CM Punk chat

[SuperBacon]

8 minutes ago, Chili said:

Also the Colt bit about squashing beefs but then lawyering up when Cabana broached it.

He's absolutely correct on this. If I'd had that kind of situation with someone there is zero chance I'd talk to them without it being recorded/someone present.

"Sorry about all that Phil, let's have a muffin" 

Do one Colt.

[Chili]

8 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

He's absolutely correct on this. If I'd had that kind of situation with someone there is zero chance I'd talk to them without it being recorded/someone present.

"Sorry about all that Phil, let's have a muffin" 

Do one Colt.

Agreed, but you can't be all 'talk to me, squash a beef' in a podcast and then drop that pearler. But then again you can, he's a millionaire grouch and I'm just a grouch.

[seph]

4 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Yeah that stood out to me too. Him chatting about "houses" made him sound a bit stuck in the past. AEW is essentially a TV company, not an old school wrestling promotion. Their still a young company and their entire business plan is built towards getting a big pay day in the next round of media rights as that's where the money is. They've been incredibly open about this. 

And he left them to join a company that made its all-time most profitable year when not a single soul bought a ticket to attend.

[Cannibal Man]

5 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

If he was as smart as he thinks he is he would air all his grievances through Meltzer, get him to say "Sources close to the situation have told me he only choked Jack Perry a little bit" for example and then he would have some deniability.

I dunno I think I like that whether he's right or wrong he's gone direct rather than let fan circles pull apart a reheated Meltzer report. Him going public and saying everything from his POV just sort of dares the other side to be as direct rather than letting it turn into more and more whispery bollocks. I doubt that'll happen but it'd certainly be nice for a change.

[LaGoosh]

9 minutes ago, Cannibal Man said:

I dunno I think I like that whether he's right or wrong he's gone direct rather than let fan circles pull apart a reheated Meltzer report. Him going public and saying everything from his POV just sort of dares the other side to be as direct rather than letting it turn into more and more whispery bollocks. I doubt that'll happen but it'd certainly be nice for a change.

Firstly, Punk has done plenty of leaking to dirtsheets of his own - he's not innocent on that front. Secondly, I think everyone in AEW has been desperate to move on from the entire thing. No one from that side has said anything publicly about it whatsoever which is the professional and sensible thing to do, them bringing it back up again doesn't help anything at all. 

[TheScarlettChad]

1 hour ago, Chili said:

Agreed, but you can't be all 'talk to me, squash a beef' in a podcast and then drop that pearler. But then again you can, he's a millionaire grouch and I'm just a grouch.

They were best friends for almost twenty years. I'd imagine that falling out hurt way more than whatever The Bucks did to him.

[air_raid]

6 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Him chatting about "houses" made him sound a bit stuck in the past. AEW is essentially a TV company, not an old school wrestling promotion.

WCW was basically the same in this respect for most of it's "best" years. People whine about how many more tickets they could have sold if they'd done Hogan vs Goldberg in the Georgia Dome with more than three days build but they gave far more of a shit about ratings and thus ad revenues, PPV buy rates, licensing and sponsorship than people actually buying a ticket.

1 hour ago, seph said:

And he left them to join a company that made its all-time most profitable year when not a single soul bought a ticket to attend.

If only WCW had managed this.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

44 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

, I think everyone in AEW has been desperate to move on from the entire thing. No one from that side has said anything publicly about it whatsoever which is the professional and sensible thing to do, them bringing it back up again doesn't help anything at all. 

I think you are half right and all of that definitely applies. As well as that though they don't want to advertise his new WWE run, which is also sensible on their part. No one came out of the whole Punk/Perry farago well but AEW have probably come out with the most dignity. 

[The Gaffer]

On the drawing houses comment, the aberration of making your all time most profitable year in your (checks notes) second year in operation aside - when you have an enormous amount of goodwill and less overheads than you'll ever have, when people are happy to coast at home watching you coast in an empty arena - AEW should be concerned about making houses.

If that's some weird old school view then I must be really out of touch too, because the counterargument that they're a TV company seems like a bit of a free pass to me. Not only is your house a major part of your television presentation, it's also...I don't know. I kinda want my major wrestling organisations to strive to have big houses. Even if the business has changed yadda yadda. It's an odd thing people are picking up on, of all the things Punk said in that interview. 

Anyway, I thought he came off well for the most part. I'm definitely in the camp that's willing to throw in on his side of the story within reason, but I think at this stage his current tenure in the WWE will be the true "Are my the arsehole?" litmus test for him because regardless of what you make of the whole situation, there's a sort of reading of it now that he's attempted to justify in public that cancels out that initial "It's not WWE! I've returned to wrestling!" honeymoon period. 

I won't go into the reasoning because it basically skirts complete conjecture on two company's corporate cultures but a good way of looking at it is that it actually makes sense that he's back in WWE now whereas when he first came back it felt almost like a hollow satire from a decision making point of view.

People hinted at this back at the Survivor Series and they had the right idea, I think. Punk's narcissism and ego probably need him to be Da Locker Room Leader in the biggest game in town. And they also need to be reined in slightly by a more corporate entity. With all that on the table, Vince gone and him seemingly being on good terms with Triple H, really the way should be clear for him to have a nice final run into semi - retirement.

I know WWE's never that straightforward but the conditions are optimal on their part now. It'll reflect really well on his legacy and how he handled his exit from AEW if things go well for him from here. If not...well..."Are my the arsehole" and we'll get another 147 (happy maximum break page!) decent pages out of this yet. 

Edited April 2 by The Gaffer
Added a shit snooker joke.

[King Pitcos]

This was great. CM Punk is such a narcissistic, hypocritical dickhead and I love it. He’s proper had to swallow his pride about WWE. Criticising some AEW wrestler for pandering to Dem Wans in a promo, while simultaneously admitting his “I left professional wrestling in 2005” rubbish was him doing the same thing, then trying to split hairs about how when he does it it’s magic. And his Phil Hardman act is always hilarious.

The highlight though was him casually discussing how Tony Khan is a clown and AEW isn’t a real business - both obvious points that anyone who follows wrestling has known for years, but it was something of an open secret before. Nobody from there has ever come out and said it outright. It must be absolutely devastating for Tiny to hear one of his heroes saying that in public. I bet he wasn’t pumping his fists and chanting “CM Punk” while watching this. 

Punk made millions being the favourite of Dem Wans, that was his core base, and he’s not only split that audience in two over the last year and a half, he’s been actively alienating the wans who chose the Young Bucks over him. There are people who used to see him as their hero who now despise him, and there are people with semen-covered ROH DVD collections who can’t stand Colt Cabana and the Jacksons anymore. Punk’s probably responsible for Meltzer’s subscriber base finally falling too low to sustain print editions of the fanzine.

I suspect he’s too fragile and broken to ever do much in the ring again, but ice cream Phil’s return to the major league is already worth it just for this grand display of shithousery. I suppose his next Helwani interview won’t be until he’s fallen out with everyone in WWE again.

Happy WrestleMania week!

[Devon Malcolm]

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, The Gaffer said:

On the drawing houses comment, the aberration of making your all time most profitable year in your (checks notes) second year in operation aside - when you have an enormous amount of goodwill and less overheads than you'll ever have, when people are happy to coast at home watching you coast in an empty arena - AEW should be concerned about making houses.

Someone else is going to come along shortly and point out that as TKs hobby funded by dad, it doesn’t really need to make a profit. They’re wrong, but that’s what they think.

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 hour ago, The Gaffer said:

On the drawing houses comment, the aberration of making your all time most profitable year in your (checks notes) second year in operation aside - when you have an enormous amount of goodwill and less overheads than you'll ever have, when people are happy to coast at home watching you coast in an empty arena - AEW should be concerned about making houses.

If that's some weird old school view then I must be really out of touch too, because the counterargument that they're a TV company seems like a bit of a free pass to me. Not only is your house a major part of your television presentation, it's also...I don't know. I kinda want my major wrestling organisations to strive to have big houses. Even if the business has changed yadda yadda. It's an odd thing people are picking up on, of all the things Punk said in that interview. 

Raw was filmed in some tiny venues in the early days. Pre-pandemic they were half filling 15,000 arenas at best. The talk of how great WWE are on a weekly basis is a new phenomenon mainly born from the tribal discourse on social media. That’s not a knock at the success, getting 15k for a regular TV taping (as they did last night) is phenomenal knowing how boring it is to watch a TV taping over a house show or PPV/PLE. 
 

AEW shot themselves in the foot by being successful from the get go and then booking larger arenas than they actually needed when the momentum of novelty wore off. But they already sold more tickets within their first few shows than TNA ever have for a live event.
 

The booking of the venues is done normally far in advance and usually they will have multiple dates locked in. We’re also in a climate where AEW can’t run the same venues WWE do (in certain markets due to exclusivity), and Tony K has said before the cost of a large arena compared to mid is fairly similar so they probably banked on go big and hope you sell more. I hope they are already planning to move to smaller venues for TV, but I don’t believe for a second they don’t want to fill the venues, I think they haven’t appealed to the fair weather wrestling fan in the way WWE can.

Edited April 2 by Hannibal Scorch

[DavidB6937]

You have to believe the upturn in quality in WWE and consistency has meant a lot of fans who may have abandoned ship for AEW haven't. Its very difficult to say how much crossover there is but people only have so much money. And if there's a choice it'd be a lot easier if one of them was shit. But with both delivering hot products right now it's probably not surprising the bigger name would win out in many areas.

[The Gaffer]

10 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Raw was filmed in some tiny venues in the early days. Pre-pandemic they were half filling 15,000 arenas at best. The talk of how great WWE are on a weekly basis is a new phenomenon mainly born from the tribal discourse on social media. That’s not a knock at the success.

It may not be, but it sounds like one. 

I think down here on the ground floor most of us would attribute the talk of how great WWE are on a weekly basis to the fact that the product itself has improved. I'm not sure what bringing up their past ticket sales have to do with anything either. 

I agree with the rest of it. They started hot out of the gates and in many ways it set unrealistic expectations. I personally think 4,000 - 5,000 for your weekly TV is perfectly fine for the number two promotion. They'd definitely love to do bigger houses and they'd be mad if they didn't want to. But it probably needs to be more of a focus for them, a focus which is probably watered down by having a decent line of credit and what at times feels like a very "We just do great matches for the people who know their shit already" ethos. 

Consequentially Brian Danielson's probably going to have to come under fire for some of that sooner or later. I know he's not the boss, but he has a huge hand in the booking by virtually all accounts and the perceived downturn has been under his tenure. Brian Danielson's become just another guy on the roster - quite happily - under his own watch. 

Edited April 2 by The Gaffer