“A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth.”
– Gorgeous George, to 19-year-old Cassius Clay
Throughout this saga wherein we tracked the lead-up to and the fall out from Brawl Out, we’ve talked at length about modern-day professional wrestling’s heroes and villains, the angels on their shoulders and the devils in their ears from recent times and times long past. The small role we in the audience and those in the wrestling press may have is usually little more than a footnote, but true masters of the craft know when to use and when to disregard both. It's a delicate balancing act, but the great ones utilize every tool at their disposal to build a worthy narrative. If you forsake the artistic merit of the story you’re selling, there’s a good chance no one will buy it.
Literally, no one will buy it.
You need to tell a story that’s gonna sell tickets. The bigger the venue, the bigger the spotlight, the bigger the story. AEW must be ever mindful of this, particularly in advance of everything on their immediate horizon… most notably the landmark “All In” event at Wembley Stadium. For a company that draws often from pro wrestling’s deep lore, they will surely take lessons from the pivotal day of March 31, 1985. On that day, the then-WWF firmly planted their flag within pop culture consciousness and began building what is now the global behemoth of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Wrestling invariably boils down to “Good Guy vs Bad Guy”, so an occasion with so much at stake naturally needed a token hero in the spotlight, which WWF had in Hulk Hogan. But to tell the story, to make sure it was worthy of the moment…
That task fell to the villain.
WrestleMania I
During a feud with the Guerreros in Southern California in the late 1970s, many local fans felt "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was getting too personal with the insults. To make amends, he promised an apology in the middle of the ring at an upcoming show.
Of course, he had other plans in mind:
I was to play the Mexican National Anthem on my bagpipes. For three weeks I told people I had been practicing, and I get to the ring and I played 'La Cucaracha'. The night never even got started because they rioted.
Needless to say, if you wanted the people united behind your hero, you put them opposite Piper. And so with WrestleMania looming, in December of 1984 Vince McMahon set in motion his plan for the main event: unleash the Hot Rod.
The “Rock N Wrestling Connection” from the previous summer had been a tremendous boon for the WWF, but Piper felt Cyndi Lauper’s prominence was disrespectful to the business and the talent actually laying their bodies on the line. When she returned later that winter to present Captain Lou Albano with an award for charity work, Piper seized the opportunity to voice his frustrations and interrupted the ceremony at Madison Square Garden on December 28, 1984.
The audience was stunned by his rabid attack which ended only once Hogan hit the ring. A match was set for two months later in February, at the "War to Settle the Score” MTV special, where Hogan retained his WWF championship against Piper after Paul Orndorff and Bob Orton caused a disqualification. After the match, Lauper and Hogan’s friend Mr. T entered the ring to celebrate, but they were attacked by the villainous trio and in the resulting scuffle, Piper kicked Lauper in the head.
That kick got nationwide publicity for his heinous act, and Piper spent weeks cutting scathing promos against Hogan, Mr. T, and Lauper that toed the line of basic decency and were often downright offensive.
To bring Piper to justice, a tag match was set for the main event of the inaugural WrestleMania the following month. With Muhammad Ali as the special guest referee, dozens of celebrities sitting front row amidst the crowd of over 19,000 spectators, and millions of eyes watching at closed-circuit locations, Hogan and Mr. T squared off against Piper and Orndorff. The villains seemed to hold the upper hand before Orton smacked Orndoff with an errant flying forearm, securing victory for the heroes.
Piper would later feud with Orndorff and blame him for the loss, but he kept Orton at his side for further misdeeds and mischief. After all, he constantly reminded everyone during promos and segments…
Bob Orton was his “Ace”.
For the WWF, WrestleMania succeeded beyond measure, gaining them unprecedented mainstream exposure, entrenching Hogan as the sport’s top star, and literally saving McMahon from declaring bankruptcy. For Piper, it was just another feather in the cap of a man who would do anything it took to sell a story to the wrestling audience. Time after time, he went farther than others ever dreamed of going to heat up a feud.
From the time he shaved the head of Haiti Kid
To the time he cracked a coconut on Jimmy Snuka’s head…
To the time he assaulted Bruno Sammartino at MSG, an unfathomable act of heresy…
Piper always understood: it's the bad guys who drive the story.
On that matter, things haven't really changed over the past four decades.
March 7, 2022 – CM Punk on his Revolution 2022 Dog Collar match:
I think a lot of it can maybe be a happy accident, but… obviously I love Roddy Piper. I don't think it's a secret that MJF loves Roddy Piper. I think it's important to, while telling stories, see that you can always go back to the bedrock of professional wrestling. I think especially now that we live in such a weird time where there's professional wrestling fans and then there's the weird WWE fans and that's all they've ever seen. [Important to note: Punk has often differentiated WWE from WWF as two entirely different entities] So actually, it's... they don't know other stuff exists and they don't know that there's other ways of telling stories ...
So everything is just a love letter to professional wrestling. I think sometimes I can maybe be a little too cute for my own good, but I'm having the time of my life and I think Roddy Piper is one of the greatest of all time… So Roddy Piper is my hero and I wish he was here cause I would really like to see how disappointed he is in me right now [for crying on camera at a press conference]...
There's hope, because there's kids just like me who love the business for all the right reasons and just kind of… love the classics. Kids still start garage bands and play Ramones covers, you know what I mean? And, f-ck him, but Max is one of those kids, he… it's weird... Just knowing that there's kids like that who put in the work, that study the history and they get it… there's hope.
Though he might’ve told Punk there’s no crying in wrestling press conferences, Piper wouldn't have been disappointed in the work Punk and MJF did together throughout early 2022 considering what a challenge it was. For him, it was near effortless. While that was mostly due to natural charisma and a tremendous mind for character and narrative, a significant consideration must be given to the circumstances around his prime years; back then, "kayfabe" was still alive and the fans were accepting of what the wrestlers were trying to do. These days? Not so much.
Back before Full Gear 2021, amidst his fiery feud with Eddie Kingston, Punk had mentioned some of the challenges modern wrestlers face in working like they did in the old days.
“We've kind of breathed life into what some of the classic legends of pro wrestling used to do on the regular… AEW as a whole has a bit of an uphill battle to kind of tell the stories we want to tell. I think the majority of people currently watching wrestling have been fed the same thing for 20-25 years so that when they see something different, they automatically don't understand it, don't like it, or try to dissect it.”
For someone like Kingston, who is revered by fans for his passionate and earnest persona, it’s a little easier to come across as real because he treats everything in pro wrestling as real, imbuing every second of what’s on camera with more truth than most can muster. Who could ever forget in the promo battle with Jericho listing off insider terms, Kingston looking confused and asking, “What’s a ‘babyface’?” Of course he wouldn’t know... that’s a word people use on the other side of the wall.
Kingston utilized his banked trust with the audience ahead of that match with Punk.
"Everything that I say is real. It comes from a real place… I’m gonna beat him up really good and he’s not gonna wanna … people think it’s a joke or I’m playing. No, I’m gonna beat him up and he’s gonna go to the back. He’s gonna tell Tony Khan, he’s gonna tell everyone, ‘I don’t want to step in the ring with Eddie ever again.’ And I’m fine with that."
And then there’s Eddie’s last words before the match, from Countdown to Full Gear 2021:
“I asked God for a mission, Punk, and for my sins he gave me you… Yes, you can change… But first you have to get through me. I am the karma for everybody you have disrespected. Everybody you gave a headache because ‘The Great CM Punk’ wasn’t feeling it that day, or ‘The Great CM Punk’ just didn’t like you because you did something to piss him off. It is in your instinct, Phil, to be a manipulative, narcissistic, two-faced scumbag. I know that’s your real nature and that’s why karma has brought me to you. I don’t care about winning or losing when it comes to you. All I care about is beating you up, making you pay for all the years of bullsh-t you put people through… I am your karma, Phil.”
Few leave an impression quite like Eddie Kingston
At the scrum following the Kingston match, Punk delved deeper into what helped to make their program work:
We're characters but we're… we're real people, you know what I mean? What you see is what you get with me; what you see is what you get with Eddie.
And I hate peeling the curtain back, so to speak, but I used to watch professional wrestling all the time and two dudes can get into an argument and then they can fight about it. And it didn't really have to be deeper than that. And if you can get people to relate to that stuff, if you can get people to relate to, ‘Oh man, I was at a job one time and maybe I didn't apply myself a hundred percent’ and there's a, ‘Oh, that guy in the office that always called me out on it, screw that guy!’ and vice versa...
Everybody can take a side when you put me and Eddie in the ring and I don't care what side you take, as long as you're going to take a side.
But how do you take a side when two guys with mutual respect, admiration, and fondness are positioned to beat the hell out of one another?
Returning to the Revolution 2022 media scrum, a mere ten weeks before things seemingly “fell apart” backstage at AEW, Punk is asked about whether or not his future plans involve challenging “Hangman” Adam Page for the AEW Championship.
"I mean, I think so. There's people that want to wrestle here just for wrestling's sake, but I don't know how much time I have left. I don't know how many matches I have left. So if I'm not working my way towards the title shot, if I'm not trying to be where Hangman is, then I don't know what I'm doing. So I do think that is something that might happen. Keep your eyes on it. I don't know. There's a ranking system here, so I think I'm doing pretty good. And we'll see.
I like Hangman though!
See, that's the problem. It's a lot easier to wrestle somebody when you hate 'em… but I like that cowboy!"
Punk wraps up his session teary-eyed and with a genuine smile on his face. Into the room walks Hangman after his successful defense of the company's top title.
Reporter:
We saw during CM Punk's match that he made a motion that he wants a title shot. Does that frighten you at all, knowing that you still have the biggest target on your back in AEW?
Hangman chuckles:
Frighten me? No, no. It excites me… A good portion of our roster, I grew up watching. He, of course, is one of 'em. Seeing his entrance tonight [with Punk’s ROH song ‘Miseria Encantare’] was incredible. It sent chills down my spine. So I completely welcome it, if that's what he said.
The entire time he speaks, there’s a grin on his face. If Piper would’ve been disappointed in Punk for crying at a press conference, surely he would’ve been disappointed in Hangman for beaming, right? People watch professional wrestling for the drama and there’s very little drama in two heroes squaring off for the sake of sporting competition… That ain’t gonna sell very many tickets.
After Revolution 2022, you’ve got barely two months to make your audience pick a side between two men they adore. One is effectively the grizzled old face of pro wrestling’s lost ideals for the past decade, the other is the young champion of the group that may very well have saved those ideals.
On April 27, 2022, when Punk says:
I’m a fan of Adam Page… This is not to disparage anybody I’ve shared a ring with here in AEW except maybe Eddie Kingston, but from Darby to Dustin Runnels, everything up until this point has been warming up… I can promise you one thing, because I can’t promise you a win… I can promise I will always give 100% of myself to you because without you there’s no me, without you I don’t come back after seven years… Double or Nothing is in Las Vegas and I have never been a gambling man. Hangman, listen to me… I will always bet on myself. Win, lose, or draw, you will know you have been in a fight with CM Punk!
That doesn’t exactly set the world on fire, does it? Given that these are two men whose entire personas depend on authenticity… Maybe the only way is having one man question the authenticity and the motives of the other. What if there’s a growing suspicion that everything isn't all sunshine and roses? AEW was -- as Cody and Jericho and so many others put it -- a paradise. What Tony Khan and The Elite built was a very strong house, capable of withstanding every storm that had come their way. But storms come from the outside, not within…
AEW’s resident prophet, Malakai Black, gave a lay of the land during the final days of 2021:
What makes a house strong? Is it the foundation, the bricks, the mortar?
Well, perhaps. But the people that reside within it are the bricks, the mortar, the foundation. But even that foundation needs ideals. Ideals such as understanding that human nature is violent, and therefore accepting violence as a part of who you are is key. Don't fight it, embrace it.
There isn't a more destructive species on this earth that is so intentionally cruel to one another than the human race. So why be in denial about it? Understand that the past is not a crutch. It is an arrow, and its biggest teacher is agony. And therefore, I will not question the teachings that the House bestows upon me. But I will appreciate its blessings no matter how destructive.
Remember what we’ve already talked about way back in the early installments of this saga… CM Punk has a history of destruction going back twenty years. So when Hangman grew up watching CM Punk, he saw him sign his WWE contract on top of the ROH belt and try to take it with him; he saw him flee with the WWE Championship and stick it in his fridge for a week. Who knows what he might do with the AEW Championship? How could he possibly allow that to happen?
It’s one thing for Eddie Kingston or MJF to say it, it’s another for our beloved Cowboy to spell it out as only he can. He was there at the beginning, BEFORE the beginning, when AEW was merely an idea and a dream… Before multi-year television contracts and sold out arenas, when signing on was a massive risk, he was "all in". Punk? He waited until it was a sure thing. He might bet on himself, but he damn sure didn’t bet on AEW, so how could he possibly deserve sitting atop this wonderful thing Hangman and so many others created?
Hangman Page resolves that CM Punk will have to pry the championship out of his cold, dead hands.
With a sly smile, CM Punk dismisses Hangman’s apprehension on May 25, 2022:
"I'm not exactly sure why you seem to be taking this so personally. You're the champ for a reason. You're 'Hangman' Adam Page. You're possibly the toughest son of a bitch on this roster, and you hold the gold for a reason. There's a locker room full of people like me, waiting in line to get their shot. This is just business to me. It's my title shot. This is not personal."
Hangman isn’t having it:
I've been waiting for this moment, not for weeks but for months. I imagined myself maybe sitting up at the top of that ramp cross-legged. And I would pull out a lighter and I would light a pipe bomb and roll it right down to your feet and watch it blow up in your face… How cathartic it would feel. How GOOD it would feel... And how full circle for you, huh? Right here in Vegas [where the WWE ‘Pipe Bomb’ promo was delivered over a decade earlier]...
But now that we're here... Now that we are here, in this moment I realize I... I can't do it... I can't do it. And not because I'm afraid I'd get fired when I go back through the curtain. And not because I'm afraid of you, that's for damn sure. But the more I thought about what I really wanted to say about you, the more I realized it's exactly what you would do. And I don't think fighting your hatred, your pettiness, your cowardice with more of the same, I just... I don't think it's the right thing to do. But I will tell you face-to-face, man-to-man, how I feel about you: I don't hate you, I almost pity you. And I have no respect for you and what you've done since you've gotten here.
You want this AEW World Championship? … I don't think you understand what it means to be a champion after all these years, I don't think you get it, because it's not just about what happens in this ring. It's what happens when that red light turns off. What happens when you go back through the curtain, those small, quiet moments when you think no one's watching... That's what makes a champion. You talk a big game about workers’ rights, yeah? Well you've shown the exact opposite since you've gotten here. I love this place! I care about this place! This is my home! And this Sunday at Double or Nothing, I will NOT-- I will NOT be defending this championship against you, no for the first time in my life I will be defending All Elite Wrestling FROM you!"
CM Punk plays it off:
"Like I said man, I don't know why you're so angry. I don't know why you're taking this personally. It makes me a little bit confused. You're kind of talking in circles and it's a big riddle, but if you're so upset... that I'm here... you're gonna have to do something about it on Sunday. Win, lose, or draw, I respect you Hangman. But remember those roads you traveled to get here? They were paved by me. This house that you built? It was constructed with lumber from trees that I chopped down. The world you traveled to get here, to create All Elite Wrestling, happened, because I gave you the blueprint.
You will shake my hand Sunday.
In fact, you know what Hangman? You're going to shake my hand right now."
Punk seemingly alludes to the outdated, long-time wrestling tradition for young guys to go around the back and “earn” respect by shaking the hands of the veterans in the locker room. But he makes that allusion to the world champion of the company, to one of the building blocks of the sanctuary that brought Punk back into the fold… To me, it came across as condescension. To others, Punk had a point and Hangman was disrespectful. When Punk shoves Hangman and the champ responds with a punch to the jaw, we are forced to pick a side.
Excalibur:
"Hangman has fallen into Punk's trap!"
No longer can we be a neutral party.
The last words spoken by Punk and Hangman prior to Double or Nothing 2022 came on the Countdown special.
Hangman:
I can't allow CM Punk to have the AEW world championship because you can't have something that you don't respect. Punk doesn't respect– he doesn't appreciate All Elite Wrestling. For nearly a decade, he sat at home living the life of a comfortable millionaire while me, while Kenny, while the Bucks, while half of our early roster traveled the globe filling arenas! We set out to change the world and damn it, we did it.
Punk:
There's a difference between being happy here in AEW and being the champ, and I'm going to be the champ.
I'll strap this whole f-cking place on my back and I'll carry it to the Promised Land.
Hangman:
I will defend this championship not against CM Punk, but from him, because I know what kind of place this could become with him at the top…
He’s hailed as ‘The Second Coming’, but he hasn’t been ‘the best in the world’ in ten years.
I am everything that All Elite Wrestling represents. I’m the lowly, Bullet Club job-guy who worked his way up and when he couldn’t find opportunities he made them his own damn self!
And I CANNOT let Punk have that Championship.
But of course, Hangman’s righteous heart gets the better of him, and he can’t put CM Punk down, and the old Devil gets the AEW Championship along with all the power that entails.
Shortly after, everything in AEW goes to hell. Or, rather, if you watched the end of the Double or Nothing Countdown special, you might feel as if everything went to plan…
Toward the end, we got more ominous words from AEW’s harbinger of doom.
Malakai Black:
In order for the House to be, I needed the masses to want it and boy, do they want it. But they need to be reminded of what violence is in order for them to conjure it up. I was merely the lightning rod that guided the frustration of the masses-- people who were sick and tired of a mundane savior.
No, these people knew their salvation lied in a voice that guided their anger and the House was that salvation. You fight fire with fire long enough, you start to realize that conflict is in the nature of man. So here came the Hangman, the Fool, the Night, the Empress, and the Hermit.
And all I needed to prove is I could bring out the worst in a few...
As for the rest, well there's a saying that goes: we need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real and it will become infallibly real. And it became so real to them that they created an executioner… a manifestation of judgment.
But I let you create the narrative for the House – divide and conquer.
As Julius Caesar once said, all of this is conjured up from the anger and hate that our audience has in them. We are the subconscious prayer answered, manifested in the form of vengeful, hollow-eyed entities with a thirst for creating a barren wasteland.
The Age of Heroes is dead.
All Hail The End.
As Double or Nothing 2022 concluded, The Elite – the namesake of the company – was torn asunder. With Cody Rhodes gone, Hangman beaten, and Kenny Omega under the knife, no triumphant leader could oppose the oncoming storm.
Who else could there be to defend AEW? The Young Bucks? Please. Give me a break.
Eddie Kingston had them pegged way back in June 2021, two months before CM Punk even debuted.
"The best tag team in the world: the Young Bucks… My biggest problem with them is because they're both children, childs, babies. Not because of what they do in the ring and all that other stuff that people want to bash on them… It’s because ‘being the EVP’ was too hard for them.
"That kind of annoys me, man. People look up to them in the locker room and people look at them as the example of them doing it your way, you know what I mean? And then they’re going to come out here and ‘Oh, it’s too hard so we’re gonna start burying people’ and ‘oh now we’re just gonna start acting like assholes with Don Callis, and us and Kenny, we’re the original club…’ and I don’t even know any of that stuff.
“The bottom line is: you shouldn’t have took the jobs if it’s too hard. That bothers me. Then you go with the whole thing with Mox, and then you go with taking out people, you know what I mean? Talking about your sneakers and all that. Where I come from, when you talk about how much you got… that means that’s how much I’m gonna take…”
Isn’t that the gist of things said at an infamous All Out media scrum a year later? Sounds really familiar right?
“The fact that I have to sit up here because we have irresponsible people who call themselves EVPs and couldn’t f-cking manage a Target and they spread lies and bullsh-t… the fact that I have to get up and do this in 2022 is f-cking embarrassing. If y’all [the media] are at fault, f-ck you. If not, I apologize. What did I ever do in this world to deserve an empty-headed f-cking dumbf-ck like ‘Hangman’ Adam Page to go out on national television and f-cking go into business for himself? For what? What did I ever do? Dave [Meltzer]?… I didn’t do a goddamn thing.
Tony Khan chimes in about making something clear but Punk cuts him off.
“It’s not his position to make it very f-cking clear! There’s people who call themselves EVPs that should have f-cking known better!
TK:
“Yeah but I shouldn’t have no-commented when Nick [Hausman, that guy, again] first said it, it’s my fault, I should’ve taken it head-on.”
Punk:
“I appreciate that, but I’m trying to run a f-cking business. And when somebody who hasn’t done a damn thing in this business jeopardizes the first million dollar house that this company has ever drawn off of my back and goes on national television and does that, it’s a disgrace to this industry, it’s a disgrace to this company. Now we’re far beyond apologies. I gave him a f-cking chance, it did not get handled, and you saw what I had to do, which is very regrettable, lowering myself to his f-cking level. But that’s where we’re at right now. And I will still walk up and down this hallway and say ‘If you have a f-cking problem with me, take it up with me. Let’s f-cking go'... Trying to make money, sell tickets, fill arenas, and these stupid guys think they’re in Reseda.”
As CM Punk says all these things, right before him sits the AEW Championship. With the belt glistening as he rants, it’s hard not to think of his words back in 2005, clutching the Ring of Honor championship in the middle of the ring.
This belt in the hands of any other man is just a belt... in my hands it becomes power... just like this microphone in the hands of any of the boys in the back is just a microphone. You put it in the hands of a dangerous man like myself and it becomes a pipe bomb…
If I can be afforded the time to tell all of you here today a little bit of a story... It's a parable of sorts. There was once an old man walking home from work, and he's walking in the snow and he stumbled upon a snake frozen in the ice. He took that snake and he brought it home, and he took care of it. And he thawed it out, and he nursed it back to health. And as soon as that snake was well enough, it BIT that old man.
And as that old man laid there dying, he asked the snake, "Why? I took care of you. I loved you. I saved your life." And that snake looked that man right in the eye and said…
"You stupid old man. I'm a snake."
And that was the story from the very beginning, wasn’t it? I mean, Moxley himself said so on the Countdown special two days before All Out.
"This Sunday I’m wrestling “Chicago-made CM Punk, the little punk rock kid from Chicago…
[Fart noise]
CM Punk needs to be propped up. He needs his ego to be fluffed like a pillow. He thinks that he’s gonna have thousands and thousands of fans cheering for him and they’re gonna help and it’s CHICAGO vs THE WORLD... It doesn’t matter.
This could be a great story. I’m gonna give you a chance.. Guys get in the ring with me, we find out what they’re made of. I’m gonna give you a chance to be that guy you’ve been pretending to be for all these years. That Messiah that everybody’s looked up to, that all these fans believed in, that a lot of guys, a lot of wrestlers from MY generation believed in, that turned out to be so full of sh-t… I’m gonna give you a chance to be that guy.
I’m not what you would call a 'CM Punk fan', so I couldn’t care less. But this isn’t just the biggest match of your life, Punk. This is your life, defined."
And with CM Punk – the snake in AEW's paradise – now fully defined, a far bigger story can be told. With hazy eyes, the situation seems dire… But doesn’t a dire situation usually make for compelling drama? Wasn’t that Roddy Piper’s specialty? Creating havoc for a hero to resolve?
The through-line is simple. The Elite were in shambles and couldn't defend All Elite Wrestling anymore. Tony Khan is such a weak figurehead, he can’t keep a leash on another of AEW’s foundational pieces who stormed out of the company the night after Punk’s coronation, much less Punk himself.
That foundational piece is a worthless asshole anyway. He talks a big game, but underneath it all he’s even more insecure and anxious than Hangman has ever been. On top of that, he has basically admitted to being CM Punk 2.0, the upgraded version. What good would the same type of person be in this existential battle for the soul of AEW?
June 28, 2003
Punk:
“I am born of your poisonous society… so I will become a monster… to fight the monsters of the world.”
Well… maybe an upgraded monster could be useful.
Unfortunately, it would take more than that singular monster to defeat all those seeking to destroy this wrestling paradise. We closed our eyes and upon opening them, we realize they are many…
… they have no morals…
… by the day, more and more seem to arrive…
… and they are merciless.
If you’ll recall, in my most recent installment we spoke about the types of stories that are transcendent, that appeal to any and everyone, soaring over the cynicism of modern fans and dodging the exposure of dirtsheets. The core of the story – Home – is fairly simple, like all great stories. But in defending that home, from forces within and without, things can get a little complex.
Sometimes you have to stand beside old enemies…
… sometimes you have to play them at their own game…
… sometimes you have to forsake decorum…
… but most importantly, above all else…
You have to return home.
To me, that seems like the type of story a guy like Piper would be proud of telling. Many of the greats have told it in their own way, and in doing so, they’ve proven it’s the type of story that will “put butts in seats”, maybe even enough butts to fill a gigantic stadium across the ocean.
There’s one big problem, however. What happens when the arch-villain who is key to the whole narrative returns from two months off with a broken foot, only to immediately tear a muscle and be unable to work the story for nine more months?
If you hope to salvage something you’ve been laying the groundwork on for an entire year when your champion and central antagonist will be totally absent, maybe it takes pulling the pin on a different type of pipe bomb and rolling it down a hallway, just like he’s done before… Could it be that easy? What would it accomplish to "leak" that CM Punk and his toadie Ace Steel physically assaulted The Elite?
Well, for starters, we will do a lot of the heavy lifting on the story ourselves. We’ll bite on the rumors the dirt sheets peddle, just like we always do. When things occasionally simmer down, all the wrestlers need to do is hop behind a podcast mic or type up a social media post to add fuel to the fire.
We will rarely question things, even if they directly contradicts something else we thought true.
No matter how many times the wrestlers hint what is actually happening, we’ll probably ignore it.
And we will hastily fill in the gaps of a story with our own biases, no matter how wide those gaps may be.
Think about it. We have an alleged six minute minute fight that has fueled eight months of debate, hundreds of hours of vlogging, tens of thousands of tweets, and a million words of think-piece (look no further than this behemoth I'm writing).
And what is it based on? Hearsay. Third-hand information. What people heard from those who were supposedly there.
Not one single individual alleged to have been involved or in the room has even acknowledged that it happened. And among those not involved but nearby: not a single person has gone on record about anything. Everything has been kept anonymous.
No legitimate, respectable newspaper in the world would have reported this story if zero – ZERO – sources went on the record.
Someone took a picture of Ricky Starks on a security monitor at the Royal Rumble and passed it to a dirt sheet, a pic of nothing more than a guy visiting his friend on a big night, and it stirred up dumb discourse for a week.
Trust me, they read the discourse.
So you're telling me that the Punk/Elite fight has ZERO documentation… no security feed, no audio, when you've got a couple hundred people backstage that aren't on the AEW payroll… None grab a pic of anyone walking toward or away from the area where the biggest story in wrestling allegedly just happened? We don't see or hear anything about them until Kenny shows up on Japanese television a week later, in this era when everyone constantly has an HD camera in their hands. No one got anything?
I spent several years in a professional newsroom, and in no way, shape, or form wouldeditor take my to print any aspect of what supposedly happened after Punk left the media scrum.
So then why do we do it? Why do we trust the rumors so much? At least we know the wrestlers' job is to mislead since their stories depend on it.
Maybe if we dropped the need to be “in the know” about the silliest form of entertainment in the world, we would discover an entire dimension of personal enjoyment that's been lost to wrestling fans for decades... If you stuck with me the whole way this far, maybe you noticed or maybe you didn't... I painstakingly aimed not to use a single line of reporting from Meltzer, Keller, SRS, PWI, or any other dirt sheet to assemble this framework of CM Punk's descent into villainy. Everything came from the wrestlers themselves via programming, their personal social media, or from interviews and podcasts involving them. We didn't need to pay $10 a month to read "what might be happening"... All we had to do was watch the show and we could've seen it for ourselves.
When I approached writing this series, from the beginning I took the stance that if I am 100% wrong, tying together a bunch of nonsense, chasing shadows… That's okay! And consequently, in this process, I have had IMMENSE fun from start to finish. I've gained a deeper appreciation of the talent who put their bodies on the line for us. I've learned so much about the history of wrestling and certain performers. I've even started watching the programming in a different, more attentive way. Most importantly, I have become a bigger fan.
What I realize most is we don't know the slightest thing about any of these people beyond what they choose to show us. More often than not, they’re trying to entertain us, to give us those brief moments of magic from our childhood we still desperately yearn to feel.
Many people throughout this saga, from Punk to MJF to Don Callis, have all repeated the same thing:
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
Well, that's just a parlor trick.
All the greatest things The Devil ever accomplished came afterward, because we didn’t realize he was there doing them in the first place.
Few greater achievements in wrestling stand taller than All In back in 2018. Cody Rhodes, Matt Jackson, and Nick Jackson pulled a “Vince” and staked much of their personal finances in booking and promoting the event. Just as if WrestleMania had failed in 1985, if All In failed, who knows what the wrestling landscape would look like today? As such, the Wembley successor has a tall task if it wants to live up to its namesake.
Cody, who shares such an uncanny parallel journey alongside CM Punk's, shared his thoughts on Brawl Out earlier this year:
Building an alternative is definitely a feather in the cap. I don’t want that to be erased. I don’t want that to go away. Plus, there’s not as many jobs in wrestling as people think. There’s about 1,000 people who work there… I’m proud of them, and I want to make sure they’re able to feed their families. That was a situation that was so big and heavy... Maybe you can make it helpful. Maybe you can do something with it...
“The spirit of All In, if you ever lose the spirit, you’re lost. I think the spirit was gone in that moment. Doesn’t mean you can’t get it back.”
But what precisely is The Spirit of "All In", if it can even be defined?
9/1/18
Standing alongside The Elite, Cody speaks to 11,000 people at the largest independent wrestling show in history:
"'All In' is a serendipitous tale of things just falling in line, one after another. One of those things is not only did I find colleagues here, not only did I find peers… These people are my best friends in the entire world.
And that big question of what happens next… with this group, we are sticking together! Because no man, no company, no entity owns pro wrestling… WE OWN PRO WRESTLING!
Once upon a time there was “All Friends Wrestling”. Maybe that’s The Spirit of All In. Some might have thought that spirit left in January 2022 with Cody Rhodes. Many more probably thought it left the night of, poetically, "All Out". And maybe that’s what’s at stake in Wembley later this year. As Malakai said, it's the people inside and their ideals that make a house strong...
In all wrestling tales, the core of the story depends upon the agency and the threat posed by the Bad Guy. To make such a threat credible enough for the scope of this story in particular, they would need the type of villain only we can make.
They need a villain we are not told to hate, but one we have chosen to hate on our own.
Well. At the very least, we need to think we chose to hate him on our own.
"I am the devil himself and all of you stupid, mindless people fell for it. You all believed in the same make-believe superhero... No, you see, you didn't know anything.
You followed me, hook, line and sinker -- all of you did...
This is my stage. This is my theater.
You are my puppets and I pulled those marionette strings..."
With AEW: All In drawing nearer, CM Punk's return heralded as "The Second Coming", and the fandom in flames over every rumor mentioning the founders of AEW and it's lightning rod superstar, to chase a starting point for everything leads us down a hundred different paths that all converge on September 4, 2022. We could follow those hundred paths but maybe it's just best to remember Roddy Piper's warning from so many years ago:
Whenever we think we have the answers, they've already changed the questions.
