sabre Jr and Kota Ibushi both reach the semi-finals, despite neither being signed.
Now in the months since Triple H took control of WWE, there have been several similar cracks
in the Forbidden Door. NWA President Billy Corgan revealed he has had optimistic talks
with Triple H. Rey Mysterio sent a video message to AAA for their TripleMania anniversary show.
Shinsuke Nakamura is being allowed to wrestle a match in Pro Wrestling NOAH,
as part of the Great Muta’s retirement tour. Karl Anderson made his return to WWE while
still holding New Japan’s Never Openweight Championship. WWE CEO Nick Khan even tried to
broker a New Japan working relationship in 2021. But as a counter point - Hunter might have
another, completely opposite philosophy in his head: Global Localisation.
“Nobody knows what it means, but it’s provocative.”]
The business plan, announced by Triple H in 2018, was for WWE to set up local
branches of NXT around the world. WWE is a global brand, and now there will be
geographically local versions of it. Then why not call it WWE Japan?
It didn’t go so well, with NXT UK shuttering its doors after 4 years as one of WWE’s first
big post-Vince business moves. But it was then announced NXT UK would be replaced by
NXT Europe. And Shawn Michaels, who now runs NXT, has promised NXT Japan
and NXT Mexico are in the company’s future. If that is the idea, I can’t see long term
relationships with promotions like New Japan, All Japan, CMLL or AAA while you’re setting up
direct competitors to them on their turf. It’s a risky strategy that could go either
way. As is Triple H’s final sledgehammer… detonating a pipebomb all of his own.
I’m going to say it. I’m going to say the thing. CM Punk to WWE confirmed.
The most impactful onscreen sledgehammer that Triple H could swing at AEW is also the one that
could continue to whip round and smash him in the face. Bringing CM Punk back to WWE.
There’s a kind of poetry in it, in a way. Triple H and CM Punk, two men that apparently can’t
stand each other, but who have actually become increasingly like each other over the decade
they spent apart. Triple H embracing Punk’s indie style, and Punk becoming a politicker
at the top of a wrestling promotion. As much as CM Punk had arguably the
greatest wrestling comeback of all time, the episode of Rampage where he made his AEW debut
was only watched by 1.13 million viewers. Most of whom had just been cutting onions.
Raw in 2022 has averaged well over half a million more per episode. SmackDown almost doubles it.
Just going by the numbers, a Punk WWE return would have far more mainstread success than his
AEW one. Plus the added embarrassment as the man who never lost the AEW World Title showing up at
its main competitor - maybe even a year after the company co-founder Cody Rhodes jumped ship too.
Cody and Punk were also WWE stooges sent to destroy AEW from the inside,
but that’s not important right here. Triple H once said it’s a marathon,
not a sprint. Then you see him load up NXT shows and counter program AEW and think, yeah right
mate, seems like you’re running full pelt there. But it’s not about the individual battles. It’s
about applying consistent pressure over time. To force your enemy into making a mistake. And maybe
with the counter programming and the contract tampering and the undermining comments and the
threat to their global partnerships all on his plate, Tony Khan didn’t prioritise the personnel
issues in his own locker room. I’m saying there’s an argument that Triple H, the Cerebral Assassin,
helped cause CM Punk’s media scrum bitch bomb. What other ways do you think WWE is screwing with
AEW? And how do you think AEW could best defend themselves, or even go on the counter-attack? Let
me know your thoughts in the comments down below, and I’ll try to reply to as many of them as I can.
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Will AEW getting rid of CM Punk actually be their biggest ever mistake? Watch on to find out…