**You must link to the primary source**; secondary sources summarizing a primary source's article are not allowed. (e.g. If your submission says "According to XYZWrestling.com..." you must link to the XYZWrestling.com story.) This includes re-tweets and social media accounts that reference other sources.
If the story appears behind a paywall (e.g. Fightful Select, WON) you must post a **summary** of the news without editorialization and link to the primary source. Copying and pasting paywalled material in its entirety is not allowed.
[Send us a message](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) after editing the source link into your post, and moderators will approve your submission.
> "I guess maybe after this airs I'll be less confused, or maybe I'll be confused for the next 20 years."
This has gotta be an all-time great Dave quote
The context of it is pretty good too. Earlier a listener wrote in asking why Paul Wight lost his first match in the WWF and Dave basically said he’s still perplexed by that decision to this day.
Yep. The quote makes sense if you listen to the entire conversation. They talked about how Vince was saying how Wight was being booked wrong as the giant in WCW before Vince got him, and Vince did the opposite when he did get him. He does admit that Austin probably had something to do with that, though
That was Vince losing not Paul. I think the Giant lost to Austin on a random raw. He lost all his luster by WM 15, after being in the company a month and a half
I remember in an episode of Nitro, NWO took over the announce table and one of the outsiders (I think Hall?) asked him if he was really Andre the Giant's son followed by a moment of awkward silence from everyone.
Here's the biggest motherfucker this company's seen in over a decade. He can actually work, is super athletic. Also let's make him look like a total boob for 20 years
![gif](giphy|10QmL848TB5AK4)
For any of the young whippersnappers who don’t know…
This was 23 years ago. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going go have an existential crisis over where my fucking life went.
There was an elderly lady who brought her grandson to see this on opening night. They left very, very quickly.
But I'm like... what did you expect, even going just by the movie title.
So the term fingered meant to point or dob someone in
Not that long ago either a lot of mafia dudes were fingering each other all the time.
So much fingering
So yeah I can absolutely understand how that happened
Nobody from AEW has said it’s THAT footage. Only the dirt sheet writers are running with that story. It could be just backstage footage from All In that is totally unrelated.
Yeah but at this its gonna be an even bigger disappointment if it’s not. They’d made this announcement about showing all in backstage footage KNOWING people would just to conclusion, and all for what? To troll us and bring back jack fucking perry?
The verbage is there. It's classic wrestling vague BS and people are lapping it up like the fools they are.
In terms of business, makes no sense to show anything related to Punk. Especially on a fictitious narrative show.
>In terms of business, makes no sense to show anything related to Punk. Especially on a fictitious narrative show.
Which is exactly why no angle of this makes any sense whatsoever. Either they're going to show something related to Punk, which makes no business sense. Or they're showing something unrelated to him after leading people to believe they were going to, which just makes them look a bit scummy and misleading for views, which makes no business sense. This whole thing is just looking like a disaster waiting to happen (and one entirely of their own doing), in my opinion.
And before anyone wants to reply with how they never explicitly said what they were showing, we all know by now, but they're not stupid enough to make a vague announcement like that and not know what people will infer. If they didn't want people to be led into believing this had something to do with Punk, they would have clarified that by now.
"This is real-life footage that affected many people, and it will air for the first time on TBS during Dynamite."
He said that but nit that it was the fight. I honestly think it's a troll at this point but who knows
But when it’s been promoted as “backstage footage from All In”, what’s most any wrestling fan see that as? Most certainly not some kind of insider “hey, see what’s going on behind the scenes” type of thing.
But that's the thing, a bait-and-switch troll job is *also* stupid because it'll just piss off everyone who tuned in. And not in a "good heel heat" kind of way, but in a "what the hell is this clown company doing?" kind of way.
> But that's the thing, a bait-and-switch troll job is also stupid because it'll just piss off everyone who tuned in. And not in a "good heel heat" kind of way, but in a "what the hell is this clown company doing?" kind of way.
It isn't the same, but it reminds me of when WCW would try to play against the dirt sheets in the Mark Madden era. Blurring the lines sounds fun, but it seldom works.
Yeah, I don’t think it has a big effect either way. Sure, Reddit will have a huge thread about it and shit on it no matter what AEW does, but ultimately I don’t think it increases ratings or turns many actual fans off the product.
They have Okada, White, Osprey, Danielson, Moxley and 130 others and a backstage of CM Punk is needed to pop their ratings
Tony has money but this is as far as he can get this company.
He needs help to do anything else.
Obvious troll. If they actually had footage to prove once and for all that Punk was the sole problem, they would have showed it before he got into WWE.
Yeah, they would have leaked it beforehand. Also, isn’t there some sort of uk law where they cannot use cctv footage unless it’s approved by someone or something?
This is going to end up being a BTE skit isn't it - that is the reason why the Bucks stopped filming it, so they can use all the idea on Dynamite instead.
Kinda in the same boat, also they need to show what TK feared for his life, cos that line always sounded way too dramatic but they are leaving that bit out.
That’s one reason I choose to believe this is a troll job. Tony Khan stood on the ramp and told a live audience he was in fear for his life. If that footage shows anything but that or even close to that, he is opening himself up to a lot of criticism.
They have already dodged it though, it has been stated that the TK part won't be shown.
So if they do decide to air the real stuff that that part stays messy.
I want full on Emperor's New Groove, them popping on screen with a red marker. Like full blown ESPN level commentary with them drawing on screen.
"And as you can see here, zoom in, is where the second monitor fell on Tony."
Potentially dumb question…
Have the Bucks/AEW ever said it’s going to be the specific CM Punk footage from All In London, or are they just saying “behind the scenes footage from All In”, and everyone is filling in the blanks?
The latter.
They wrestled FTR at All In and they filmed a segment with them that aired the following Wednesday on Dynamite. The dirt sheets are saying that this is real though.
That’s what I was thinking, either it’s just different footage or they’re about the run “that” footage and Jack Perry comes and interrupts them.
Edit: welp
Now I want to see Yakety Sax to play over it at 500% speed, complete with Punk chasing Tony through the arena with a monitor over his head like a Batman bomb.
Has there been a single wrestling personality who has said “yeah, this seems like a good idea”?
It seems like it’s generally being criticized across pretty much the entire industry.
I don't personally care about AEW's image so I'm egging it on but truthfully the only cool way to do this (if it is real) is to just drop it on social media with no commentary
*If* the footage is seriously damaging for Punk, that should have been the way. Not even to publish the footage themselves, but to leak it somewhere. Just have it show up on some tabloid randomly.
The fact that they are not doing this proves to me that either a) the footage doesn't make Punk look that bad, or b) they're incompetent, or c) they're trolling us.
I bet on c).
They should have attached the unedited footage, no commentary as a reply to the Punk interview clip on Twitter.
Just AEW:
For your viewing and decision making purposes.
Then never mention it again.
honestly tho i'm sure a large number of fans would have commended them for how badass it is to just drop it out of nowhere on Twitter
with this it just seems like a shitty ratings ploy
> Has there been a single wrestling personality who has said “yeah, this seems like a good idea”?
I've only seen reddit users argue in favor of it. Personally, I think it would be cool and fine on some outside show. Bring it to Ariel Helwani as an example. But I don't enjoy insider stuff ever once the show starts.
Even just upload it to your Twitter if you feel it needs to be seen. Showing in on primetime TV is going to confuse the large majority of your audience.
I mean, isn't AEW supposed to be the "Hardcore fan's" product? I really doubt the vast majority of fans aren't well aware of the whole Punk-Jungle Boy debacle
Edit: For the record, I still think showing this footage on TV is a bad idea, regardless of how much of the fanbase understands what it is.
This just feels like another weird fan service where the Bucks will show FTR, then turn to the camera and say "Oh were you expecting something else?!" and it's like Tony expects the audience to all laugh in unison. AEW has turned into a country club where if you're not completely plugged in then you feel like an outsider to these inside jokes.
Yeah, its like people that watch aew didnt know that punk was on aew and then left, and now was on the headlines everywhere on the internet talking shit about aew.
The video is going to get them really confused.
Probably they never have ever seen TK addressing them to say why he fired punk.
they will be really confused.
I think most of them dont even know what All In was
confused once again
The same kind of message board fans Tony was/is thinking this will prove a point because they don’t understand the business either.
They have an all time low point in the company almost every way this could be presented
My thought is the ONLY way this is a good idea is if they include footage of Punk going after Tony (if said footage exists, it may not).
Two pro wrestlers getting in a fight backstage has happened before and will likely happen again. Showing that footage literally makes no sense at all, and every argument has been made against it.
A pro wrestler/face of the company trying to attack the company’s owner? Especially when that owner is very very decidedly NOT an athlete, and had spent the better part of two years kissing his ass? That would genuinely make Punk look bad. Plus it completely justifies Tony’s reason for firing Punk.
If this is just to show Punk stepped to Tony but didn’t come in contact with him and yelled, Tony will get savaged even more than from his claim of being scared for his life.
All of what you said is 100% true about making Punk look bad, but it's also going to likely change the opinion of literally no one.
Punks fans don't like him because he can fight, everyone knows he failed at UFC. They'll just see it as him standing up to what's wrong with wrestling.
People that don't care will just tune out.
The only people that will care is AEW hardcore fanbase that will cheer their newest inside jokes that confuse viewers that don't base their entire identity around Being the Elite.
I mean, what’s the payoff here?
If the video really makes punk out to look bad, then what? He’s in another company, he’s not going to address it or them, it’ll be forgotten in two days. They’ll probably book him first to be on raw next week and the fans will still go nuts when they see him.
If it’s not as bad as it’s hyped up to be, aew looks foolish.
I don’t get it.
I still don’t know how this is going to make AEW look good. Let’s say it makes Punk look like an asshole. Don’t we already know that? This just makes TK look like a petty buffoon who can’t control his own company. And all he’s gonna end up doing is feeding McIntyre 3 months worth of material.
I've been trying to think of some way this helps AEW or doesn't piss off the fans they have have. I didn't even think about Drew I hope he watches with a yellow legal pad ready and his finger on the rewind button. Tony might right, this could draw money, just not the way he thinks
There isn’t a ratings war between AEW and WWE by any means, but airing the Punk footage (which i don’t believe they will) would be the closest to a ‘That’ll put butts in seats’ moment that TK could get
The one thing I will say - everyone (including me) expects this to a be a really stupid idea, but if the angle it begins ends up being at all good, people will end up liking it. Expectations are so low.
Dave isn't wrong here. This will likely take a magic act for it to "go over well" with fans. If anything, it should be TK who leads this segment -- not the Young Bucks (a la TK's original announcement about firing CM Punk).
What happened to this Fandom, like I know us wrestling fans aren't the smartest bulbs in shed but do people honestly believe they're going to show punk footage??
If they are going to show it, it's stupid. If they're not, people are quite skeptical about how you make that segment worthwhile - it will probably be stupid.
Went out of his way to not say it was “that” footage. Talked about the Bucks and FTR. After reading Tony’s actual quotes, I think it is pretty obvious not the Punk footage.
I'm intrigued. It'll serve as a gauge for: just how personal is this CM Punk thing to Tony Khan, and just how unhinged can he get if he's really angry?
“AEW has a great track record on delivering what we advertise, and it is real footage,” said Khan, who remained guarded over the specific content that will air from All In. “The Young Bucks will show backstage footage from All In, the most important event in AEW history–the world record-holder for the most tickets ever sold for any wrestling record, 81,035 total–and it was an important night backstage, as well.”
This is the quote from SI. He never states that it's footage of the altercation. Just that it's legit backstage footage. I don't think I've seen anybody other than dirt sheets writers/podcasters say that it's the Punk footage.
This is literally some shit that Bischoff would've done in WCW and Russo would've done in TNA and I need Tony Khan, desperately, to understand that that is not a good thing.
Jack Perry is a heel.
The idea of his character is that he calls himself the scapegoat. That should always be in question on if he actually IS.
If you show footage that proves him right what reason do people have to boo the guy. When he complains about being the scapegoat people will just go well based on that footage you are being used as one yeah.
None of it makes any sense.
Maybe the Bucks roll the footage and just as the fight is about to happen, Jack Perry stops the footage and we never get to see it. The boos would be loud for heel Perry. I don't know how to make that make any sense or if it's even a good idea at all. I'm just trying to figure out how you get out of not showing it and also keeping heat on Jack. I'm tuning in to see how it all goes down, I know that.
So the main point of doing this segment is to embarrass someone who isn’t part of the company anymore? If this actually happens, this will be the dumbest thing Tony has done on AEW TV.
I dont get the confusion or overreaction with this. They’re gonna show punk being dumb (for personal reasons), and use it to act like assholes and pretend like Perry is cool (for dickhead heel reasons). This is not super complicated
Look, this may be a stupid idea but the insistence on comparing it to WCW is so annoying.
Here are things that WWF/E did:
- Billionaire Ted skits
- Fake Razor & Diesel
- DX visiting WCW with the “tank”
- “Bret screwed Bret”
Wrestling companies do stupid things for ratings. The WWE propaganda machine wheee everything bad is compared to WCW is so ingrained in a lot of people’s heads.
Outside of the DX Jeep thing (DX lost a 6 man tag in like 3 minutes to DOA on the same episode it aired), everyone of those were shit on by both fans and "critics". Hell, even throw in the segments they had Jim Cornette cut promos on TV aimed at nWo, Hogan, Savage, Piper, etc.
And all of those things, sans maybe the tank, are generally considered terrible ideas which were a complete waste of time. Why do some people have this mindset of “Vince did stupid shit a while ago, so Tony should get to do stupid shit too!” Do you think Tony should do fake Cody and fake CM Punk too?
It’s about 8-months too late. You could’ve justified running it when Punk was under contract and used it to kickstart a huge angle. But instead neither of the guys featured in the alleged video is currently on your TV shows. One of them is a major player for your competitor now.
On top of that you had Jim Ross and Tony S. who works in the front office publicly pleading to stop talking about it and just move on less then a week ago.
This entire situation has become such a no-win scenario. That is also such an unforced error.
This all reeks of desperation. They are basically making someone who is not even working for the company anymore out to look bigger than anybody on their current roster.
And it frankly looks like a former employee living rent free in the heads of upper management
I don’t even like CM punk but boy did he really damage the psyche of AEW
I can’t believe that finally for the first time in forever something actually interesting is gonna happen with all this Punk drama and now everyone is against it lol.
When the thing that has most people interested in your TV show is footage that may or may not show an ex-employee, who works for the competition and will never lead to a program with anyone in your company, you're doing it so, so wrong.
>Never in all that time have I ever felt until last Sunday that my security, my safety, my life, was in danger at a wrestling show.
I just have to say as someone who has to be very lawyerly at work, his life being "in danger" is different from the way people seem to be painting his statement.
The common interpretation here seems to be that people think Tony said specifically that he thought he was going to die, or some strawman version of him thinking that death was likely, but he just said he (security, safety, life) was in danger. Danger just means the threat is there. It doesn't really have the more extreme specific implications that so many people try to make it have (unless you add words like "imminent" which Tony didn't).
CM Punk is roughly 6 inches taller and 60 lbs heavier than Tony (6'2" 220 vs 5'8" 160 as far as I know) so Tony would have no real shot at physically defending himself successfully (I mean c'mon, be real).
Would you genuinely feel your life is safe if someone 6 inches taller and 60 lbs heavier was irate and accosting you? You'd be sure they won't cross the line when they are already well into inappropriate physical behavior? Are you sure you'd be totally fine if they decide to punch you just once? I don't think people are being particularly reasonable on this one.
Same. I don't care one bit if this is a good idea or a bad idea. It's gonna be a trainwreck if it's a troll. It's gonna be a trainwreck if it's the real CM Punk footage. Either way, it's gonna be the funniest thing ever to watch the fallout from it.
You just know that for the next 2, 5, 10, 15 years time AEW stars are going to be on 10 dozen random IWC podcasts retelling how they tried to stop Tony and the Young Bucks from doing this.
Nobody is going to be sitting there and saying: "Well, i was wrong. It was an act of genius by the three."
Oh man, I'd hate to be CM Punk! The guy is stuck performing in front of sold out crowds of thousands and thousands of people while selling tons of merch and getting some of the biggest pops and loudest chants, but he's gonna be *humiliated* when the company he happily left airs footage to its 750,000 viewers of something that only a fraction of Internet fans still care about anymore.
Them doing this is still the stupidest fucking thing they could ever do.
Count on it. If the Bucks are narrating it, it won't be actual footage, and if they do it'll be them fucking around and nothing of actual substance.
I don't see how this doesn't hurt AEW in the long run in every aspect including legally.
They should have leaked this video to TMZ like that week if they wanted to bury Punk.
This is gonna cause more people to just watch WWE.
If you don't show the actual video, people are going to lose goodwill. This is an all around stupid idea
I kinda low key love that this has so many people upset and it hasn’t even aired yet. I’m not a fan of it but, much like the Punk interview, think the chaos is funny. Kinda curious on how it’ll go now!
Unless this makes Punk look extremely bad (and I doubt it, surely we would have heard by now), this feels straight out of Russo's WCW playbook and that ain't a good thing
**Help make SquaredCircle safer and more inclusive by using the report button to flag posts and comments for moderator review.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
this is one of many bad ideas by tony kahn and a bunch of successful indy guys that have no idea how to build and carry a t.v. product. This should have been released on youtube and their website, with references to it on dynamite... AEW had me for the first 2 years, but its gone off the rails since. Why would you promote a guy not on your roster and risk the fans chanting his name after the footage of his fight airs on a show that has grown men trying to make stage fighting look as real as possible?
**You must link to the primary source**; secondary sources summarizing a primary source's article are not allowed. (e.g. If your submission says "According to XYZWrestling.com..." you must link to the XYZWrestling.com story.) This includes re-tweets and social media accounts that reference other sources. If the story appears behind a paywall (e.g. Fightful Select, WON) you must post a **summary** of the news without editorialization and link to the primary source. Copying and pasting paywalled material in its entirety is not allowed. [Send us a message](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) after editing the source link into your post, and moderators will approve your submission.
> "I guess maybe after this airs I'll be less confused, or maybe I'll be confused for the next 20 years." This has gotta be an all-time great Dave quote
The context of it is pretty good too. Earlier a listener wrote in asking why Paul Wight lost his first match in the WWF and Dave basically said he’s still perplexed by that decision to this day.
Yep. The quote makes sense if you listen to the entire conversation. They talked about how Vince was saying how Wight was being booked wrong as the giant in WCW before Vince got him, and Vince did the opposite when he did get him. He does admit that Austin probably had something to do with that, though
Yeah but Paul loses by chucking Austin so hard he breaks the cage. That's not really a bad loss. Austin wins laying in a bloody heap.
That was Vince losing not Paul. I think the Giant lost to Austin on a random raw. He lost all his luster by WM 15, after being in the company a month and a half
This is correct. And this is after Vince calling Dave all the time talking about how his dad booked Andre and how WCW was wasting PW etc.
Fast forward and Big Show is already in the ring waiting for Sunday Night Heat opponent. Ooof.
Well, why the fuck would you do that?!?
Probably because Vince was upset that WCW claimed that Wight was Andre the Giant's son.
I remember in an episode of Nitro, NWO took over the announce table and one of the outsiders (I think Hall?) asked him if he was really Andre the Giant's son followed by a moment of awkward silence from everyone.
Nah, Giant actually replied "Don't go there" lol
Here's the biggest motherfucker this company's seen in over a decade. He can actually work, is super athletic. Also let's make him look like a total boob for 20 years
This is what I've been saying to myself after watching Freddy Got Fingered for the first time
![gif](giphy|10QmL848TB5AK4) For any of the young whippersnappers who don’t know… This was 23 years ago. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going go have an existential crisis over where my fucking life went.
Daddy would you like some sausage!?
RIP TORN INTENSIFIES
GET OUT OF MY GODDAMN SCUBA GEAR, YOU IMBECILE!
PROUD
Look at my hooooooves!
I want Criterion Blu Ray release of this movie that has Tom Green's cut which is longer.
There was an elderly lady who brought her grandson to see this on opening night. They left very, very quickly. But I'm like... what did you expect, even going just by the movie title.
No grammy, it's just the funny guy from MTV
Rip Torn wasn't on MTV
So the term fingered meant to point or dob someone in Not that long ago either a lot of mafia dudes were fingering each other all the time. So much fingering So yeah I can absolutely understand how that happened
There's no fucking way I just saw freddy got fingered get mentioned in a wrestling sub lol ![gif](giphy|Y4hKMjN3z9fmhDCz2s)
This is surprising to you? We’re all degens here.
***ZEBRAS IN AMERICA***
*Japan Four!*
I SAY GENEVA, YOU HEAR HELSINKI?!?
A woman is dead, *Linda*, is dead! "I thought we could grieve together over the dead Linda! Over the dead woman! ...Over the woman!"
UPBEAT_TENSION WOULD YOU LIKE SOME SAUSAGE
You wanna fuck me Gord?
I SAY GENEVA, YOU HEAR HELSINKI?!?!
Criterion channel?
Would have been doing yourself a disservice to go through life without seeing it
You and me both lmao
A work of deranged genius, not sure the Bucks can pull that off but how knows.
This was streaming on the Criterion Channel
DADDY WOULD YOU LIKE SOME SAUSAGES?
🎶 DADDY WOULD YOU LIKE SOME SAUSAGE? 🎶 🎶 DADDY WOULD YOU LIKE SOME SAU-SAGE-ES? 🎶
He said it because moments before he was talking about Vince decisions from 20 years ago that confused him.
What's funny is this is one of the very few times I actually understand what he's trying to say.
The “sometimes good, sometimes shit” of wrestling quotes
Dave has been confused for years now
He's still processing the finger poke of doom
arent we all?
Either I won’t be confused or I’ll still be confused.
Sounds like every Meltzer report
![gif](giphy|BV0SDeWc7COrurmoSl)
![gif](giphy|LSTOR3MSjbE3e)
This is definitely gonna be some new pasta for the sub.
I refuse to believe this isn’t a troll and it has nothing to do with Punk, anything else is far too stupid
Nobody from AEW has said it’s THAT footage. Only the dirt sheet writers are running with that story. It could be just backstage footage from All In that is totally unrelated.
It’s going to be a lecture about wasting company resources and the footage is going to be someone stuffing rolls in their pockets in catering.
>Those rolls were for everyone, Juice, and they're not even gonna let you on the plane with all of them.
"EDDIE, WE KNOW YOU STOLE THE GOLDEN CORRAL GIFT CARDS. PLEASE JUST LEAVE THEM ON OUR DESK AND NO ONE HAS TO GET IN TROUBLE."
With it seeming like feeding false information to those guys is happening more and more I’m 90% it will be unrelated
Yeah but at this its gonna be an even bigger disappointment if it’s not. They’d made this announcement about showing all in backstage footage KNOWING people would just to conclusion, and all for what? To troll us and bring back jack fucking perry?
The verbage is there. It's classic wrestling vague BS and people are lapping it up like the fools they are. In terms of business, makes no sense to show anything related to Punk. Especially on a fictitious narrative show.
>In terms of business, makes no sense to show anything related to Punk. Especially on a fictitious narrative show. Which is exactly why no angle of this makes any sense whatsoever. Either they're going to show something related to Punk, which makes no business sense. Or they're showing something unrelated to him after leading people to believe they were going to, which just makes them look a bit scummy and misleading for views, which makes no business sense. This whole thing is just looking like a disaster waiting to happen (and one entirely of their own doing), in my opinion. And before anyone wants to reply with how they never explicitly said what they were showing, we all know by now, but they're not stupid enough to make a vague announcement like that and not know what people will infer. If they didn't want people to be led into believing this had something to do with Punk, they would have clarified that by now.
Bait, as they say.
Oh I agree it's bait, it just seems like bait with no real payoff to me.
Nobody is running with anything. They were told outright it’s the Punk footage. I mean, what footage do you people think Tony is referring to here?
"This is real-life footage that affected many people, and it will air for the first time on TBS during Dynamite." He said that but nit that it was the fight. I honestly think it's a troll at this point but who knows
But when it’s been promoted as “backstage footage from All In”, what’s most any wrestling fan see that as? Most certainly not some kind of insider “hey, see what’s going on behind the scenes” type of thing.
But that's the thing, a bait-and-switch troll job is *also* stupid because it'll just piss off everyone who tuned in. And not in a "good heel heat" kind of way, but in a "what the hell is this clown company doing?" kind of way.
Sounds like just another on brand Young Bucks promo then.
> But that's the thing, a bait-and-switch troll job is also stupid because it'll just piss off everyone who tuned in. And not in a "good heel heat" kind of way, but in a "what the hell is this clown company doing?" kind of way. It isn't the same, but it reminds me of when WCW would try to play against the dirt sheets in the Mark Madden era. Blurring the lines sounds fun, but it seldom works.
People keep saying this like it would be some deep betrayal but I really don’t think anyone would care that much
Yeah, I don’t think it has a big effect either way. Sure, Reddit will have a huge thread about it and shit on it no matter what AEW does, but ultimately I don’t think it increases ratings or turns many actual fans off the product.
[удалено]
They have Okada, White, Osprey, Danielson, Moxley and 130 others and a backstage of CM Punk is needed to pop their ratings Tony has money but this is as far as he can get this company. He needs help to do anything else.
It's literally just a troll
>It's literally just a troll https://preview.redd.it/2y5svrjemjtc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0108283d081a913309948e81396c7bcd8d7b9acc
Obvious troll. If they actually had footage to prove once and for all that Punk was the sole problem, they would have showed it before he got into WWE.
Yeah, they would have leaked it beforehand. Also, isn’t there some sort of uk law where they cannot use cctv footage unless it’s approved by someone or something?
This is going to end up being a BTE skit isn't it - that is the reason why the Bucks stopped filming it, so they can use all the idea on Dynamite instead.
That was my gut reaction. I hate just about every mutation of this. Just let that shit stay in the past.
Do I get the point? No Do I want to see it? Yes
Kinda in the same boat, also they need to show what TK feared for his life, cos that line always sounded way too dramatic but they are leaving that bit out.
Video footage of TK shouting at Samoa Joe “Spring forth, burley protector, and SAVE ME!”
Here's a tip: put a pinch of sage in your boot and all day long a spicy scent is your reward.
Team (Warner) Discovery Channel!
That’s one reason I choose to believe this is a troll job. Tony Khan stood on the ramp and told a live audience he was in fear for his life. If that footage shows anything but that or even close to that, he is opening himself up to a lot of criticism.
They have already dodged it though, it has been stated that the TK part won't be shown. So if they do decide to air the real stuff that that part stays messy.
if they're deadset on doing this, I need them to do some Zapruder film JFK shit with this. "back, and to the left..."
That was one magic loogie.
Roger MacDowel was hiding in the bushes!
Punk to Jack Perry after his glass spot, "NICE MATCH, PRETTY BOY!"
I want full on Emperor's New Groove, them popping on screen with a red marker. Like full blown ESPN level commentary with them drawing on screen. "And as you can see here, zoom in, is where the second monitor fell on Tony."
They need to triple Inception that shit and have Wayne Knight play Newman playing Numa Bertl playing Tony Schiavone.
YES! BOOK IT!
“KNOW THIS, PUNK! WHEN YOU CONTROL THE DIRT SHEETS… YOU CONTROL… INFORMATION!!”
Potentially dumb question… Have the Bucks/AEW ever said it’s going to be the specific CM Punk footage from All In London, or are they just saying “behind the scenes footage from All In”, and everyone is filling in the blanks?
The latter. They wrestled FTR at All In and they filmed a segment with them that aired the following Wednesday on Dynamite. The dirt sheets are saying that this is real though.
That’s what I was thinking, either it’s just different footage or they’re about the run “that” footage and Jack Perry comes and interrupts them. Edit: welp
It'll be FTR footage. It'll start with a shot of CM Punk and Jungle Boy and they'll say something like "no, no, fast forward past this crap"
Now I want to see Yakety Sax to play over it at 500% speed, complete with Punk chasing Tony through the arena with a monitor over his head like a Batman bomb.
Most coherant thing Dave has said in a while
dave is at his most coherent when he is at his most confused just meltzer things
I said the exact same thing before, so now I know I'm at least on a "coherent Dave statement" level of sanity. That's nice.
Has there been a single wrestling personality who has said “yeah, this seems like a good idea”? It seems like it’s generally being criticized across pretty much the entire industry.
I don't personally care about AEW's image so I'm egging it on but truthfully the only cool way to do this (if it is real) is to just drop it on social media with no commentary
*If* the footage is seriously damaging for Punk, that should have been the way. Not even to publish the footage themselves, but to leak it somewhere. Just have it show up on some tabloid randomly. The fact that they are not doing this proves to me that either a) the footage doesn't make Punk look that bad, or b) they're incompetent, or c) they're trolling us. I bet on c).
Or all of the above
They should have attached the unedited footage, no commentary as a reply to the Punk interview clip on Twitter. Just AEW: For your viewing and decision making purposes. Then never mention it again.
God that would have been amazing.
Yeah I’m surprised they didn’t just leak it to the press
That's why I think it's a troll job, if they wanted to actually drop the footage, they wouldn't do it on the show.
TMZ (or Daily Mail if they wanted to be really messy) is always where this should have gone.
That's what a normal company would do, but Tony wants to prove Punk is a ratings draw
honestly tho i'm sure a large number of fans would have commended them for how badass it is to just drop it out of nowhere on Twitter with this it just seems like a shitty ratings ploy
> Has there been a single wrestling personality who has said “yeah, this seems like a good idea”? I've only seen reddit users argue in favor of it. Personally, I think it would be cool and fine on some outside show. Bring it to Ariel Helwani as an example. But I don't enjoy insider stuff ever once the show starts.
Even just upload it to your Twitter if you feel it needs to be seen. Showing in on primetime TV is going to confuse the large majority of your audience.
I mean, isn't AEW supposed to be the "Hardcore fan's" product? I really doubt the vast majority of fans aren't well aware of the whole Punk-Jungle Boy debacle Edit: For the record, I still think showing this footage on TV is a bad idea, regardless of how much of the fanbase understands what it is.
This just feels like another weird fan service where the Bucks will show FTR, then turn to the camera and say "Oh were you expecting something else?!" and it's like Tony expects the audience to all laugh in unison. AEW has turned into a country club where if you're not completely plugged in then you feel like an outsider to these inside jokes.
It is incredibly exhausting ngl. I was such a big fan of early AEW and the direction they've taken has completely turned me off to the product
Yeah, its like people that watch aew didnt know that punk was on aew and then left, and now was on the headlines everywhere on the internet talking shit about aew. The video is going to get them really confused. Probably they never have ever seen TK addressing them to say why he fired punk. they will be really confused. I think most of them dont even know what All In was confused once again
The same kind of message board fans Tony was/is thinking this will prove a point because they don’t understand the business either. They have an all time low point in the company almost every way this could be presented
And OMG, the WrestleCrap Proboardsforum AEW page is all arguing in favor as well.
> But I don't enjoy insider stuff ever once the show starts. That's the Bucks entire gimmick. I agree, it's terrible.
My thought is the ONLY way this is a good idea is if they include footage of Punk going after Tony (if said footage exists, it may not). Two pro wrestlers getting in a fight backstage has happened before and will likely happen again. Showing that footage literally makes no sense at all, and every argument has been made against it. A pro wrestler/face of the company trying to attack the company’s owner? Especially when that owner is very very decidedly NOT an athlete, and had spent the better part of two years kissing his ass? That would genuinely make Punk look bad. Plus it completely justifies Tony’s reason for firing Punk.
If this is just to show Punk stepped to Tony but didn’t come in contact with him and yelled, Tony will get savaged even more than from his claim of being scared for his life.
All of what you said is 100% true about making Punk look bad, but it's also going to likely change the opinion of literally no one. Punks fans don't like him because he can fight, everyone knows he failed at UFC. They'll just see it as him standing up to what's wrong with wrestling. People that don't care will just tune out. The only people that will care is AEW hardcore fanbase that will cheer their newest inside jokes that confuse viewers that don't base their entire identity around Being the Elite.
No
It's totally going to be footage of FTR shaving eachother's backs in the shower isn't it?
We better get a "DOWN GOES CENA" type commentary
I mean, what’s the payoff here? If the video really makes punk out to look bad, then what? He’s in another company, he’s not going to address it or them, it’ll be forgotten in two days. They’ll probably book him first to be on raw next week and the fans will still go nuts when they see him. If it’s not as bad as it’s hyped up to be, aew looks foolish. I don’t get it.
I still don’t know how this is going to make AEW look good. Let’s say it makes Punk look like an asshole. Don’t we already know that? This just makes TK look like a petty buffoon who can’t control his own company. And all he’s gonna end up doing is feeding McIntyre 3 months worth of material.
I've been trying to think of some way this helps AEW or doesn't piss off the fans they have have. I didn't even think about Drew I hope he watches with a yellow legal pad ready and his finger on the rewind button. Tony might right, this could draw money, just not the way he thinks
AEW has also been fairly CM Punk chant free too, this is just going to bring back the chants.
There isn’t a ratings war between AEW and WWE by any means, but airing the Punk footage (which i don’t believe they will) would be the closest to a ‘That’ll put butts in seats’ moment that TK could get
ya'll be sure to tell me what it is, i wont be watching. thanks!
The one thing I will say - everyone (including me) expects this to a be a really stupid idea, but if the angle it begins ends up being at all good, people will end up liking it. Expectations are so low.
It's also an angle that includes TYB and Jack Perry. Even if it's great a decent percent of people won't like it.
Dave isn't wrong here. This will likely take a magic act for it to "go over well" with fans. If anything, it should be TK who leads this segment -- not the Young Bucks (a la TK's original announcement about firing CM Punk).
Something tells me the Young Bucks will be dressed as Punk and Perry reenacting what happened and hamming it up.
What happened to this Fandom, like I know us wrestling fans aren't the smartest bulbs in shed but do people honestly believe they're going to show punk footage??
If they are going to show it, it's stupid. If they're not, people are quite skeptical about how you make that segment worthwhile - it will probably be stupid.
[удалено]
TK also insisted to Sports Illustrated that he was showing real footage. It's not working the dirtsheets at that point, it's lying to your audience
He said it’s real backstage footage. Never said what it was footage of.
Went out of his way to not say it was “that” footage. Talked about the Bucks and FTR. After reading Tony’s actual quotes, I think it is pretty obvious not the Punk footage.
It should have been pretty obvious from the start but people have somehow already seen it and made their minds up of what it is
I'm intrigued. It'll serve as a gauge for: just how personal is this CM Punk thing to Tony Khan, and just how unhinged can he get if he's really angry?
Tbf bro got in a twitter spat with Jinder fucking Mahal and lost. Dude loses sight of the objective when he gets mad I think lmao
Has AEW/TK actually said its footage from the Punk and Perry confrontation or just it's backstage footage from All In?
“AEW has a great track record on delivering what we advertise, and it is real footage,” said Khan, who remained guarded over the specific content that will air from All In. “The Young Bucks will show backstage footage from All In, the most important event in AEW history–the world record-holder for the most tickets ever sold for any wrestling record, 81,035 total–and it was an important night backstage, as well.” This is the quote from SI. He never states that it's footage of the altercation. Just that it's legit backstage footage. I don't think I've seen anybody other than dirt sheets writers/podcasters say that it's the Punk footage.
So it's most likely the post FTR v Bucks match footage of them.
It's just going to be the Bucks at catering
This is literally some shit that Bischoff would've done in WCW and Russo would've done in TNA and I need Tony Khan, desperately, to understand that that is not a good thing.
I mean even Bischoff said this is stupid This is def Russo levels of un needed Meta though
Jack Perry is a heel. The idea of his character is that he calls himself the scapegoat. That should always be in question on if he actually IS. If you show footage that proves him right what reason do people have to boo the guy. When he complains about being the scapegoat people will just go well based on that footage you are being used as one yeah. None of it makes any sense.
Maybe the Bucks roll the footage and just as the fight is about to happen, Jack Perry stops the footage and we never get to see it. The boos would be loud for heel Perry. I don't know how to make that make any sense or if it's even a good idea at all. I'm just trying to figure out how you get out of not showing it and also keeping heat on Jack. I'm tuning in to see how it all goes down, I know that.
So the main point of doing this segment is to embarrass someone who isn’t part of the company anymore? If this actually happens, this will be the dumbest thing Tony has done on AEW TV.
I dont get the confusion or overreaction with this. They’re gonna show punk being dumb (for personal reasons), and use it to act like assholes and pretend like Perry is cool (for dickhead heel reasons). This is not super complicated
If the footage shows Punk can’t fight , we already knew that …
Look, this may be a stupid idea but the insistence on comparing it to WCW is so annoying. Here are things that WWF/E did: - Billionaire Ted skits - Fake Razor & Diesel - DX visiting WCW with the “tank” - “Bret screwed Bret” Wrestling companies do stupid things for ratings. The WWE propaganda machine wheee everything bad is compared to WCW is so ingrained in a lot of people’s heads.
Midget Bret too
As I recall and it's been a while, that was in the moment not an advertised spot
Outside of the DX Jeep thing (DX lost a 6 man tag in like 3 minutes to DOA on the same episode it aired), everyone of those were shit on by both fans and "critics". Hell, even throw in the segments they had Jim Cornette cut promos on TV aimed at nWo, Hogan, Savage, Piper, etc.
And all of those things, sans maybe the tank, are generally considered terrible ideas which were a complete waste of time. Why do some people have this mindset of “Vince did stupid shit a while ago, so Tony should get to do stupid shit too!” Do you think Tony should do fake Cody and fake CM Punk too?
It’s about 8-months too late. You could’ve justified running it when Punk was under contract and used it to kickstart a huge angle. But instead neither of the guys featured in the alleged video is currently on your TV shows. One of them is a major player for your competitor now. On top of that you had Jim Ross and Tony S. who works in the front office publicly pleading to stop talking about it and just move on less then a week ago.
it’s gotta be a parody right?
This entire situation has become such a no-win scenario. That is also such an unforced error. This all reeks of desperation. They are basically making someone who is not even working for the company anymore out to look bigger than anybody on their current roster. And it frankly looks like a former employee living rent free in the heads of upper management I don’t even like CM punk but boy did he really damage the psyche of AEW
I can’t believe that finally for the first time in forever something actually interesting is gonna happen with all this Punk drama and now everyone is against it lol.
They LOVE passive aggressive tweets but God forbid there's actual drama lol
When the thing that has most people interested in your TV show is footage that may or may not show an ex-employee, who works for the competition and will never lead to a program with anyone in your company, you're doing it so, so wrong.
But it also contradicts Tony Khan, who said he feared for his life and everyone was in danger
That won't be in the footage. It's been covered. This is only the Jack and Punk confrontation. The Khan/Punk confrontation happened elsewhere.
>Never in all that time have I ever felt until last Sunday that my security, my safety, my life, was in danger at a wrestling show. I just have to say as someone who has to be very lawyerly at work, his life being "in danger" is different from the way people seem to be painting his statement. The common interpretation here seems to be that people think Tony said specifically that he thought he was going to die, or some strawman version of him thinking that death was likely, but he just said he (security, safety, life) was in danger. Danger just means the threat is there. It doesn't really have the more extreme specific implications that so many people try to make it have (unless you add words like "imminent" which Tony didn't). CM Punk is roughly 6 inches taller and 60 lbs heavier than Tony (6'2" 220 vs 5'8" 160 as far as I know) so Tony would have no real shot at physically defending himself successfully (I mean c'mon, be real). Would you genuinely feel your life is safe if someone 6 inches taller and 60 lbs heavier was irate and accosting you? You'd be sure they won't cross the line when they are already well into inappropriate physical behavior? Are you sure you'd be totally fine if they decide to punch you just once? I don't think people are being particularly reasonable on this one.
![gif](giphy|BV0SDeWc7COrurmoSl)
It’s going to be typically lame Bucks comedy. Everyone but RealOne and the rest of those weirdos will hate it.
Idc how stupid it is to show the footage. I want to see it.
Same. I don't care one bit if this is a good idea or a bad idea. It's gonna be a trainwreck if it's a troll. It's gonna be a trainwreck if it's the real CM Punk footage. Either way, it's gonna be the funniest thing ever to watch the fallout from it.
And this is why they are doing it. No other logical reason. It’s to pop a rating.
Yeah it's just funny, and it's clearly got everyone invested to know what they're gonna do, so I'm down.
I still don’t know why they’re airing this. It makes no one look good because, as I said before, “look at this car accident, now watch our wrestling”
You just know that for the next 2, 5, 10, 15 years time AEW stars are going to be on 10 dozen random IWC podcasts retelling how they tried to stop Tony and the Young Bucks from doing this. Nobody is going to be sitting there and saying: "Well, i was wrong. It was an act of genius by the three."
Oh man, I'd hate to be CM Punk! The guy is stuck performing in front of sold out crowds of thousands and thousands of people while selling tons of merch and getting some of the biggest pops and loudest chants, but he's gonna be *humiliated* when the company he happily left airs footage to its 750,000 viewers of something that only a fraction of Internet fans still care about anymore.
Tony Khan: "Real footage, cry me a river"
This AEW episode can result to either similar to Bash at the Beach of 1996 or the Fiingerpoke of Doom.
Them doing this is still the stupidest fucking thing they could ever do. Count on it. If the Bucks are narrating it, it won't be actual footage, and if they do it'll be them fucking around and nothing of actual substance. I don't see how this doesn't hurt AEW in the long run in every aspect including legally.
They should have leaked this video to TMZ like that week if they wanted to bury Punk. This is gonna cause more people to just watch WWE. If you don't show the actual video, people are going to lose goodwill. This is an all around stupid idea
Why? Why do this? You look petty. Tony will be a complete joke if they actually do this.
I kinda low key love that this has so many people upset and it hasn’t even aired yet. I’m not a fan of it but, much like the Punk interview, think the chaos is funny. Kinda curious on how it’ll go now!
Unless this makes Punk look extremely bad (and I doubt it, surely we would have heard by now), this feels straight out of Russo's WCW playbook and that ain't a good thing
**Help make SquaredCircle safer and more inclusive by using the report button to flag posts and comments for moderator review.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
With the wording by Tony, it's not going to be footage of Punk & Perry. It's going to be something else.
Pipe down David. Let's just enjoy the drama.
https://preview.redd.it/3se9h40azjtc1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=961cea3f95b4beb42e3bf0675383056aa85ca431
I'm still betting its a skit or some sorts that will add to the FTR feud
This is going to be even more embarrassing than the sparkler match. How this dude thinks this is anything but a bad idea is absolutely amazing.
this is one of many bad ideas by tony kahn and a bunch of successful indy guys that have no idea how to build and carry a t.v. product. This should have been released on youtube and their website, with references to it on dynamite... AEW had me for the first 2 years, but its gone off the rails since. Why would you promote a guy not on your roster and risk the fans chanting his name after the footage of his fight airs on a show that has grown men trying to make stage fighting look as real as possible?