An AEW Fan Who is Embarrassed to be an AEW Fan

 It's been a day or so since the April 10th edition of AEW Dynamite in which the company made the decision to dredge up the All-In London incident by showing the video footage of the Jack Perry/CM Punk fight. And I've been trying to really bring into words why I personally am frustrated by it, so I figured in lieu of doing one of my monthly recap blogs (might be a tester point for future blogs), I would get my feelings out in a full blog. Because I feel like, especially after the recent Dynamite, I feel like an AEW fan who finally feels fully embarrassed to be an AEW fan. 

Since the company's inception in 2019, I have followed them through their first PPV Double or Nothing, and every week of TV and most (not all, especially with the larger yearly count of the past few years) of the PPVs. I honestly prefer AEW on most weeks, especially in the midst of the WWE's drain circling era of the late 2010s where the product had become so poorly managed amongst Vince McMahon's depraved megalomania, anything would have been a better alternative. And AEW offered that, opening me to more wrestlers who have become some of my favorites. Eddie Kingston, Hangman Page, Orange Cassidy, Willow Nightengale, MJF. And especially the career growth of Swerve Strickland, one of the best examples of how the WWE squandered and haphazardly fired talent. 

I think an AEW existing is important for the business. And, while even the most stoic WWE defenders will never admit it, it's been beneficial for WWE. Without AEW, we likely never would have seen Jade Cargill. Without AEW, Cody Rhodes wouldn't be WWE champion right now, or at least his road back wouldn't be as prolific. Without AEW, WWE wouldn't put in more effort and we'd be trapped in the Vince cycle of ripped scripts and rudderless booking. And without AEW, we probably wouldn't have CM Punk back in the wrestling industry. The industry thrives when there's a larger market and not just one place. And having an alternative, especially when WWE was at their worst, was something that I am glad to have. 

But, to be honest, I have started to feel the passion for enjoying AEW disappear rapidly. And it factors by a lot of reasons, but the major turning point was the Brawl-In incident at Wembley in August. The "fight" between Jack Perry and CM Punk that led to Punk's exit from the company. And now seeing the footage for myself, my opinion on it hasn't changed. Nobody looks good in this. But it ultimately felt like something that would have happened regardless if it was Jack Perry or someone else. Because at the end of the day, CM Punk's worst traits eventually rear their ugly head. Because, why wouldn't they? Revisionists to this story playing the "good for Phil" card forget that the guy was turning Collision into his private island, banning people from his show. It also will always be funny that this guy, whose entire career has been built around controversial comments and line-blurring shoot promos, suddenly gets mad when someone else does it to him. 

Though, that isn't a defense of Jack Perry. He should have let the glass shit go. If Punk is correct on anything from the encounter it's that Perry's insistence on doing a glass spot was a bad idea. And it's not just Punk who told him that. But what, perhaps in his mind, was a case of working the smarks and even a jab at Punk ultimately came off more as the celebrity's son being told no, and he didn't like that. Whether you'd argue the punishment given to him is severe or not severe enough, it is ultimately a shame that he destroyed his career because of this. Because in the court of public opinion and more importantly the court of the guy who owns AEW, he cost them the most pivotal signing this company ever will get. 

I don't know how to feel about The Young Bucks at this point. Even if they weren't the ones who were in favor of this whole footage reveal. Whether their beef with Punk over their belief of him costing Colt Cabana his job was enough for this, it really gives off the stink of two guys who never got over Brawl Out and even after everything with the NDAs and everything that went down, they feel like they've become petty. Which isn't something I think is a good feeling with them being EVPs. And for as much as the footage incident can be blamed on Tony, and we're getting to him, the outcome feels like a case of heaping the scorn on the idea of the Bucks trying to get their last laugh, only for nobody to be laughing with them, but at them. Also for this company that crowed for years about how there's this thriving tag division, four years and the company can't book past the Bucks and FTR is downright infuriating at this point. It'll be a great match at Dynasty but I do not care. Especially now. 

I am so fucking done with Tony Khan at this point. The Milhouse of all Milhouses. When he started this company, he said he wouldn't be an on-screen character. Now here we are five years later and Tony's become the main character of AEW. Because he's the one making pointless announcements, he's the one who can't stop running his mouth on Twitter to any troll not worth the time of day. He's the one firing talent then talking about how he's overspending while giving Mercedes and Okada bank breaking deals. And, more importantly, he's the one making decisions like airing footage of a fight that we should have moved on from by now, just because Punk talked about it on Helwani. And now the brief ratings bump it may have given Dynamite will really matter little when the ratings dip. Probably lower if this winds up being the last straw for a lot of people. That's how bad of a moment this was. 

AEW should be a better company. It should be a company focused on the future, on the in-ring quality, on actually building divisions like the women's division instead of lip service and maybe one or two more segments, but god forbid they do a second women's match on Dynamite. You can drag out Adam Copeland or FTR to cut the same troop rallying speech about how much they love AEW and how it provides for their family and talk constantly about the people involved. It's a hollow gesture. A high five to a drowning person with their hand out. Because it means nothing if the company isn't going to try to improve itself. But as long as you have people in charge who are playing the ultimate game of "I'm not owned", then nothing can nor will change. I desperately want to be proven wrong on that, but given that the company's reached desperation of that level, I'm not sure it can. 

At a time where WWE has, for the most part, been on a quality upswing in the past year, coming off a successful Wrestlemania 40 and starting to move into a new era, it's frustrating to see what's becoming of AEW. I still love AEW, but it's feeling like Stockholm Syndrome. I want to see it strive again, to feel like a true alternative again. To have the magic of those first few years again. It will always live in the shadow of the CM Punk saga, but it's better to try to grow out of the shadow instead of shining a brighter light and making the shadow bigger. I want to enjoy wrestling again. And I'm hoping that, maybe one day, I can eventually get that joy from AEW again. But for now, I feel, like the title suggests, like an AEW Fan who is embarrassed to be an AEW fan right now. I'm begging this company to get its shit together, and I'm seldom an optimist.