# CM Punk reportedly wanted an “astronomical amount of money" to work for AEW



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

_"Despite not having wrestled a match since early 2014, CM Punk still continues to be one of the most popular entities in the business. Every now and then, a report or a rumor about Punk’s in-ring return makes rounds on the internet.

However, the closest Punk came to a WWE/pro-wrestling return was his stint on WWE Backstage. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled late last month.

Konnan revealed on Keepin’ It 100 podcast that while he was negotiating with AEW, he got to learn a few details about why the company couldn’t sign CM Punk.

The former WCW Superstar revealed that CM was asking an “astronomical amount of money” to work for AEW. Although the company wanted to work with the former WWE Champion, his demands couldn’t be met and the deal fell through._



> _'I do remember when you know, I was negotiating with AEW — they were telling me about him. They were telling me that he was asking for like an astronomical amount of money. That they really wanted to work with him.'_


_Punk’s inclusion on WWE Backstage couldn’t help the show with their poor ratings. However, Punk was reportedly getting paid a good amount of money to make appearances on the show.

Now that WWE Backstage has been canceled, it will be interesting to see where Punk goes to next. 

It should be noted that during a Reddit AMA segment back in October, CM Punk was asked about coming back to WWE. Punk explained that it would "have to be a very big bag" in order for him to return. Presumably, he was talking about a large amount of dollars.

Back in March, Dave Meltzer explained that Vince McMahon views CM Punk as the "one man I just can’t do business with." But for what it's worth, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon have expressed interest in working with both CM Punk and his wife, A.J. Lee, again."_


CM Punk Reportedly Wanted An "Astronomical Amount Of Money" To Work For AEW

Konnan Says AEW Had Interest In CM Punk, Reveals Why They Didn't Sign Him

LOL I KNEW this was the case. He wanted Lesnar money that not even Lesnar was worth. They tried to bring him in and shit fell through because he thinks he's worth more than he is worth. With that being said, I still think Punk would be a huge get even now and I hope he can eventually work something out with Tony.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

Overinflated ego.


----------



## InexorableJourney (Sep 10, 2016)




----------



## shandcraig (Mar 23, 2008)

The most over rated wrestler of all time that had one cool storyline because he was mad and it catered to tha generations nerdy audience . Who the fuck is he with out that one story ? Hes a one trick pony and thank god he didnt get the money he thinks hes worth


----------



## The XL 2 (Sep 13, 2016)

Punk wasn't a needle mover in 2014 and he sure isn't now, after 6 and a half years off the buisness and getting embarrassed in a shoot fight against a journalist FFS. He couldn't add any more than Jericho has, and Jericho doesn't come with the baggage and the crazy ego.


----------



## Chan Hung (Dec 28, 2011)

Sounds about right. Putting a shitload of money as a demand


----------



## The XL 2 (Sep 13, 2016)

And the fact that Vince McMahon won't do business with Punk despite doing business with Warrior and Eric Bischoff shows you what an annoying, self entitled, whiny cunt Punk really is.


----------



## shandcraig (Mar 23, 2008)

The XL 2 said:


> And the fact that Vince McMahon won't do business with Punk despite doing business with Warrior and Eric Bischoff shows you what an annoying, self entitled, whiny cunt Punk really is.



Wait how did Eric know much about him ?


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

Punk said on a podcast he would work for WWE for 10m for a limited date, 5 year deal

i’m guessing the asking price was same for AEW / and this was before they got the tv extension

so, 10% of all their investment cash

too much


----------



## elidrakefan76 (Jul 23, 2018)

C.M. Cunt is not worth that kind of money. He has good mic skills but his build is similar to Orange Cassidy's.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

LifeInCattleClass said:


> Punk said on a podcast he would work for WWE for 10m for a limited date, 5 year deal
> 
> i’m guessing the asking price was same for AEW / and this was before they got the tv extension
> 
> ...


Their initial investment was $100 million or something like that right? LOL fuck off Punk.

He needs to come down, because I still really want to see him in AEW. Same with AJ Lee.


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

prosperwithdeen said:


> Their initial investment was $100 million or something like that right? LOL fuck off Punk.


yep / this was what they said - and they wanted Punk for All Out, which was before their first ever Dynamite show

and at that point, they already signed quite a few people / so, Punk at 10m (if he was asking them what he was asking WWE) would have put waaayyy too big a dent in the budget - would’ve been a massive risk


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Firstly, it’s Konnan. I love the guy, but he’s been known to flap at the gums a bit. He talks out of school a lot (and sometimes it’s admirable).

Secondly, OF COURSE Punk asked for a lot of money. He was the biggest free agent out there. And you’d have to pay me a lot of money to compromise my dignity and work for a company that opened their first show with a Casino Battle Royal.

Thirdly, not getting Punk was a hammer blow to their reputation. He was definitely worth getting and anyone who says otherwise is in major denial.

Fourthly, why are private negotiations between parties being discussed in negotiations with other parties? How fucking unprofessional.

Fifthly, this is a promotion that was willing to spend $3 million on Adam Copeland. They very often say that someone was “too expensive” when they don’t get them.

Sixthly, sometimes someone prices themselves out when they don’t really want to go and work somewhere. This is purported to be the Paul Heyman strategy when he didn’t want to go to TNA. Who is Punk buds with?


----------



## 304418 (Jul 2, 2014)

…

All he had to do was agree to work a part time schedule. Work the AEW PPVs and the occasional AEW tv special. Negotiate a deal that allows him to work NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom and AAA's Triplemania every year. And stay on AEW commentary the rest of the time. He'd be better than Excalibur at least at this point. And he could still do his comic book thing and MMA fights if he so desired to (probably Bellator) on the side. Credibility among those that still stick with him remaining intact.

However, if AEW didn’t approach him professionally to sign a deal, then that’s not on him at all.


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

Verbatim17 said:


> …
> 
> All he had to do was agree to work a part time schedule. Work the AEW PPVs and the occasional AEW tv special. Negotiate a deal that allows him to work NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom and AAA's Triplemania every year. And stay on AEW commentary the rest of the time. He'd be better than Excalibur at least at this point. And he could still do his comic book thing and MMA fights if he so desired to (probably Bellator) on the side. Credibility among those that still stick with him remaining intact.
> 
> However, if AEW didn’t approach him professionally to sign a deal, then that’s not on him at all.


they approached him

Cody said they met up twice. Once TK and once Cody and the rest was phone

IMO, Punk would have been a solid get at 1m - 2m a year for 25 - 35 dates / 3 yr contract


----------



## RainmakerV2 (Nov 8, 2017)

And they should have paid it.


----------



## Dickhead1990 (Aug 31, 2016)

I can see why he would command that, especially understanding who was funding AEW and given the history of his absence from wrestling. I think maybe he tried his luck, as he doesn't want to really return in the first place, so it was an easier way to say no. I'd love to see Punk again and I think AEW would still be a good fit further down the line.

I don't really want to see him in WWE again, however it would be cool for that one return moment, which we all never realistically saw coming. Think Brett Hart's return.


----------



## Brodus Clay (Jan 6, 2012)

Maybe he wanted a Lesnar deal, wich nobody can't blame him to try, that thing it's really cool.


----------



## rbl85 (Nov 21, 2017)

RainmakerV2 said:


> And they should have paid it.


10M for Punk ? XD


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

When I heard this, I thought it was highly unprofessional to pass info to Konnan, but that would be in line with Cody’s character as he does put his foot in his mouth a lot to the point Brandi has told him to stop commenting. It’s also a bitch move of Konnan to speak on another man’s contract negotiations, even if he is Keepin’ it 💯.

All this stuff ultimately says to me is that Punk didn’t really want to wrestle, but he was willing to do so if it meant making a crazy amount of money, which would have lead to what we’re sewing with Jericho: if his ass isn’t on the line, he’s going to get lazy, and that will affect the product.

The travesty isn’t in missing on Punk, even if he’d have been a great get. The travesty is in having such a weak undercard that bigger stars don’t want to have to come to AEW doing one off feuds against Cody, doing the job, and going into a fucking program with Joey Janela. Or getting put over in the feud and going onto...face Jungle Boy? Or doing the job and having to wear Tully underwear.

The same applies to taking the WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP off Jericho and doing fuck all afterwards.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

bdon said:


> When I heard this, I thought it was highly unprofessional to pass info to Konnan, but that would be in line with Cody’s character as he does put his foot in his mouth a lot to the point Brandi has told him to stop commenting. It’s also a bitch move of Konnan to speak on another man’s contract negotiations, even if he is Keepin’ it 💯.
> 
> All this stuff ultimately says to me is that Punk didn’t really want to wrestle, but he was willing to do so if it meant making a crazy amount of money, which would have lead to what we’re sewing with Jericho: if his ass isn’t on the line, he’s going to get lazy, and that will affect the product.
> 
> ...


Yes, fucking yes. This is an amazing post and is everything I was trying to say said way better.


----------



## Vitamin R (Jun 15, 2020)

The Wood said:


> Secondly, OF COURSE Punk asked for a lot of money. He was the biggest free agent out there. And you’d have to pay me a lot of money to compromise my dignity and work for a company that opened their first show with a Casino Battle Royal.


CM Punk already compromised his dignity when he showed the world he has no fighting ability. Also, WWE Backstage was getting 100k-200k viewers despite Punk appearing. He is not worth Lesnar money, at least Brock has won fights and is a draw.


----------



## MarkOfAllMarks (Apr 7, 2018)

Vitamin R said:


> CM Punk already compromised his dignity when he showed the world he has no fighting ability. Also, WWE Backstage was getting 100k-200k viewers despite Punk appearing. He is not worth Lesnar money, at least Brock has won fights and is a draw.


You can't blame anyone for the low ratings of WWE backstage. At the end of the day it's a backstage talk show, those don't really get huge ratings regardless of who is on there.


----------



## OwenSES (Jul 19, 2010)

Well for Punk to return he would probably have to put a lot of work in to get motivated, get into shape and commit himself to a brand which has just started. Punk not only is a big name but he is someone who many considered to be one of the best in the ring, if you are getting that CM Punk working on your brand then yeah it's going to cost a lot of money.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Yeah, who is holding Backstage against anyone? The dude took a cushy panel job for probably a decent amount of money for way less than he was worth.


----------



## Dark Emperor (Jul 31, 2007)

It makes sense he would have priced himself that high.

If he showed up in AEW when they were debuting and when WWE still considered them as a threat, he'd have probably burnt whatever bridges he had left.

This includes a part time deals in the future, one off paydays (Wrestlemania, Saudi, Summerslam etc), merch and easy retirement checks like a lot of legends.

So for him to do that, a smaller company would have to pay astronomical money. Clearly he's not worth that but that the price small companies like AEW have to pay to get a star of that calibre. Punk will be back in the WWE, no doubt about it.

Same as the Edge situation, $3m aint gonna cut it, youd have to offer double what WWE is offering as long term that the company you want to be associated with for easy checks when you ain't performing regularly.


----------



## One Shed (Jan 7, 2014)

He definitely would have brought a lot of lapsed and current WWE fans over. But if after a big match with Jericho he started feuding with Orange Cassidy, Joey Janela, or started having AJ drop him off to play fight in her minivan they would not stick around.

Still, if he wants to come down a bit now that Backstage is done, imagine that pop if he shows up in the first show back with crowds.


----------



## BlueEyedDevil (Dec 26, 2019)

CM Punk didn't do himself any favors by exposing himself like that in UFC. His stock is lower than he thinks it is and getting even lower every year as he ages.


----------



## The Quintessential Mark (Mar 5, 2018)

rbl85 said:


> 10M for Punk ? XD


Vince is a rich man I'm sure he can afford it just to please him of course I'm not saying he should just to feed my selfish want for his return just saying the boss isn't exactly short on money.


----------



## DaSlacker (Feb 9, 2020)

I don't think one man can move the needle for AEW on a consistent basis, apart from The Rock. The same can be said for WWE. Television is cooling and wrestling is cold.

AEW unopposed on a better night would hold them at just under the million mark, in normal times.

Throw in Reigns, Rollins, Strowman, Wyatt etc and you add another 200,000 viewers.

Throw in Cena, Lesnar and Punk - the number is now 1.5 million per week, imo. The social media numbers would be huge.

By this point Tony is burning money lol.


----------



## JBLGOAT (Mar 24, 2014)

Paying guys a lot of money isn't worth unless they're going to put the work in to build the company unless it's a short term contract to job.

Pay CM Punk 1 mill appearance to job to Peter Avalon.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Getting top stars was important to securing TV rights money and licensing deals. If they had Randy Orton, CM Punk and AJ Styles, they might be closer to having a video game released, and might have a range of toys out, which is visibility. This casts a MUCH wider net than people on forums talking about you.

It’s not even about whether or not the guy can really go anymore and whether or not he’s going to draw gates or phenomenal PPV buys. He certainly wouldn’t hurt, especially considering if you had him, they likely wouldn’t have Joey Janela, Orange Cassidy or the rest of the no-marks.

Spending $10 million on Punk and Orton becomes “worth it” if you have $100 million coming in every year from TV revenue. Now they’ve got $45 million coming in with about $8 million of that going to Jericho, JR and Moxley. I bet Matt Hardy isn’t working for free either. And how much do you want to bet Tyson came in for?

Plus, once you’ve got Punk, you’ve got lines to other top level talent — either because he’s friendly or he just brings credibility. Cain Velasquez, Rey Mysterio, Jeff Hardy, maybe, MAYBE Bryan Danielson should AEW not be a risk of his entire legacy and mainstream body of work. Talent that aren’t as big a deals like Killer Kross, Scarlett Bordeaux and Drew Gulak may have chosen them.

With the stars come the eyeballs. And the chance to make new stars. Bryan Danielson could have wrestled Drew Gulak. They could have poached Zack Sabre, Jr. Jeff Hardy could have done something with Darby Allin. Orton could do amazing things with Kenny Omega. Punk with Cody. Rey with Fenix. Gallows & Anderson with The Young Bucks. The Fatus with SCU. Naomi with Jazz, should you have signed her. Cain could keep developing and be back-up for Rey and work with Pentagon while getting experience with Chris Hero, who is now free.

That’s the potential follow-on from Punk signing. That could be a show that gets well over 1.4 million viewers every week. That is something that could make WWE actually panic and start fucking up, which could have caused a rift between Vince and some top guys. Imagine if Brock Lesnar and Joe Anoa’i got pissed during this pandemic shit and Vince tried to get Brock jobbing on TV after removing Heyman. How quickly could he be in AEW interrupting a PPV main event between Orton and Omega and then getting into it with Jericho? What about Joe Anoa’i coming through the crowd and Spearing Mox? That gets them over 2 million. Now they’ve got leverage to negotiate for even more TV rights money.


Randy Orton vs. Kenny Omega in a Cage Match
Brock Lesnar vs. Chris Jericho
Joe Anoa’i vs. Jon Moxley
CM Punk vs. Cody
Rey Mysterio & Cain Velasquez vs. Luch
Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre, Jr.
The Usos Fatu vs. SCU
Trinity Fatu (w/ AJ Lee) vs. Jazz (w/ Brandi Rhodes)
Gallows & Anderson vs. The Young Bucks
Miroslav Barnyashev debuts against Brian Cage
That could be a fucking AEW PPV coming this September. All they had to do was try from the start. This is me farting this card out, by the way. Ugh, what could have fucking been.

But it’s a good thing AEW didn’t fork out a tiny bit of money on that arrogant Punk guy! Lol!


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> Yes, fucking yes. This is an amazing post and is everything I was trying to say said way better.


Am I reaching tinfoil hat status if I suggested...Cody leaked the Punk stuff and went out of his way to push Punk away..?


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> Getting top stars was important to securing TV rights money and licensing deals. If they had Randy Orton, CM Punk and AJ Styles, they might be closer to having a video game released, and might have a range of toys out, which is visibility. This casts a MUCH wider net than people on forums talking about you.
> 
> It’s not even about whether or not the guy can really go anymore and whether or not he’s going to draw gates or phenomenal PPV buys. He certainly wouldn’t hurt, especially considering if you had him, they likely wouldn’t have Joey Janela, Orange Cassidy or the rest of the no-marks.
> 
> ...


Goddamn that would have been TV fucking GOLD!


----------



## TD Stinger (May 9, 2012)

LifeInCattleClass said:


> Punk said on a podcast he would work for WWE for 10m for a limited date, 5 year deal
> 
> i’m guessing the asking price was same for AEW / and this was before they got the tv extension
> 
> ...


When did he say that? I mean, I've heard Punk say he would take a phone call from Vince or Triple H if they called, but I've never heard him give out a specific number.

And if that is the case, yeah. I mean, top WWE guys like Roman, Seth, etc. are probably all getting around 2 million a year or higher. So for Punk to ask for that, that's not really much of a surprise.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

What happened to "I'd be happy to work at Starbucks for the rest of my life so long as I'm happy?"

Punk's a dipshit. He could have debuted at that big PPV when the hunger for his return with a really nice contract with AEW for decent money and would have EXPLODED THE INTERNET. Could have brought his wife to AEW. Instead he pissed away any interest in himself for a small role on a small show that's dead now.


----------



## CenaBoy4Life (Jul 31, 2013)

Besides Omega / Page I would say Punk is worth more than the entire roster combined. No one else at the time was a free agent that could generate as much interest and main stream attention as Punk.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Punk doesn’t want to wrestle tho. For a start up you have to invest in someone who will invest their time in you. That amount of money for limited dates is something the WWE can do because they can build around their major PPVs. 

Can’t just throw money around because you want to grab guys. It still has to make business sense(cents)


----------



## Unityring (Jun 25, 2020)

If AEW wanted to compete with Vince and draw big ratings then they should of given it to him.its pretty obvious that they care very much about ‘ratings’ lol 
I personally think they don’t need him,they have a great roster.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

Damn, we go from CM Punk is the greatest of all time when he was rumoured to be coming to AEW to now him suddenly sucking, being a nobody in wrestling and AEW fans not even wanting him. Just like Edge, just like Orton, just like Tessa, just like Scarlett & Kross and just like everyone else AEW misses out on.

You guys are like a scarred girlfriend who sees her ex boyfriend with a new girl and she says to her friends "Fuck that piece of shit I never wanted him anyway. Look how ugly his new girlfriend is!" whilst quietly sobbing into her drink later on at the bar.

Luckily some of you guys on here have sense. The Wood has done a good job pointing out what benefit Punk brings but allow me to back him up on his points.

First, you sign CM Punk I guarantee if you have him in half decent story lines you'd be doing over 700,000 people in the ratings now. Even something like "CM Punk speaks tonight!" and it's just Punk at home cutting a promo it'd kill anything NXT has on their program. I don't know what anyone means by limited dates but if I could get him for 30 dates (26 TV's, 4 PPV's) at that 10 million price tag I'd definitely take it as long as he was willing to also commit to fan fests, talk show appearances etc.

Second, you get Punk you have someone who is in the mainstream. You have someone who can turn up on a sports show and chat wrestling and the hosts actually want to chat to him. He can talk MMA, he can chat wrestling, he can chat hockey, he can chat baseball he's the perfect panellist for these shows and is so likeable or "cool" that he might bring eyeballs to AEW's TV show. This is something else nobody in AEW has

Third, as The Wood said you sign someone like CM Punk and suddenly all the merchandising companies, video game companies etc all pay attention to you. Everyone wants CM Punk on their wrestling video game cover, everyone wants to sell a CM Punk T-Shirt in their store, everyone wants to make the CM Punk action figure, the DVD's with CM Punk on the cover, the CM Punk plush toy etc etc.

Fourth, as also pointed out by The Wood you sign CM Punk and put on a good product and you probably get flooded by new talents just like WCW was when Hogan signed. I don't see Brock or Orton jumping but maybe Edge does, maybe the likes of Kross, Scarlett, Hammerstone, Anoai do. Maybe Heyman gets so pissed off that he lost his gig in WWE creative that he makes a call to Punk and says he wants to jump to AEW because they're doing awesome and now suddenly you have Punk, Edge, Bucks, Rhodes, Jericho, Omega, Moxley all lead by one of the best wrestling minds ever in Heyman. You're then off to the races.

Five and perhaps most importantly is that Punk is a cash cow. Yes, 10 million is a shit ton of money but you get one of the hottest stars (Maybe THE hottest) in the past decade your TV rights deal improves, maybe you get that second show and are given 20-30 million a year to produce that, your TNT deal goes up, as mentioned above you can command more for AEW licenses on merchandise, you can probably increase ticket prices for the shows where Punk appears live and imagine the money on fan fests you could do.

Things like this are why I instantly tune out when people talk shit about TNA signing Hogan. Immediately he signed and TNA's interest boosted both business wise and with the fans. House shows increased, merch increased, interest increased all because of this older guy turning up on TV.

10 million a year for Punk is worthwhile in my opinion and all because that's what he says he wants doesn't mean that's what he'd take. I'm sure he'd take 7-8 million as well. That's still a shit ton of money.




LifeInCattleClass said:


> IMO, Punk would have been a solid get at 1m - 2m a year for 25 - 35 dates / 3 yr contract


Isn't Jericho getting more than that? Rumour is Jericho is on 3 million a year.


----------



## Jazminator (Jan 9, 2018)

If the story is true, it’s good that AEW said no. Punk is not worth that kind of money. 

Tony Khan has said he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes that failed companies like WCW did. That would certainly include sticking relatively close to a budget and not just throwing money all over the place. Nothing against Punk, of course. He has the right to ask for whatever he wants.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

The narrative that Punk wouldn't move the needle is bullshit. AEW was doing large numbers when Cody and the Elite were speaking about Punk in every 2nd interview and promoting their show in Chicago. Fans turned off when they realized he wasn't coming. He would absolutely move the needle considered they only have 700k fans who give a shit anymore. He might be overrated, he might be an asshole but people want to watch him.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Great post, Chip. And bdon, I’m not sure if that’s too far. Less and less is surprising me with this company. Konnan shouldn’t have that sort of information, right? I think it’s sour grapes by the AEW guys though. They did this exact same thing with Orton. He was asking above what he’s worth. Well, Jericho is apparently worth $3 million a year, and has Jericho ever drawn appreciably more than Orton? But he didn’t sign with them, so he’s kot



MontyCora said:


> What happened to "I'd be happy to work at Starbucks for the rest of my life so long as I'm happy?"
> 
> Punk's a dipshit. He could have debuted at that big PPV when the hunger for his return with a really nice contract with AEW for decent money and would have EXPLODED THE INTERNET. Could have brought his wife to AEW. Instead he pissed away any interest in himself for a small role on a small show that's dead now.


What does that say about AEW? This guy basically did take the job at Starbucks, by the way, in WWE Backstage. You’re assuming he should be happy in AEW sharing the spotlight with Joey Janela and Orange Cassidy. Do you have any idea how hard this guy had to work to get past certain obstacles in the WWE. Now you have bums signed off the street that parody his profession and he’s supposed to just be...



Jazminator said:


> If the story is true, it’s good that AEW said no. Punk is not worth that kind of money.
> 
> Tony Khan has said he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes that failed companies like WCW did. That would certainly include sticking relatively close to a budget and not just throwing money all over the place. Nothing against Punk, of course. He has the right to ask for whatever he wants.


WCW are an entirely different circumstance to AEW. WCW were owned by a company which had access to the books. When you’re paying $2 million for Scott Hall or whatever, because you signed him to a favoured nations clause, you have people wanting him to be treated like he is worth $2 million, even if he stopped drawing in 1997.

When you spend a whole bunch of company money on Travis Tritt concerts and blow all your revenue streams by overextending PPVs, giving free gates, killing PPV and killing house shows, yes, you are spending too much money in the wrong places without a way to recoup it.

Having your lower-card cheated out of merchandising money by having their action figures scan as Hulk Hogan or Dennis Rodman so they get the royalty cheque is a good way to piss them off, cause discord, and eventually have your supporting acts jump ship, leaving you with a ghost ship.

These are mistakes that AEW should not repeat. Spending money to get Hulk Hogan in the first place was not a bad idea though. Nor was getting Lex Luger, Kevin Nash or Scott Hall. Especially when it’s actually your fucking money and you don’t need to push talent based on what they earn. Plua, unlike WCW, MASSIVE TV rights deals hang in the balance.

If you spent $10 million on Brock Lesnar, CM Punk, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton and Bryan Danielson EACH, you’re spending $50 million a year, right? That’s $150 over three years. If you get a TV deal for $100 million over three years, then you are still making double that off your TV rights.

But truth be told, those prices are probably unnecessarily steep. If you present yourself well, you can probably get them for $5 million each, which means you’re quadrupling your money. That’s not the same situation as WCW at all.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

So fans stopped watching because Punk wasn't coming? Okay because the other day that's not why y'all said fans stopped watching. 

Cool.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Fans= "Build your own stars"

Also fans= "Sign CM Punk for 10 million dollars"


----------



## Britz94xD (May 17, 2019)

AEW definitely did play up the "Will Punk show up in Chicago or not"? It hurt them when they couldn't deliver on that hype, but they did the best with what they had.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Britz94xD said:


> AEW definitely did play up the "Will Punk show up in Chicago or not"? It hurt them when they couldn't deliver on that hype, but they did the best with what they had.


Nothing wrong with what they did during the build. It costed them nothing in the end.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

NXT Only said:


> Fans= "Build your own stars"
> 
> Also fans= "Sign CM Punk for 10 million dollars"


Fans = "a bunch of different people with differing opinions"
Also fans = "paints everyone with the same brush because they're lazy and have no actual argument"


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

NXT Only said:


> Nothing wrong with what they did during the build. It costed them nothing in the end.


Cost them hundreds of thousands of viewers though


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

NXT Only said:


> Fans= "Build your own stars"
> 
> Also fans= "Sign CM Punk for 10 million dollars"


You need stars to make stars. How is this so hard for some people? 

Why do you think those things are diametrically opposed? 



NXT Only said:


> Nothing wrong with what they did during the build. It costed them nothing in the end.


Actually, it helped foster the perception that they can't seal the deal with any big names. A lot of people have said that since it happened, and a lot of people have come out and said that they are actually in that group. You don't tease something you aren't going to deliver. Especially when you are that fresh in people's minds and trying to establish yourself as a promotion that keeps your promises.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Isn't Jericho getting more than that? Rumour is Jericho is on 3 million a year.


If that's true, it means Punk was asking for much much more.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

MontyCora said:


> If that's true, it means Punk was asking for much much more.


Or it means he didn't sign with them, because he saw the Casino Battle Royal and thought "I didn't put so much hard fucking work into my Summer of Punk angles and to change the perception of wrestlers so that these guys could so lazily piggy-back off what I did" and decided to take a job not taking bumps and risking injury so he could do a much safer job and potentially snag up more film roles if they become available for him, and AEW has a chip on their shoulder about it. 

Remember when AEW also said that Randy Orton asked for too much money, but then Tony Khan went on Twitter and accused Orton of using them for leverage to get an even better deal from Vince. If Orton was on $2.5 million with the WWE, it stands to reason that if he used an AEW deal as leverage, it was more than that. AEW just say that anyone who doesn't sign with them was asking for too much. It's classic sour grapes, and you see this reflected in the fans. Anyone who signs with them is an amazing acquisition (there are people blowing Zack fucking Ryder because they think he is coming in), but when they don't it's "they're not that good anyway -- gotta save your money." Never mind Matt Hardy coming out and saying that AEW offered him more money for less dates too. Mike Bennett was signed for $500k a year. If Bennett is worth that much, how much do you think WWE offered to pay for him? $750? $800k? $1 million? And AEW offered him more.

And if you think that AEW doing this is too unprofessional and immature, keep in mind that Konnan should have _zero_ idea the dollar figures being discussed between AEW and Punk, unless Punk wants to come out and admit what he's earning. They are babies when it comes to not getting their way. Tony Khan has shown it (remember that he wanks dogs and Linda Hogan is banned too) and Kenny Omega has shown it ("I really would have liked to have stayed in New Japan, but the WWE and AEW offers were just way better because New Japan have a tiny business dick"). These guys do not know how to carry themselves as a business. I bet you if Punk hears that story, he thinks "good fucking riddance to those cunts -- I'm glad I priced myself out so I didn't have to be a part of that sinking ship."


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

Hold up!

Is this Khan wanking dogs story true!? Lmao


----------



## RapShepard (Jun 20, 2014)

I like Konan, but just like Dave if he's not going to be specific then what is it worth lol. As far as Punk asking for a lot can you blame him. You had Jericho and JR screaming from the heavens how they had got the biggest contract they ever had. Punk with his name, leverage, and them probably approaching him should've expected a big bag.


----------



## Wolf Mark (Jun 5, 2020)

Maybe not 10 million per year but whatever money you pay Punk, it's would be worth every penny. Look whatever marks tried to tell you, whatever narratives they came up with, I still believe that the first AEW event Double or Nothing was filled by 11 thousand people not because of Omega or because AEW had this awesomely exciting roster but because Punk had been involved in a signing days before and people thought Punk would be there. I cannot prove it but this was the feedback I got. Right off the bat, Cody and the gang should thank him just for that. And it shows that this guy can move the needle.

And Punk would be worth the signing. Oh he's an asshole, no doubt. But this is not Omega who is afraid to talk, who wants to put geeks over, who has no respect for the craft and psychology, who half doesn't want to do what it takes to get over. When Punk is there, you need a leash on him to prevent him to get over, to go in there and raise Hell. I don't think AEW has anybody like that. Maybe Cody but part of it with him is ego. Punk has an ego but it's based on craft and fairness and give to people their money's worth. He never half ass anything. He would be the alpha male this company has needed from the get go. 

Not only fucking pay him but sign him for a major position in the company where he would be paid for it to, a booking role, second in line after TK. Where he can get in his face and tell him that the Dork Order sucks. Pay him a good amount with residuals and if you have to fire Omega and the Bucks to free money then do it.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

NXT Only said:


> Fans= "Build your own stars"
> 
> Also fans= "Sign CM Punk for 10 million dollars"


With wrestling and any kind of TV show you want established stars who are the biggest names you can afford. You probably live near a local independent that uses a former WWE midcarder or whatever that's the best established star they can afford. AEW with it's massive budget has access to all the stars in wrestling.

Punk is a worthwhile star. Brodie Lee, Jake Hager, Shawn Spears and guys like them are not. Punk will move a needle and bring a heap of benefits your way so he's worth signing. Nobody would shit on AEW for signing guys like Jericho, Punk, Moxley etc because they are big stars that people care about. People shit on AEW for signing guys like Brodie Lee who take valuable spots away from midcard acts.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> People shit on AEW for signing guys like Brodie Lee who take valuable spots away from midcard acts.


I don't understand what this means. They signed a solid mid card guy for their mid card and you're mad because he's taking away attention from other solid mid card guys? What?


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

bdon said:


> Hold up!
> 
> Is this Khan wanking dogs story true!? Lmao


I don't know if he actually wanks dogs, but someone made a sign that said "Tony Khan wanks dogs" and took it to a Fulham game. Khan singled them out on Twitter and got pretty upset saying "It's not true, please do not bring signs like this to Fulham games." And I _think_ they had it edited to say "Tony Khan doesn't wank dogs." I don't know if that last bit is true, or if it was fans taking the piss or something, but it's too good a story to not add that bit. 

When fans eventually get sick of AEW and turn on a show, the "Tony wanks dogs (clap-clap, clap-clap-clap)" chants are going to be amazing.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Cult03 said:


> Fans = "a bunch of different people with differing opinions"
> Also fans = "paints everyone with the same brush because they're lazy and have no actual argument"


Like the guys who run around calling everyone who doesn't agree with them AEW fanboys? Gotcha.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

NXT Only said:


> Like the guys who run around calling everyone who doesn't agree with them AEW fanboys? Gotcha.


Look what you just did! You bent reality to fit a false dichotomy so you can sweep any criticism away as illogical.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

The Wood said:


> You need stars to make stars. How is this so hard for some people?
> 
> Why do you think those things are diametrically opposed?
> 
> ...


Big names? They signed Moxley and Jericho.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

The Wood said:


> Look what you just did! You bent reality to fit a false dichotomy so you can sweep any criticism away as illogical.


Okay AEW fanboy


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

MontyCora said:


> I don't understand what this means. They signed a solid mid card guy for their mid card and you're mad because he's taking away attention from other solid mid card guys? What?


Because Brodie Lee is probably making close to mid six figures when that money could've gone towards someone (Or multiple people) who are more worthwhile and better used.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Because Brodie Lee is probably making close to mid six figures when that money could've gone towards someone (Or multiple people) who are more worthwhile and better used.


You have absolutely no fucking clue what he's making, or how much money AEW has to spend. You goof.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

MontyCora said:


> You have absolutely no fucking clue what he's making, or how much money AEW has to spend. You goof.


And many people don’t know what it would have taken to sign CM Punk, but it hasn’t stopped everyone from suggesting he wanted too much.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> With wrestling and any kind of TV show you want established stars who are the biggest names you can afford. You probably live near a local independent that uses a former WWE midcarder or whatever that's the best established star they can afford. AEW with it's massive budget has access to all the stars in wrestling.
> 
> Punk is a worthwhile star. Brodie Lee, Jake Hager, Shawn Spears and guys like them are not. Punk will move a needle and bring a heap of benefits your way so he's worth signing. Nobody would shit on AEW for signing guys like Jericho, Punk, Moxley etc because they are big stars that people care about. People shit on AEW for signing guys like Brodie Lee who take valuable spots away from midcard acts.


Y'all post as if you know definitively what you think should have happened will work. They tried their best to sign Punk and because they didn't mean ridiculous contract amounts they somehow failed but in business you have to have a point you dont cross. Sure I wanted and still want Punk in AEW but I'm not gonna lose my mind over it. Signing Lee hasn't been bad and hasn't stopped them from signing or pushing others.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

bdon said:


> And many people don’t know what it would have taken to sign CM Punk, but it hasn’t stopped everyone from suggesting he wanted too much.


Well, that's based on speculation from Konnan, who is in a better position to hear legit news than anyone here.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

MontyCora said:


> You have absolutely no fucking clue what he's making, or how much money AEW has to spend. You goof.


You're right, he left WWE where he was offered 750,000 for not even mid six figures from AEW.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

NXT Only said:


> Big names? They signed Moxley and Jericho.


And those are two fine gets. Neither are draws, but they definitely do provide recognisable names that helps push them towards more visibility. They could have used more though.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> You're right, he left WWE where he was offered 750,000 for not even mid six figures from AEW.


So you think he wouldn't leave WWE where he wasn't being used and was deeply unhappy, to make 250K from AEW where he's consistently used?


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

NXT Only said:


> Like the guys who run around calling everyone who doesn't agree with them AEW fanboys? Gotcha.


No, AEW fanboys isn't a common name for you guys. I do always call people who can't fathom the thought of AEW not being perfect 'AEW Super Fans' though.

Disagree with me all you want, but don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining by continuously telling me that AEW is perfect and anyone who has had criticisms are trolls and internet bullies and don't you dare try to twist my words to mean something else.


----------



## One Shed (Jan 7, 2014)

MontyCora said:


> So you think he wouldn't leave WWE where he wasn't being used and was deeply unhappy, to make 250K from AEW where he's consistently used?


I would say he would have gone for less than WWE, but no one would take a two-thirds paycut on a hope. That would be insane.


----------



## DJ Punk (Sep 1, 2016)

"Astronomical amount of money" is a bit vague no?


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

MontyCora said:


> So you think he wouldn't leave WWE where he wasn't being used and was deeply unhappy, to make 250K from AEW where he's consistently used?


No chance. Would you turn down half a million dollars simply to get a midcard spot on AEW TV? He likely could've had the same in WWE but with an extra 500k in his pocket.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> No chance. Would you turn down half a million dollars simply to get a midcard spot on AEW TV? He likely could've had the same in WWE but with an extra 500k in his pocket.


He wasn't ON WWE tv. He was DEEPLY unhappy. Money isn't everything, and 250k is a decent chunk of change.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

He’s also got a family to feed and can’t think just about himself. He may have been deeply unhappy, but he’s not leaving WWE for chump change, especially when he knows how much others are getting.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

MontyCora said:


> He wasn't ON WWE tv. He was DEEPLY unhappy. Money isn't everything, and 250k is a decent chunk of change.


Yeah, I know he wasn't on TV but if they were trying to re-sign him then it's clear they would've done something with him especially on that kind of dough.

250k isn't that much for a guy who was making close to a million a year. For all we know he might have a mortgage or a lifestyle that he can't maintain at 250k a year. Remember 250k a year is probably closer to 200k take home which is about 3800 and some change a week as opposed to WWE where he'd probably hit 600k take home and walk with 11,500 a week and a monster tax return.

I'd say AEW gave him 400-500k and he took it based on it being less dates and not too big of a lifestyle change.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Or they paid him seven figures because they bought into him being the most underrated guy in the world. We just don't know, but I think it's ridiculous to assume that AEW is being conservative with their money. They only say that when someone doesn't sign with them. 

I think Brodie Lee himself said that Triple H posited the idea of him working New Japan to him. Who knows if that would have been worked out, but it's not ludicrous. NXT and New Japan have worked together, albeit lightly and briefly, in the past (and they've borrowed some video footage). Sending Harper over for excursion would not be insane. Epico and Primo got to work WWC under WWE contract. Imagine getting paid $500k to basically sit on the beach near home and work for your dad/uncle's promotion where you are treated as top guys. 

If Lee just wanted to work, there is WWC, New Japan, NXT, NXT UK, EVOLVE and WWE house shows. And they've seen enough in him before to put him in The Wyatt Family, put the IC Title on him, give him a long Tag Title run and use him in a featured match against Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan. Sure, he hasn't appealed to Vince, but that's Vince's prerogative. It's not like the dude hasn't gotten chances and wouldn't be given another chance at a later date. Especially if they wanted a body to fill a three-hour fucking show on Monday. Aleister Black could use someone to kick in the face. Erick Rowan got to go a while with him, I'm sure Harper would have been allowed too as well. 

Lee's allowed to be miserable too, but if it were about just being allowed to wrestle, the WWE had options. For A LOT of money he could have worked any number of places and been slotted into a position where he could do just that. He wanted to be on TV and get a push. That's what this is really all about. It's clearly not just money or technically getting into a ring. It's about exposure and thinking he can do this at a high level. And more power to him for having that ego. And that explains why he's trying to "sports entertain" on AEW. But he's basically proven Vince McMahon right for not going the whole hog with him. Hopefully he is having a good time chewing up TV time and getting paid well to do it.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Yeah, I know he wasn't on TV but if they were trying to re-sign him then it's clear they would've done something with him especially on that kind of dough.
> 
> 250k isn't that much for a guy who was making close to a million a year. For all we know he might have a mortgage or a lifestyle that he can't maintain at 250k a year. Remember 250k a year is probably closer to 200k take home which is about 3800 and some change a week as opposed to WWE where he'd probably hit 600k take home and walk with 11,500 a week and a monster tax return.
> 
> I'd say AEW gave him 400-500k and he took it based on it being less dates and not too big of a lifestyle change.


This is just my opinion, but if you're a wrestler, a career where you can't expect tomorrow's check because of career ending injuries or Vince falls out of love with you or whatever the case, and worse yet you've got a family, you should NOT be living a lifestyle that absolutely requires more than half a million dollars.


----------



## 304418 (Jul 2, 2014)

bdon said:


> The travesty isn’t in missing on Punk, even if he’d have been a great get. The travesty is in having such a weak undercard that bigger stars don’t want to have to come to AEW doing one off feuds against Cody, doing the job, and going into a fucking program with Joey Janela. Or getting put over in the feud and going onto...face Jungle Boy? Or doing the job and having to wear Tully underwear.
> 
> The same applies to taking the WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP off Jericho and doing fuck all afterwards.


Punk doesn't need to work with the whole AEW undercard though.


3 matches with Cody
3 matches with Kenny Omega
3 matches with Jon Moxley
3 matches with Brodie Lee
3 matches with Hager (opens the door to a Bellator crossover)
3 matches with Roberts and Archer
3 matches with MJF
Plus a tag match against the Young Bucks

So, 22 matches, plus the rest of the dates would involve building those matches and being on commentary. Its as close to a Lesnar schedule he could have from AEW

Yes, it’s mostly WWE guys he faces, but does it really matter? It would be interesting to see what they could pull off together without WWE producing their matches and with the experience they since accumulated over the last several years.


----------



## Not Lying (Sep 9, 2013)

A bit unprofessional on both sides here.
Honestly I think if the wanted to they could have worked out a deal.

AEW could have offered him big big money for maybe 2-3 appearances, and see how much he brings attention to the product, and then decide based on what his worth would be for a long-term contract.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Verbatim17 said:


> Punk doesn't need to work with the whole AEW undercard though.
> 
> 
> 3 matches with Cody
> ...


You share the stage with the undercard. Some talent are going to make you look bad by being on your show. You don't have to actually be in the ring with them to get that stank all over you.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

The Definition of Technician said:


> A bit unprofessional on both sides here.
> Honestly I think if the wanted to they could have worked out a deal.
> 
> AEW could have offered him big big money for maybe 2-3 appearances, and see how much he brings attention to the product, and then decide based on what his worth would be for a long-term contract.


Lol, what is unprofessional about Punk? He's not working for them. It's unprofessional of them to chatter about what he was asking for. But he has every right to ask for what he wants to come in.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

MontyCora said:


> This is just my opinion, but if you're a wrestler, a career where you can't expect tomorrow's check because of career ending injuries or Vince falls out of love with you or whatever the case, and worse yet you've got a family, you should NOT be living a lifestyle that absolutely requires more than half a million dollars.


Yeah, I agree with you but how many documentaries or stories do we hear about former big name pro athletes now being dead broke?

It happens. Some people like to spend spend spend.


----------



## 304418 (Jul 2, 2014)

The Wood said:


> You share the stage with the undercard. Some talent are going to make you look bad by being on your show. You don't have to actually be in the ring with them to get that stank all over you.


Funny that no one says that in regards to Lesnar, The Rock, Undertaker, HHH, Big Show, Goldberg, Edge, etc when they have/had their matches in WWE.

And expanding the list of potential matches Punk could do in AEW:

3 matches with Cody
3 matches with Kenny Omega
3 matches with Jon Moxley
3 matches with Brodie Lee
3 matches with Hager (opens the door to a Bellator crossover)
3 matches with Roberts and Archer
3 matches with MJF
3 matches against PAC
3 matches against Pentagon Jr
3 matches against Fenix
A tag match against the Young Bucks
A tag match with the Lucha Bros
A trios match with Death Triangle
So, really 33 matches, working 4 PPVs & 4-5 tv specials over 5 years on a part time Lesnar-like schedule. Its doable. But its up to Punk if he wants to do that.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Verbatim17 said:


> Funny that no one says that in regards to Lesnar, The Rock, Undertaker, HHH, Big Show, Goldberg, Edge, etc when they have/had their matches in WWE.
> 
> And expanding the list of potential matches Punk could do in AEW:
> 
> ...


Some of them are either exceptions that prove the rule, and have never existed in the same sphere as acts as ridiculous as on AEW. Take Orange Cassidy, for instance. The WWE would NEVER put something that ridiculous in the ring. Even Hornswoggle and El Torito tried to fight.

Bray Wyatt as The Fiend might be the most egregious departure from anything realistic the WWE has ever done.


----------



## DarkMyau (Jun 22, 2020)

In 2014 he would have been a good signing.

But now? No, hes old news and lost all his credibility when he was owned in both of his MMA fights.

As a commentator in WWE he is at his best.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

DarkMyau said:


> In 2014 he would have been a good signing.
> 
> But now? No, hes old news and lost all his credibility when he was owned in both of his MMA fights.
> 
> As a commentator in WWE he is at his best.


I disagree with this. He had no “real credibility” as a pro-wrestler. He would’ve been a good signing; but yeah he’s not worth Lesnar money. Someone like Punk I think you’d want as a part time wrestler part time producer, just so he can train the up and comers.


----------



## Buhalovski (Jul 24, 2015)

Punk may be a cunt in real life but you guys are really understimating his value. Punk on TNT and Punk on some random WWE show are two different things. AEW would've been a different company right now if he showed up at All Out.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

Tsvetoslava said:


> Punk may be a cunt in real life but you guys are really understimating his value. Punk on TNT and Punk on some random WWE show are two different things. AEW would've been a different company right now if he showed up at All Out.


Correct.

Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda. That being said I guess the question becomes "Is CM Punk worth MORE money than they've given Chris Jericho?" If he showed up with his working boots on and cut incredible promos and worked his ass off and had the passion and the love of the business again? Yeah I think maybe.

But he's clearly not "in it for the love of the game" guy anymore.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

This thread is amazing


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

TD Stinger said:


> When did he say that? I mean, I've heard Punk say he would take a phone call from Vince or Triple H if they called, but I've never heard him give out a specific number.
> 
> And if that is the case, yeah. I mean, top WWE guys like Roman, Seth, etc. are probably all getting around 2 million a year or higher. So for Punk to ask for that, that's not really much of a surprise.


its in here somewhere

its an hour long though - not a bad interview though


----------



## 3venflow (Feb 3, 2019)

A lot of hate for Punk in this thread and he can be a douche, but I would _love_ to see him in AEW. I think he'd fit the promotion like a glove.

However, if he's pricing everyone out of a deal then I guess it's a non-starter.

Punk, Moxley, Jericho, Cody is an awesome base of veterans though.

I think there'd be money in a year-long Punk vs Mox feud.

But with all that said, after so long out of the ring can he still go like he used to?


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

3venflow said:


> A lot of hate for Punk in this thread and he can be a douche, but I would _love_ to see him in AEW. I think he'd fit the promotion like a glove.
> 
> However, if he's pricing everyone out of a deal then I guess it's a non-starter.
> 
> ...


I think we all want(ed) Punk in AEW but if he was unwilling then like there’s not much more you can say or do. His price, reportedly, was insane honestly. No one would pay him that much.


----------



## Christopher Near (Jan 16, 2019)

Imagine they pay all that money and sign him only for him to not care or try


----------



## Christopher Near (Jan 16, 2019)

RainmakerV2 said:


> And they should have paid it.


10 million for punk? John cena didn't even make 10 million


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

Let me ask @Chip Chipperson and @The Wood this: if you had a hard line budget and weren’t completely sure your company would get the TV deal, the rights fees, and all of that, would you really break the budget on Jericho, Moxley, JR, Punk, etc? You’ve got a budget and a timetable to “settle into things”.

Or would you play it a little smart and maybe wait for a better understanding of your place in the world of professional wrestling THEN sign the massive star?

I ask this as someone who believes they should have signed Punk at all costs, but I am willing to see the other side of the coin whilst admitting that they were unprofessional as hell in how they handled all of this and have my suspicions as to why.

Even saying all of that, I don’t see how they can continue pushing the likes of Orange Cassidy in a main event angle, Marko Stunt dives, Archer and the like having to work with Joey Janela, and a show that places more emphasis on Cody and Jericho than Moxley and still believe they can ever sign one of AJ, Daniel Bryan, or Brock.

If they want those guys, then they absolutely have to rework the culture of their show.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

bdon said:


> Let me ask @Chip Chipperson and @The Wood this: if you had a hard line budget and weren’t completely sure your company would get the TV deal, the rights fees, and all of that, would you really break the budget on Jericho, Moxley, JR, Punk, etc? You’ve got a budget and a timetable to “settle into things”.
> 
> Or would you play it a little smart and maybe wait for a better understanding of your place in the world of professional wrestling THEN sign the massive star?
> 
> ...


I would've approached with an offer and signed a contract before a contract (Letter of intent?). I'm not a legal guy so maybe someone can help me out but many athletes will sign a contract that says they will join a team based on X, Y and Z being met my contract would've said one of the provisions would be signing a paid deal with TNT


----------



## sweepdaleg (Jan 30, 2014)

I honestly really used to like punk..now he seems like a complete asshole. Lost me as a fan especially looking absolutely ridiculous in the UFC.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

Chip Chipperson said:


> I would've approached with an offer and signed a contract before a contract (Letter of intent?). I'm not a legal guy so maybe someone can help me out but many athletes will sign a contract that says they will join a team based on X, Y and Z being met my contract would've said one of the provisions would be signing a paid deal with TNT


Fair enough, even if I’m not sure that would seal the deal. Seems he might be the type to be offended signing a deal with provisions given his time away and inflated sense of self-worth.

Still hoping they can land him.


----------



## ECFuckinW (Jun 29, 2020)

Cm punk sucks dont sign this fool.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

ECFuckinW said:


> Cm punk sucks dont sign this fool.


Former ECW Champion matey


----------



## Rick Sanchez (Dec 30, 2012)

And he would have been worth every penny.


----------



## Britz94xD (May 17, 2019)

I think we underestimated how difficult it must've been for Khan not to sign him last year. Everyone was clamouring for Punk to join AEW, he could've thrown millions at Punk and arguably would've been worth it but decided against it.

Gotta give it up to Khan for the restraint.


----------



## RapShepard (Jun 20, 2014)

DarkMyau said:


> In 2014 he would have been a good signing.
> 
> But now? No, hes old news and lost all his credibility when he was owned in both of his MMA fights.
> 
> As a commentator in WWE he is at his best.


They signed 2020 Brodie Lee to pretend Punk wasn't worth it is silly as hell


----------



## USAUSA1 (Sep 17, 2006)

Every wrestler on the planet is vastly underpaid. Wwe bring in a billion dollars every year and wrestlers only get less than 10 % of the revenue. Punk probably ask for what he is worth. He made $500k plus PPV points off one fight in the ufc. ONE FIGHT and he was still underpaid considering what ufc made that night. 

Wrestlers need an union.


----------



## RapShepard (Jun 20, 2014)

USAUSA1 said:


> Every wrestler on the planet is vastly underpaid. Wwe bring in a billion dollars every year and wrestlers only get less than 10 % of the revenue. Punk probably ask for what he is worth. He made $500k plus PPV points off one fight in the ufc. ONE FIGHT and he was still underpaid considering what ufc made that night.
> 
> Wrestlers need an union.


Yup UFC and wrestling revunue share is crazy low


----------



## ECFuckinW (Jun 29, 2020)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Former ECW Champion matey


I've never liked punk and watching him in mma only further devalued him to me.Just plain not a fan of him.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

Damn this thread went off quick lol. I won't even bother quoting everyone in this thread except for the below. Too much to debate. A lot of good and bad points being made from everyone in here though.



bdon said:


> Let me ask @Chip Chipperson and @The Wood this: if you had a hard line budget and weren’t completely sure your company would get the TV deal, the rights fees, and all of that, would you really break the budget on Jericho, Moxley, JR, Punk, etc? You’ve got a budget and a timetable to “settle into things”.
> 
> Or would you play it a little smart and maybe wait for a better understanding of your place in the world of professional wrestling THEN sign the massive star?
> 
> I ask this as someone who believes they should have signed Punk at all costs, but I am willing to see the other side of the coin whilst admitting that they were unprofessional as hell in how they handled all of this and have my suspicions as to why.


This echoes a lot of my thoughts on Punk. They can't just throw $10 million at the guy before they even got their TV deal. That's probably more than what Cody, Omega, and Jericho make combined. Would be a terrible business move and a waste of money.

Now that they have recovered their initial investment, got the TV deal, and know that they have somewhat solidified their place in wrestling, they can now offer Punk more. But not more to the point of Lesnar money. Not for a part time Punk. That's asinine. John Cena doesn't even make that much and he has always had more star power than Punk, even now. For $10 million, I want a full-time schedule, constant winnings in the 18-49 demo, and a 15-25% increase in PPV buys.

Let's not just put this all on AEW either. They can't just bend over backwards to all of the guy's demands. It's also on Punk to be flexible as well. It's also on Punk to be reasonable. He's not perfectly right here as he is also pretty disliked in the industry. Just because the deal fell through doesn't automatically mean that AEW was in the wrong as there could have been other factors involving AJ Lee, scheduling, Punks commitment to wrestling, etc. that could have played a part in shit not working out. The guy would still be a huge get, but his passion is definitely not there anymore, so if Punk brought that kind of IDGAF energy to the meet-up, then what would you do as a business owner? Throw the bank at him before you're established as a company with no guarantee that he moves the needle?

As said in an earlier post, the best move when negotiations were taking place, would be for Tony to offer him a different kind of contract that more so "tested him out" before giving him a major deal like $10 million. Even then, we don't know if Tony actually offered that. Maybe he did, and Punk turned it down because he wanted Lesnar money or nothing at all.


----------



## USAUSA1 (Sep 17, 2006)

What is $10 million to a person/company that owns a nfl team and have billions? Not too mention a Jericho vs Punk program would bring them millions of dollars by itself.

We need to stop lowballing wrestlers that work 300 days on the road risking their LIVES in ARENA'S and we can't give them their fair share. No excuses


----------



## Not Lying (Sep 9, 2013)

You people that think because Khan is worth billions it means he can just throw a bunch millions without considering it. 
It does not happen this way. Even big corps that make $10Bn+ a year in revenue would do feasibility and market studies on any investment in the millions they want to do. Throwing 10m at Punk is a risk. If he was asking for insane amount, and they had a limited budget, then that's how it is. They have a certain culture and Punk coming in with a holier than thou attitude doesn't help.
I don't blame either, I think if they wanted to they could have arrived at a deal. Still, Punk has the right to play hard ball and AEW has the right to be conservative with their initial investments.


----------



## USAUSA1 (Sep 17, 2006)

Nope, I am not buying that. These guys are selling out arena's on a weekly basis before the pandemic. They got the money but they know the wrestling business is a circus and they can get away with it. It's sad


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

MontyCora said:


> Correct.
> 
> Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda. That being said I guess the question becomes "Is CM Punk worth MORE money than they've given Chris Jericho?" If he showed up with his working boots on and cut incredible promos and worked his ass off and had the passion and the love of the business again? Yeah I think maybe.
> 
> But he's clearly not "in it for the love of the game" guy anymore.


It could have been the love of the game that caused him to price himself out. People forget that AEW is comedy wrestling. I’d ask for way more to go there than I would something I could actually be passionate about too.

I’d take $500k to help guys I wanted to help, but if you want me to lock my soul away, add a zero on to it. This becomes easier and easier when you’re already sitting on a fortune.

Also, I do have to laugh at the idea someone posed of the UFC cutting out his credibility. You have Orange Cassidy as a main eventer. Don’t give me that shit, hahaha.



bdon said:


> Let me ask @Chip Chipperson and @The Wood this: if you had a hard line budget and weren’t completely sure your company would get the TV deal, the rights fees, and all of that, would you really break the budget on Jericho, Moxley, JR, Punk, etc? You’ve got a budget and a timetable to “settle into things”.
> 
> Or would you play it a little smart and maybe wait for a better understanding of your place in the world of professional wrestling THEN sign the massive star?
> 
> ...


Haha, don’t say “I’m willing to see the other side” like it’s some benevolent talent of yours. Some of us see the other side and rightly dismiss it.

What’s my budget? I’d need way more information than that. And I wouldn’t be caught managing a company for a billionaire that was going to put an unnecessary cap on me hiring the talent that is going to secure the TV rights deal that makes us billions back. That’s the _whole_ strategy. That’s what I’d be getting paid to do. If they came to me and said “I want this, but your budget is only $1 million per week,” I’d say “Yeah, nah, see ya.”

You do this thing right or you don’t do it.

That being said, people are treating $10 million like it’s Punk’s fixed rate. That’s his “eat my pride and return to the company I used and counter-sued me and fired me on my wedding day” fee. Sitting down with him, if you’re paying $3 million for Jericho, that seems enough. You lay out your plan and perhaps offer a clause that allows pay to go up depending on revenue streams. I’ve got no problem paying Jericho and Punk way more money if the promotion is pulling in way more money. I also don’t have an issue with wrestlers getting a much larger cut of merchandise, etc.

I’m fine giving certain talent a fixed rate and also giving them a bonus at the end of the year based on the average performance of ratings throughout the year. 1 million viewers is equivalent to $100k, so an average of 1.4 million would be $140k at Christmas time. 2 million would get them $200k. If they get me up to 3 million viewers? Fuck yes they’re worth $300k



Britz94xD said:


> I think we underestimated how difficult it must've been for Khan not to sign him last year. Everyone was clamouring for Punk to join AEW, he could've thrown millions at Punk and arguably would've been worth it but decided against it.
> 
> Gotta give it up to Khan for the restraint.


They don’t deserve credit for not being able to sign him, hahaha.


----------



## One Shed (Jan 7, 2014)

The Definition of Technician said:


> You people that think because Khan is worth billions it means he can just throw a bunch millions without considering it.
> It does not happen this way. Even big corps that make $10Bn+ a year in revenue would do feasibility and market studies on any investment in the millions they want to do. Throwing 10m at Punk is a risk. If he was asking for insane amount, and they had a limited budget, then that's how it is. They have a certain culture and Punk coming in with a holier than thou attitude doesn't help.
> I don't blame either, I think if they wanted to they could have arrived at a deal. Still, Punk has the right to play hard ball and AEW has the right to be conservative with their initial investments.


The lack of understanding how businesses work is pretty incredible on this thread. It is like they have never had to set and follow proper budgets before. Not everyone is Ted Turner who is willing to take big losses to get the shiny toy he wants. People who become wealthy do not become that way by being stupid.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

USAUSA1 said:


> What is $10 million to a person/company that owns a nfl team and have billions? Not too mention a Jericho vs Punk program would bring them millions of dollars by itself.
> 
> We need to stop lowballing wrestlers that work 300 days on the road risking their LIVES in ARENA'S and we can't give them their fair share. No excuses


Punk doesn't want to work 300 days a year, he wants a part-time schedule, probably like 10 dates or something similar to Lesnar where he shows up 5 times a year.



The Wood said:


> It could have been the love of the game that caused him to price himself out. People forget that AEW is comedy wrestling. I’d ask for way more to go there than I would something I could actually be passionate about too.
> 
> I’d take $500k to help guys I wanted to help, but if you want me to lock my soul away, add a zero on to it. This becomes easier and easier when you’re already sitting on a fortune.
> 
> ...


Honestly Wood what is your end game? You act like you know shit when no one us here have the slightest clue on 100% of the details. You say others have an "agenda" when your posting style is the only style here that points towards anyone having an "agenda". You're investing a lot of time into trying to make sure that everyone who reads this thread sees things in the way you see them. Half of the posts in here are yours. No one is going to stop watching AEW or feel differently about Punk because they take your POV as gospel my guy. It's one thing to have an opinion on the matter and entirely different thing to come at the company with so many different angles and negative shots/connotations, that you make it impossible for anyone to genuinely debate with you.

Everything you post doesn't have to be with a condescending, malicious tone towards AEW or the people who choose to watch the show. "People forget that AEW is comedy wrestling". Why are you trying to force that as fact? Why because Marko, Matt Hardy and OC got some shine? But the rest of the show doesn't matter huh?

All of your arguments in this thread are all over the place and nothing makes sense compared to everyone else's. You're just spouting out head canon.


----------



## Not Lying (Sep 9, 2013)

Lheurch said:


> The lack of understanding how businesses work is pretty incredible on this thread. It is like they have never had to set and follow proper budgets before. Not everyone is Ted Turner who is willing to take big losses to get the shiny toy he wants. People who become wealthy do not become that way by being stupid.


 It's really not as simple as Tony calling his dad and asking for a few extra millions. If they had 100m initial investment, I'd assume a 70/30 equity/debt, Tony said he is the lead investor so i assume there's a few others, he probably put like 50-60m and others made small investments.
It's a business in which they had to plan $26m a year for production cost, add to that all the expenses on administrative, advertising, renting.. now imagine someone, just a single person (Punk) coming in and adding like 10% on all these expenses, it's not an easy decision especially for a new company with a certain type of culture.
These "million of dollars" of investment, they study them by doing an upside case, base case, and downside case on the return of that investment (estimates on the revenue per viewer, and viewer added due to Punk, margins on merch..etc) . I assume if they didn't go for Punk it's because he was asking too much and it didn't pass their estimates for the base case, or even the upside case.

Still, I can't excuse the unprofessional way they initially contacted Punk for example.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

@The Wood I’m a big fan of them resigning Jericho for $3m and a percentage stake in profits when the time comes for that very reason.

Khan didn’t want to give Jericho a percentage of the company the first go around, so maybe they can meet in the middle: $3m, a percentage of profits, and X amount of dollars towards Jericho budget decisions in reaching a larger audience.


----------



## yeahright2 (Feb 11, 2011)

LifeInCattleClass said:


> Punk said on a podcast he would work for WWE for 10m for a limited date, 5 year deal
> 
> i’m guessing the asking price was same for AEW / and this was before they got the tv extension
> 
> ...


I never heard that podcast, but it really says something about how wrong Punk is in his self-perception if he think he´s worth 10 million and a limited date deal.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Lheurch said:


> The lack of understanding how businesses work is pretty incredible on this thread. It is like they have never had to set and follow proper budgets before. Not everyone is Ted Turner who is willing to take big losses to get the shiny toy he wants. People who become wealthy do not become that way by being stupid.


Normally I agree with you, but being stupid is not securing big stars to work in your star-dependent wrestling program. Now they have no bargaining power.

Even if you spent $26million a year, total, on Brock, Orton, Danielson, Punk, Jericho, Moxley and JR, then that’s still only $500k a week. Considering a show costs $880k to run, that still leaves you $543k from a $1.9 million a week budget (which is still too fucking low) to pay talent. Most TV shows cost abou $3.5 million an episode to produce, so my asking budget wouldn’t be much lower than that. That would be $182 million a year, which seems a lot, but is piss-water to the Khans and would be made back in TV revenue. If not, too bad, so sad — Shad Khan’s net worth has increased something like $2 billion since the start of the year anyway.


----------



## Lockard The GOAT (May 30, 2007)

The Wood said:


> Some of them are either exceptions that prove the rule, and have never existed in the same sphere as acts as ridiculous as on AEW. Take Orange Cassidy, for instance. The WWE would NEVER put something that ridiculous in the ring. Even Hornswoggle and El Torito tried to fight.
> 
> Bray Wyatt as The Fiend might be the most egregious departure from anything realistic the WWE has ever done.


The same company that had a cruiserweight like Rey Mysterio give competitive matches against the likes of Undertaker and Triple H? Of course they would. I mean, there's a possibility that Vince may not "get" the character, but if he did he would have him wrestle sparingly from time to time as well.


----------



## One Shed (Jan 7, 2014)

The Wood said:


> Normally I agree with you, but being stupid is not securing big stars to work in your star-dependent wrestling program. Now they have no bargaining power.
> 
> Even if you spent $26million a year, total, on Brock, Orton, Danielson, Punk, Jericho, Moxley and JR, then that’s still only $500k a week. Considering a show costs $880k to run, that still leaves you $543k from a $1.9 million a week budget (which is still too fucking low) to pay talent. Most TV shows cost abou $3.5 million an episode to produce, so my asking budget wouldn’t be much lower than that. That would be $182 million a year, which seems a lot, but is piss-water to the Khans and would be made back in TV revenue. If not, too bad, so sad — Shad Khan’s net worth has increased something like $2 billion since the start of the year anyway.


I am not really disagreeing with you though. I am disagreeing with the people who are saying something like "Shad Khan should just throw a bunch of money out because he can." That is bad business.

Your view from what I see, and mine as well is more of a complete picture of the entire process. Any smart business owner would be able to reasonably calculate how much paying more on the front end would increase your overall growth and profits down the road. Signing Punk would have cost more upfront capital and might have caused them to just increase their initial investment to cover that assuming it would get paid for and then some through increased rights fees, growing interest, merch sales, live event attendance, PPV buys, etc. My personal opinion is Punk would have been worth it. You had entire arenas chant his name for over five years after he left. Did Hogan get that? Goldberg? So yeah, I would have done it.

My objection is to the people in here who do not get the holistic picture of the business model and just give simplistic arguments like "Shad Khan should do it because he has the money" etc. You understand the complete picture of WHY it makes sense to do that, not some argument akin to "Shad is richer than Vince, he should just buy WWE or pay The Rock 100m because he could."


----------



## TD Stinger (May 9, 2012)

I will say that the perception of Punk has changed through all of this. When AEW was getting started in 2019, I know many fans had the thought that this was where Punk would finally make his return to wrestling to stick it to Vince and WWE. I myself thought he was coming in for sure last year, but mainly because AEW was a company that could pay him what he wants.

And that's what it ultimately comes down to, money. Not this idea of sticking it to Vince and WWE. But how much could he cash in on a potential in ring return. Now if AEW existed back in 2014-2015, maybe things would different in that regard. But in 2020, now that more than 6 years have gone by since his WWE exit, I doubt sticking it to WWE is on his mind anymore.

And for anyone saying he doesn't have the passion for it anymore, maybe he doesn't have it the way he used to when he was on the road 300 days a year. But you watch him on Backstage interviewing guys like Daniel Bryan or Bret Hart, you can see he still has the mind for this and healthy amount of respect and passion for the business.

While the pandemic is going on, I doubt we will see anything Punk related to wrestling. But I will be interested what happens when fans are back in full arenas again if someone makes a play to bring him in when that happens.



prosperwithdeen said:


> *Let's not just put this all on AEW either. They can't just bend over backwards to all of the guy's demands. It's also on Punk to be flexible as well. It's also on Punk to be reasonable.* He's not perfectly right here as he is also pretty disliked in the industry. Just because the deal fell through doesn't automatically mean that AEW was in the wrong as there could have been other factors involving AJ Lee, scheduling, Punks commitment to wrestling, etc. that could have played a part in shit not working out. The guy would still be a huge get, but his passion is definitely not there anymore, so if Punk brought that kind of IDGAF energy to the meet-up, then what would you do as a business owner? Throw the bank at him before you're established as a company with no guarantee that he moves the needle?


Whether it be in pro wrestling or pro sports I'm always for the athletes to get as much money as possible. So if you're in Punk's position, where it's case they need you more than you need them, to me he should ask for as much as he wants, especially when you have a guy like Jericho saying he's making more money off this deal than any other in his career and considering what guys like Brock and Roman are getting paid. And then it's up to AEW to meet those demands or not.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

TD Stinger said:


> Whether it be in pro wrestling or pro sports I'm always for the athletes to get as much money as possible. So if you're in Punk's position, where it's case they need you more than you need them, to me he should ask for as much as he wants, especially when you have a guy like Jericho saying he's making more money off this deal than any other in his career and considering what guys like Brock and Roman are getting paid. And then it's up to AEW to meet those demands or not.


I don't mind him asking for what he wants, he can ask for whatever he thinks he's worth, whether he's actually worth that or not. But at the same time, if Punk wanted it to work for himself and his fans (he probably doesn't care as much as we think he does honestly), then he has a part to play too in negotiations. Even sports stars are willing to make it work most of the time. Tom Brady has been taking a smaller salary than he is worth for a while now because he has wanted to make it work in surrounding himself with better players. And that's what it comes down to. Punk didn't seem to really care to make it work because the article makes it seem like he wasn't willing to come down on his asking price, despite the fact that AEW wanted to work with him, meaning that the passion to return to wrestling isn't burning hot.

All I'm saying is that the deal probably didn't work out because of issues on both sides. I don't agree with the take that AEW should have just signed him and bent over to whatever "astronomical" demands he had just because he's CM Punk. Saying no to his demands doesn't make AEW wrong, and Punk subjectively thinking he is worth what he thinks is also not wrong. Never say never though, Punk can still come into the company in the future.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

IMO Punk ruined a lot of leverage for a return when he took that backstage gig. The mystique is gone in a way. He just seems to be checked out and that’s fine because he seems happy.


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

USAUSA1 said:


> What is $10 million to a person/company that owns a nfl team and have billions? Not too mention a Jericho vs Punk program would bring them millions of dollars by itself.
> 
> We need to stop lowballing wrestlers that work 300 days on the road risking their LIVES in ARENA'S and we can't give them their fair share. No excuses


they don’t work 300 days in AEW

they work 45 - 49 / if even that


----------



## chronoxiong (Apr 1, 2005)

He really is trippen if he was asking for that much money. He trying to go the Brock Lesnar route?


----------



## TD Stinger (May 9, 2012)

prosperwithdeen said:


> I don't mind him asking for what he wants, he can ask for whatever he thinks he's worth, whether he's actually worth that or not. But at the same time, if Punk wanted it to work for himself and his fans (he probably doesn't care as much as we think he does honestly), then he has a part to play too in negotiations. Even sports stars are willing to make it work most of the time. Tom Brady has been taking a smaller salary than he is worth for a while now because he has wanted to make it work in surrounding himself with better players. And that's what it comes down to. Punk didn't seem to really care to make it work because the article makes it seem like he wasn't willing to come down on his asking price, despite the fact that AEW wanted to work with him, meaning that the passion to return to wrestling isn't burning hot.
> 
> All I'm saying is that the deal probably didn't work out because of issues on both sides. I don't agree with the take that AEW should have just signed him and bent over to whatever "astronomical" demands he had just because he's CM Punk. Saying no to his demands doesn't make AEW wrong, and Punk subjectively thinking he is worth what he thinks is also not wrong. Never say never though, Punk can still come into the company in the future.


I mean the Tom Brady comparison doesn't exactly equate here because football is a team sport. He takes less money so his team can get more talented players with that extra money so he can win Superbowls. No different what Dirk Nowitzki did in the NBA. Pro Wrestling is about the individual, and I don't believe Punk should ask for any less than he wants to make a come back. That's on AEW to make happen or not, depending on what they want to do.

Now do I blame AEW for not getting him? I mean I don't even know the whole story in terms of how far the negotiations got or what the exact amount of money Punk wanted. If they didn't want to break the bank, that's their choice. It's also their choice to live with whatever may come of that which may be nothing. Or that may be Punk going back to WWE eventually and making money for them. We'll know in the future.


----------



## yeahright2 (Feb 11, 2011)

chronoxiong said:


> He really is trippen if he was asking for that much money. He trying to go the Brock Lesnar route?


Tbf, they all do. But not many of them has the same leverage as Lesnar... Nobody wants to work 300+ days (yes, I know AEW wrestlers doesn´t really do house shows..yet), if they can get a contract like Lesnar and work maybe 10 or 12 days.


----------



## Rozzop (Aug 26, 2019)

You guys are talking like Punk is prime Stone Cold or Hogan.

Is Punk more recognisable than Tyson? Did Tyson move the needle? 

I think your overestimating his potential drawing power. 

Reigns, Brock, Orton etc are never leaving WWE. Who could realistically jump ship if Punk signed? AJ Lee? Thats it. 

In fact if he had of joined he would ended up doing goofy shit with Hardy or Cassidy and the ratings would be exactly like they are now.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

prosperwithdeen said:


> "People forget that AEW is comedy wrestling". Why are you trying to force that as fact? Why because Marko, Matt Hardy and OC got some shine? But the rest of the show doesn't matter huh?


He's kind of right about this one though.

Look at AEW's last non TV special and the sheer amount of comedy:

- Marko Stunt turning super saiyan and beating up 7 heels

- Britt Baker breaking up her friendship with Tony Schiavone

- Brodie and Colt Vs Joey Janela and Sonny Kiss. 3/4 are comedy wrestlers

- Garbage being emptied onto Britt Baker 

- Broken Matt Hardy accompanied to the ring by a drone.

- Matt Hardy's match

- Chris Jericho/Orange Cassidy segment

Out of the 12 major segments on that show 6 featured comedy goofy bullshit and that's not counting the Best Friends video package hyping up their tag team title match which had some minor comedy elements in it as well.

Even this past week which was being treated as a serious PPV/TV special had Chris Jericho trying to force memes on commentary, Orange Cassidy being a geek and Trent's mum dropping him off at the arena before his big World Tag Title match.



Rozzop said:


> You guys are talking like Punk is prime Stone Cold or Hogan.
> 
> Is Punk more recognisable than Tyson? Did Tyson move the needle?
> 
> ...


He kind of is the equivalent of Hogan or Stone Cold in 2020. Obviously not the big star that they were in their primes but one of the few guys from WWE to have legitimate mainstream appeal, a big fan base that will support him and is a big enough star + good enough wrestler for people to fantasy book dream matches in their heads.

Everyone knew what Tyson was going to be and that was a couple of appearances that amount to nothing. Tyson also didn't promote it himself and I don't think TNT put on any external advertisements promoting Tyson. Even AEW itself didn't do a great job advertising Tyson on Dynamite. Punk has a following of over 2.5 million people on Twitter lets say 500,000 of those followers already watch Dynamite weekly he has a potential reach of 2.1 million people for Dynamite to get their hands on. Punk tweeting a hype video saying he's debuting on Dynamite would attract the majority of those people and that's not including people like me who are Punk fans but don't follow him on social media.

Now could AEW capitalise on that hype? No, you're probably right in that he'd be doing some stupid feud with someone and the ratings would only be a little bit higher than they are now but if you have Punk walk out, acting like a star and feuding with other stars you'd be getting your moneys worth.

As for who would jump I don't think AJ Lee is realistic because I think she is done apart from signings. Punk has a lot of friends over in WWE still with the main one that AEW needs probably being Paul Heyman but allow me to point out some other buddies of his:

Batista - Admittedly not a realistic option for AEW especially due to his relationship with Triple H and the WWE.

Bret Hart - Possible.

Brock Lesnar - No.

John Cena - Lol, no.

Karl Anderson - Possibly

Kofi Kingston - Probably not but maybe if he was soured on WWE?

Luke Gallows - Possibly.

Paul Heyman - Possibly

The Rock - Lol, no.

Undertaker - Nah


----------



## Klitschko (May 24, 2020)

USAUSA1 said:


> Every wrestler on the planet is vastly underpaid. Wwe bring in a billion dollars every year and wrestlers only get less than 10 % of the revenue. Punk probably ask for what he is worth. He made $500k plus PPV points off one fight in the ufc. ONE FIGHT and he was still underpaid considering what ufc made that night.
> 
> Wrestlers need an union.


He trained 2 years for that massacre. So he made 500k for 2 years basically. Add on top of that all his training expenses and yea. 

Would have been great to have him. He really was a loss. But it is what it is I guess.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

How did this turn into an AEW has comedy thread lol


----------



## USAUSA1 (Sep 17, 2006)

I don't know AEW budget or contracts but I am willing to bet that less than 15% of the budget goes to the wrestlers which is WRONG. Punk wasn't going to comeback with a lowball offer. He knows he can out draw 99% of the business right now. To be honest, I think he is worth more than Lesnar right now. I can't think of anyone besides The Rock that would be more appealing to the casual fan. Punk knows his worth.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

NXT Only said:


> How did this turn into an AEW has comedy thread lol


Punk is adamantly against comedy in wrestling if Bruce and JR are to be believed. He most likely wouldn't sign with a company that features a lot of comedy and if he did swallow his pride it'd be for big dollars.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Lheurch said:


> I am not really disagreeing with you though. I am disagreeing with the people who are saying something like "Shad Khan should just throw a bunch of money out because he can." That is bad business.
> 
> Your view from what I see, and mine as well is more of a complete picture of the entire process. Any smart business owner would be able to reasonably calculate how much paying more on the front end would increase your overall growth and profits down the road. Signing Punk would have cost more upfront capital and might have caused them to just increase their initial investment to cover that assuming it would get paid for and then some through increased rights fees, growing interest, merch sales, live event attendance, PPV buys, etc. My personal opinion is Punk would have been worth it. You had entire arenas chant his name for over five years after he left. Did Hogan get that? Goldberg? So yeah, I would have done it.
> 
> My objection is to the people in here who do not get the holistic picture of the business model and just give simplistic arguments like "Shad Khan should do it because he has the money" etc. You understand the complete picture of WHY it makes sense to do that, not some argument akin to "Shad is richer than Vince, he should just buy WWE or pay The Rock 100m because he could."


Ah, I follow. My issue is with the people who say things like "You've got to save your money! You can't spend money on these big names, much better to sign Joey Janela and make your own stars." I thought there was no way you'd fit that basket, hahaha. 



Chip Chipperson said:


> Punk is adamantly against comedy in wrestling if Bruce and JR are to be believed. He most likely wouldn't sign with a company that features a lot of comedy and if he did swallow his pride it'd be for big dollars.


We don't really have any evidence he asked for $10 million. That was his WWE asking price, apparently. But even if he did, it may not be that he was expecting that much. He could have very easily been pricing himself out. And if they were going to pay it -- holy shit, score.


----------



## One Shed (Jan 7, 2014)

The Wood said:


> Ah, I follow. My issue is with the people who say things like "You've got to save your money! You can't spend money on these big names, much better to sign Joey Janela and make your own stars." I thought there was no way you'd fit that basket, hahaha.


Yeah, I have not argued anything other than you have to spend money to make money but not in an illogical way. Bringing Punk in does nothing but grow your business, but there is a number that exists that is too much. That number would exist for any talent. But on the other end you start to look minor league when you start to sign Joey Janela to a deal worth more than week's worth of Twinkies and Hot Pockets.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Agreed completely.


----------



## phatbob426 (Feb 6, 2010)

AEW should offer CM Punk the same money as whatever they're paying Brodie Lee and also offer AJ Lee slightly more money than what they're paying Penelope Ford.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

The Wood said:


> We don't really have any evidence he asked for $10 million. That was his WWE asking price, apparently. But even if he did, it may not be that he was expecting that much. He could have very easily been pricing himself out. And if they were going to pay it -- holy shit, score.


Yeah, Punk knows the game, start high and come to something in the middle somewhere. Also, that WWE asking price as you said before is the price for a company he hates where he needs to work directly with Vince, Triple H, Stephanie etc who he has made clear he doesn't like. For AEW who knows? He might have been willing to come in for limited dates at 3-4 million a year just to stick it to them. That's still a massive pay for part time work (A whopping 57,000 a week) and he could still do his films, comics and whatever else he wants to do with the rest of his week.

Personally I think 3-4 million with limited dates would have been enough to land Punk if you gave him incentives in his contract as well (Creative control, cut of his merch etc). Punk would be smart enough to know that he's only really got maybe 5 years left where he can compete at the level he's known for competing at so a 3 year deal worth 12 million dollars would no doubt get him.

And since he's now a free agent again once this COVID-19 stuff is over and done with he should be flown to Florida, wined and dined like the superstar that he is and offered a deal with AEW. Don't fuck it up a second time.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Yeah, Punk knows the game, start high and come to something in the middle somewhere. Also, that WWE asking price as you said before is the price for a company he hates where he needs to work directly with Vince, Triple H, Stephanie etc who he has made clear he doesn't like. For AEW who knows? He might have been willing to come in for limited dates at 3-4 million a year just to stick it to them. That's still a massive pay for part time work (A whopping 57,000 a week) and he could still do his films, comics and whatever else he wants to do with the rest of his week.
> 
> Personally I think 3-4 million with limited dates would have been enough to land Punk if you gave him incentives in his contract as well (Creative control, cut of his merch etc). Punk would be smart enough to know that he's only really got maybe 5 years left where he can compete at the level he's known for competing at so a 3 year deal worth 12 million dollars would no doubt get him.
> 
> And since he's now a free agent again once this COVID-19 stuff is over and done with he should be flown to Florida, wined and dined like the superstar that he is and offered a deal with AEW. Don't fuck it up a second time.


That’s what I think it would have taken, but they spoiled themselves out of it, and now their story is that he wanted too much. Just like with Orton.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> Ah, I follow. My issue is with the people who say things like "You've got to save your money! You can't spend money on these big names, much better to sign Joey Janela and make your own stars." I thought there was no way you'd fit that basket, hahaha.
> 
> 
> 
> We don't really have any evidence he asked for $10 million. That was his WWE asking price, apparently. But even if he did, it may not be that he was expecting that much. He could have very easily been pricing himself out. And if they were going to pay it -- holy shit, score.


Here is what I don’t get. If Punk was indeed pricing himself out, you’d still throw $10m at him? At what number do you, @The Wood, stop offering him the moon and the stars? To me, if he is asking $10m, then he simply doesn’t want to wrestle. But you’ve said you’d have paid whatever it took.

You’d risk spending that kind of money on a guy who is likely to show up unmotivated?

To the larger points that the board seems unwilling to accept, AEW isn’t going to be able to land stars of Punk’s nature with as much ease as they could as long as Marko Stunt is taking out 7 men or Orange Cassidy is treated as a main event level talent, beasts like Lance Archer get treated as he has been, the MJF’s hit the glass ceiling, a Kenny Omega goes from someone they all probably admired and wanted to work with to a midcard act used to enhance everyone else, etc etc. 

Fix the booking, or else you’re going to ALWAYS have the stars, guys who take their craft seriously and want to know that WHEN they aren’t workIng the main event or, in the biggest storylines, they won’t have to work a midcard act with Janela, Colt Cabana, sell for Matt Hardy teleporting, play fight with Cassidy, sell for the manager of Best Buy, work a tag match against John Silver, etc. 

AEW has a lot of talent they misuse, and until they figure out how to fix that, they’re always going to be left thinking the most desirable targets want “an astronomical number”.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Punk is adamantly against comedy in wrestling if Bruce and JR are to be believed. He most likely wouldn't sign with a company that features a lot of comedy and if he did swallow his pride it'd be for big dollars.


I’m confused. He either didn’t sign because

A. They didn’t pay him enough(likely)
B. Too much comedy(doubtful)
C. He doesn’t wanna wrestle anymore(it’s this one)


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

bdon said:


> Here is what I don’t get. If Punk was indeed pricing himself out, you’d still throw $10m at him? At what number do you, @The Wood, stop offering him the moon and the stars? To me, if he is asking $10m, then he simply doesn’t want to wrestle. But you’ve said you’d have paid whatever it took.
> 
> You’d risk spending that kind of money on a guy who is likely to show up unmotivated?
> 
> ...


Wasn't asked but I don't think I'd offer more than 5 million to Punk but I do genuinely believe he'd take 3-4 million to work 30 or so dates a year.



NXT Only said:


> I’m confused. He either didn’t sign because
> 
> A. They didn’t pay him enough(likely)
> B. Too much comedy(doubtful)
> C. He doesn’t wanna wrestle anymore(it’s this one)


If he didn't want to wrestle anymore he'd say so. He always says "The door is open" and that he's not totally against it.


----------



## 304418 (Jul 2, 2014)

The Wood said:


> Some of them are either exceptions that prove the rule, and have never existed in the same sphere as acts as ridiculous as on AEW. Take Orange Cassidy, for instance. The WWE would NEVER put something that ridiculous in the ring. Even Hornswoggle and El Torito tried to fight.
> 
> Bray Wyatt as The Fiend might be the most egregious departure from anything realistic the WWE has ever done.


It’s all comedy in the end. Just different types of wrestling comedy. And if Punk cared about realism in wrestling, he would have signed with NJPW and ROH sometime over the last several years. He never did.

And if Punk signed with WWE today, he`d be fine working alongside The Fiend, just like he was fine working alongside Kane & Undertaker & Boogeyman.

To my knowledge, no one is open to seeing Punk vs the Fiend. They might be open to seeing Punk vs Hangman Page though.

Not to mention that we’re a long ways away from the Casino Battle Royal participants from DoN 2019. The AEW undercard is more based in realism and much better now, although there’s still work to be done.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

NXT Only said:


> Fans= "Build your own stars"
> 
> Also fans= "Sign CM Punk for 10 million dollars"


How else are you going to create a star? WWE is proving that you can't create stars without existing stars to put them over, why would AEW be any different? CM Punk, in theory, elevates someone (in my eyes it would be Cody) into a legit star if used properly. Is it not worth $10 million for Cody Rhodes to become an actual, legitimate star? I would say obviously it is. That doesn't even include the # of PPV buys/merch & tickets sold/extra viewers that Punk would have brought with him.

I mean, yes, I think MJF can figure his way out to becoming a star on his own. I truly do. But I also truly believe that no one else on the roster has this ability. Not Hangman, not any of them, they need stars to make them. Punk makes Cody, Cody makes Hangman, 3 years from now AEW has 2 megastars (Cody/Hangman) due to the 3 years they employed Punk.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

TKO Wrestling said:


> How else are you going to create a star? WWE is proving that you can't create stars without existing stars to put them over, why would AEW be any different? CM Punk, in theory, elevates someone (in my eyes it would be Cody) into a legit star if used properly. Is it not worth $10 million for Cody Rhodes to become an actual, legitimate star? I would say obviously it is. That doesn't even include the # of PPV buys/merch & tickets sold/extra viewers that Punk would have brought with him.
> 
> I mean, yes, I think MJF can figure his way out to becoming a star on his own. I truly do. But I also truly believe that no one else on the roster has this ability. Not Hangman, not any of them, they need stars to make them. Punk makes Cody, Cody makes Hangman, 3 years from now AEW has 2 megastars (Cody/Hangman) due to the 3 years they employed Punk.


10 million is a massive investment for someone who may not even be interested in doing this

MJF is a becoming a star because he's been well-protected; he's been given promo-time; he's been given all the gizmos and gimmicks to get him over a top heel (the ring, the employee he bullies etc).

Hangman is becoming a star; he has not been as protected as MJF (losses to Jericho for example); but he has got a well-defined gimmick; when he gets his singles push, he'll be given promos and he'll be protected. 

You don't need to spend 10 million on someone who may not even be able to achieve what's been asked of him.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Wasn't asked but I don't think I'd offer more than 5 million to Punk but I do genuinely believe he'd take 3-4 million to work 30 or so dates a year.
> 
> 
> 
> If he didn't want to wrestle anymore he'd say so. He always says "The door is open" and that he's not totally against it.


He doesn’t want to wrestle, companies, fans have been clamoring for it. His heart isn’t in to it and I definitely understand as those last few years with the WWE had to be draining.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

optikk sucks said:


> 10 million is a massive investment for someone who may not even be interested in doing this
> 
> MJF is a becoming a star because he's been well-protected; he's been given promo-time; he's been given all the gizmos and gimmicks to get him over a top heel (the ring, the employee he bullies etc).
> 
> ...


Imagine thinking AEW is actually building stars that could be on the level of a top end wrestling star.

MJF is about 2-3 years off becoming a main eventer in AEW and him becoming a big wrestling star is probably very unlikely unless AEW really takes off and starts getting competitive with the WWE's two main brands. MJF as much as I enjoy him is struggling creatively and is stuck in midcard hell.

Hangman is in a stop start feud with Kenny Omega over personality differences. Same boat as MJF that AEW would need to really take off and he'd need to be booked much better to actually become a star.

None of these guys will ever get close to the level of Punk. That's why Punk is worth millions.



NXT Only said:


> He doesn’t want to wrestle, companies, fans have been clamoring for it. His heart isn’t in to it and I definitely understand as those last few years with the WWE had to be draining.


So why not just say he's done? He came out and said he was done with MMA when that ship had sailed. Why not wrestling?


----------



## ClintDagger (Feb 1, 2015)

I think if Punk had won even one MMA fight he would have returned as a part timer to WWE by now. With how embarrassing all of that was I think he’s afraid to come back and be the butt of the joke but eventually he will come back to WWE in some capacity as that’s a lifetime paycheck once he does. He probably thinks AEW is beneath him just like all other MMA promotions outside of UFC are beneath him.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

Chip Chipperson said:


> He's kind of right about this one though.
> 
> Look at AEW's last non TV special and the sheer amount of comedy:
> 
> ...


You're omitting the other 80% of the show that wasn't comedy though, that's what I'm getting at.

Marko Stunt was tossed around by Wardlow but if he threw some punches, then...okay. Britt Baker's stuff was all comedy but everyone loves Britt Baker, that's not a negative comedic thing.

Jericho/OC had a brawl after Jericho ripped him apart on the mic, that was hardly comedy just because OC tried to piss him off. Janela/Kiss being in a match with Brodie/Colt isn't comedy wrestling, they were going at them the whole time. Even Kiss was being serious. Nothing comedic about the Hardy match except the drone part which was like 10 seconds.

Like I don't understand how AEW is comedy wrestling when all of what you listed was barely comedy and the rest of the show was serious.

Not saying that there isn't comedy sometimes, but If AEW was all comedy wrestling like WWE is, I assure you I wouldn't be watching.



Chip Chipperson said:


> Punk is adamantly against comedy in wrestling if Bruce and JR are to be believed. He most likely wouldn't sign with a company that features a lot of comedy and if he did swallow his pride it'd be for big dollars.


He has had comedy like segments in the past in WWE though, so I don't know how true Bruce and JR are.




Chip Chipperson said:


> Imagine thinking AEW is actually building stars that could be on the level of a top end wrestling star.
> 
> MJF is about 2-3 years off becoming a main eventer in AEW and him becoming a big wrestling star is probably very unlikely unless AEW really takes off and starts getting competitive with the WWE's two main brands. MJF as much as I enjoy him is struggling creatively and is stuck in midcard hell.
> 
> ...


They are building stars though, but it doesn't automatically happen in 13 months in a new promotion. Let's no forget all of the hype prior to March for these guys. Omega and Hangman were killing it, MJF was on the rise, Cody looking good, Darby Allin and Jungle Boy are promising, Britt Baker gaining popularity etc. Lately, I can admit that they haven't been going hard and storylines have been on hold for obvious reasons, but we can't assume that these guys will never reach that level. People also talked about Punk that way in the beginning. When Cena debuted as a CAW, no one saw anything in him either, now he's one of the biggest stars ever to be made in the company. It took 15 years for him to get to this point and it took Punk a considerable amount of time as well. If your argument is that these guys will never reach that level because they're not WWE, then it's not fair to use that as an argument as to what they're doing wrong. WWE has been around for 30+ years and of course that machine backing anyone will create stars.


----------



## Outlaw91 (Mar 31, 2011)

Good he wasn't signed. The 2011 pipe bomb was cool, he was decent before that and mostly disappointing to me after that. I think he was/is thinking about him like some wrestling god, some big draw when he is not even close to that. I don't want to see him wrestle again. The guy was so confident that he even tried UFC only to be a proven mess. Who will pay him big money to wrestle after the UFC humiliation is an idiot.


----------



## zkorejo (Jul 2, 2010)

If they are paying Jericho upward of 5 mil, they would have probably paid the same amount to Punk. So I am assuming Punk asked for more, maybe around Cena or Lesnar's deal of 8-10 mil. Which if true, would be stupid as hell. Jericho is atleast doing good job there. I am sure Punk was looking for something similar to a limited schedule with that amount, which would be bad for AEW. Punk is not Cena and not even close to Lesnar in his worth tbh.

EDIT: For reference, from the research I did. Punk did upwards of 1 mil for both his UFC fights in which he was embarrassed. Lesnar did 2.5 mil just in his one return match at UFC 200 against Hunt, which was a controversial win.

Considering Punk's name value after his embarrassing losses in UFC and the failure of a show WWE Backstage. Punk was great in 2011, but lets not overstate his worth.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

prosperwithdeen said:


> You're omitting the other 80% of the show that wasn't comedy though, that's what I'm getting at.
> 
> Marko Stunt was tossed around by Wardlow but if he threw some punches, then...okay. Britt Baker's stuff was all comedy but everyone loves Britt Baker, that's not a negative comedic thing.
> 
> ...


6 segments out of 12 is 50% of the show being comedy not 80%.

Marko jumped onto a bunch of the heels knocking them down and started wildly throwing punches as if he was Stone Cold Steve Austin on a 1998 edition of RAW. That's designed to make you laugh, the little guy giving the big guys their comeuppance.

No, not everyone loves Britt Baker. People on this very forum called her antics with Big Swole cringeworthy WWE type stuff. "Lols0rz she threw Britt Baker in da bin!1!!1". It's juvenile comedy at absolute best but really I throw it in the trying too hard category.

Jericho's opening line of the promo was a comedy line before proceeding to insult him, kicks to the shin and bad brawling ensued.

Broken Matt is a comedy gimmick in itself it doesn't matter if he didn't do anything overly offensive that particular week it's offensive that he's even on doing this shit. Same with Janela, Kiss and Cabana who are well known comedy wrestlers.

The rest of the show was matches and a few segments that weren't comedic but most of the stories being advanced by AEW are being done so in a funny way. Most of the roster partakes in the comedy also.

You're not getting my point. AEW doesn't have the audience to build a star on Punk's level. MJF might be the best thing AEW has ever seen and be absolutely killing it every week but if only 700,000 hardcore wrestling fans see it what good will it do him? Meanwhile Punk when he was a star and even today is reported on, intervewed and followed by mainstream media. He is a star, AEW can only create stars within the AEW universe.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

Chip Chipperson said:


> 6 segments out of 12 is 50% of the show being comedy not 80%.
> 
> Marko jumped onto a bunch of the heels knocking them down and started wildly throwing punches as if he was Stone Cold Steve Austin on a 1998 edition of RAW. That's designed to make you laugh, the little guy giving the big guys their comeuppance.
> 
> ...


Aight whatever you say my guy. Asides from Matt Hardy and Marko, I don’t see what you’re seeing to the degree in which you say.


----------



## Christopher Near (Jan 16, 2019)

chronoxiong said:


> He really is trippen if he was asking for that much money. He trying to go the Brock Lesnar route?



Imagine paying punk all that money only for him to phone it in and not care


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

bdon said:


> Here is what I don’t get. If Punk was indeed pricing himself out, you’d still throw $10m at him? At what number do you, @The Wood, stop offering him the moon and the stars? To me, if he is asking $10m, then he simply doesn’t want to wrestle. But you’ve said you’d have paid whatever it took.
> 
> You’d risk spending that kind of money on a guy who is likely to show up unmotivated?
> 
> ...


Hang on, did I say I’d pay Punk whatever it takes? I don’t remember saying that. I’m happy to be proven wrong on that, but that sounds like your interpretation.

He’s worth more than Jericho. Not much more, but more. $5 million is fine. But if you did go up to $10 million, it’s not as obscene as people are making out, especially if you get those TV rights which is going to bring in ten times that, maybe more. You’re not going to be paying Punk that forever, but you could have an established presence for a long, long time. You are paying for more than Punk — you are paying for people to take you seriously.

The biggest problem with paying Punk that much money is guys like Jericho getting upset and wanting out when they don’t get the same deal. Sensibility would suggest you go in that ball range. If Jericho is getting $3 million for 3 years, Punk might might be worth $4 million for 2.

And the rest of your post is EXACTLY my point, and has been for the longest time. That’s why AEW is not the Ellis Island of professional wrestling. No one wants to share space on a roster with these joke acts that have no discipline. If Punk asked for $10 million, Dr. Evil style, I’m willing to bet that is why.

But we don’t actually _know_ that number. That is what he has alleged said about WWE. They’re different companies.

AEW is becoming known for not being able to sign top talent and then leaking the excuse that they were too expensive to Dave Meltzer, or in this case, another talent. If that sounds unprofessional and petty to the core of them, consider how unprofessional and petty it is on the surface for them to be sharing this information with Konnan in the first place.

My speculation is that they offered Punk what they offered Edge, Orton and Jericho. Punk saw the Casino Battle Royal and thought “Nope,” heard them bragging about him before they got him, got the presumptuous phone calls and knocked back the offer. “Too expensive anyway.” 

And given that they are now trying to make him look like a money-hungry dick and it’s all from _one_ side, he was probably right to knock them back. And does this dude really want the headaches that come with being seen as an egotistical douche in the promotion he is helping to prop up by constantly knocking back EVP ideas to have him work with Colt Cabana, who he hates, work 50/50 with guys underneath him, working with Joey Janela and Orange Cassidy at all?



NXT Only said:


> I’m confused. He either didn’t sign because
> 
> A. They didn’t pay him enough(likely)
> B. Too much comedy(doubtful)
> C. He doesn’t wanna wrestle anymore(it’s this one)


Or it could be a combination of all three. There are lots of things that go on in someone’s life, and issues compound. Maybe AJ Lee wants to have a baby and Punk has that sweet WWE/UFC/Netflix money to be a stay at home dad?

I think you’re undervaluing the bad comedy. Punk has always taken himself seriously and tried to present himself as pro-wrestling. The feud with Raven, the Summer of Punk angles, etc. He’s also had to overcome a lot of politics, including the boss’s son-in-law talking shit about you all the time. You think a guy like that wants to see the entry requirement for a business he suffered to navigate be “be willing to take bumps and make people laugh.” Fuck off. An artist would fucking hate that shit. Why the fuck did you work so hard if the whole point is that it should be easy and for everyone?

Who says he doesn’t want to wrestle? This is made up internet horseshit because he hasn’t done it yet. There is one promotion that could pay him to risk his neck at a certain level, and he has got a grudge against him. Nope, must be he hates wrestling now



Verbatim17 said:


> It’s all comedy in the end. Just different types of wrestling comedy. And if Punk cared about realism in wrestling, he would have signed with NJPW and ROH sometime over the last several years. He never did.
> 
> And if Punk signed with WWE today, he`d be fine working alongside The Fiend, just like he was fine working alongside Kane & Undertaker & Boogeyman.
> 
> ...


Firstly, no, just because someone cares about wrestling does not mean they are going to sign with New Japan or ROH. I like acting, but it doesn’t mean I am necessarily going to clear my schedule for a local play that pays little just because I knock back a Netflix gig that crushed me. Why do people create these false dichotomies?

Hang on — how the fuck can you say that people are hungry for Punk vs. Page but they’re not for Punk vs. Bray? I’m not a fan of Bray or that shitty gimmick at all, but given how many people watch WWE versus AEW, I’m willing to be more people would be interesting in Punk/Bray than know who Adam Page _is_. 



optikk sucks said:


> 10 million is a massive investment for someone who may not even be interested in doing this
> 
> MJF is a becoming a star because he's been well-protected; he's been given promo-time; he's been given all the gizmos and gimmicks to get him over a top heel (the ring, the employee he bullies etc).
> 
> ...


Then you flush $10 million of your dad’s vanity money that you’re flushing anyway by not trying. Cool.

MJF and Adam Page are talented guys, but by what metric are they “becoming stars?” They’re watched by less people now than they were when Dynamite started.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

Christopher Near said:


> Imagine paying punk all that money only for him to phone it in and not care


Imagine having the momentum that AEW had and not swinging for the fences. The move cost them 300,000 viewers, I firmly believe that. If they are making $45 million on 800,000. Worst case he only needs to bring the average up 180,000 to net additional $10 million gross to cover his costs from TV money solely. Seems like a no brainer, the company would have felt a lot more “Elite.”


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Punk is not even about Punk, as I've already said. Yeah, having Punk's promos and wrestling and star power on your show is a "good thing." But it's about having a guy's likeness you can put on a video game cover or cut-out in front of a Toy Store (which do still exist) with the AEW logo on it. It's about being able to get Randy Orton, who is a giant fucking star in wrestling, whether hardcore nerds want to admit it or not. It's even about getting Cain Velasquez, who had all the potential in the world before he signed with the evil empire, and who is not going to draw giant ratings on his own, but is a name fans perusing can recognise and go "Oh shit, this could be pretty fucking good" and stick around because of in a certain place. It's about securing your fucking future, instead of "taking it easy" and having one that is severely capped because no one knows or gives a fuck about who you are.

I'm not interested in seeing Punk go out there every week, or even very often, and having three or four star matches on the reg. I want him to come in and talk shit about Cody and his ego and how he wishes he was his father who helped destroy wrestling with his multiple jets. Punk vs. Dustin -- cool. Punk wins and bloodies Dustin. Punk vs. Cody? Also cool. Punk wins, because he is way more of a star than Cody. Punk vs. Cody II -- maybe for Cody's EVP stake? Colt Cabana fucks over Punk and gets handed a big sack of money -- money he says that Punk owes him. Punk wins their match, because Punk is a bigger star than Colt Cabana and always will be. Punk vs. Cabana with a roll of quarters on a pole? Some old-school shit with the guy who gets the roll of quarters getting to use them -- because the feud is about money. Cabana actually gets the quarters, but can't nail Punk who gets them and smashes them over Cabana's big melon for the finish. All this can happen over the course of months, and you've had, what -- five CM Punk matches? Not only that, but absolutely none of these are a PPV main event. If you get to the stage where you want to do Punk vs. Omega -- who truly is The Best in the World -- well, you'd need to be much more clever about using Omega, but that could actually be a match that Punk loses clean. Hang on, this Kenny Omega guys means something to this promotion, yeah? I'll keep my eyes on him. That means more than him going 20 minutes with Alan fucking Angels. And, if his ego can take it, you send him to Tom Prichard's school in the meantime to learn how to work with a bit more psychology, throw a proper punch and maybe even attract more people to the school and kick-start some sort of developmental system. He can work 20 minutes with Alan Angels at a JPWA house show and actually help instead of hurting. 

Argh, wrestling shouldn't be as hard as people make it out to be, but given how few people get it, it fucking must be.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Imagine having the momentum that AEW had and not swinging for the fences. The move cost them 300,000 viewers, I firmly believe that. If they are making $45 million on 800,000. Worst case he only needs to bring the average up 180,000 to net additional $10 million gross to cover his costs from TV money solely. Seems like a no brainer, the company would have felt a lot more “Elite.”


That’s a big claim. No way Punk would have sustained an extra 300K viewers. I mean his biggest storyline happened in 2014 and he lost a bunch of credibility getting killed in MMA.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

prosperwithdeen said:


> That’s a big claim. No way Punk would have sustained an extra 300K viewers. I mean his biggest storyline happened in 2014 and he lost a bunch of credibility getting killed in MMA.


Why do AEW fans talk about credibility when it comes to Punk? Y'all advocate Joey Janela being under contract when he ran away from Enzo Amore at a Blink-182 concert.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> Hang on, did I say I’d pay Punk whatever it takes? I don’t remember saying that. I’m happy to be proven wrong on that, but that sounds like your interpretation.
> 
> He’s worth more than Jericho. Not much more, but more. $5 million is fine. But if you did go up to $10 million, it’s not as obscene as people are making out, especially if you get those TV rights which is going to bring in ten times that, maybe more. You’re not going to be paying Punk that forever, but you could have an established presence for a long, long time. You are paying for more than Punk — you are paying for people to take you seriously.
> 
> ...


You may have not said it. I felt like you’d implied it, which is why the $10m number always threw me off in the CM Punk discussions.

If that isn’t the case, as you have said, then my apologies.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

The Wood said:


> Why do AEW fans talk about credibility when it comes to Punk? Y'all advocate Joey Janela being under contract when he ran away from Enzo Amore at a Blink-182 concert.


Credibility is huge if you’re asking for a lot of money. If Lesnar went and lost in UFC he wouldn’t be worth anywhere near what Vince pays him. The guy was a beast and his impact on WWE has been a lot smaller than expected. So what makes Punk different or in a better position to push business after losing? I dont remember anyone advocating for Janela, that’s a lie. I didn’t even know who the guy was until he faced Moxley.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> Punk is not even about Punk, as I've already said. Yeah, having Punk's promos and wrestling and star power on your show is a "good thing." But it's about having a guy's likeness you can put on a video game cover or cut-out in front of a Toy Store (which do still exist) with the AEW logo on it. It's about being able to get Randy Orton, who is a giant fucking star in wrestling, whether hardcore nerds want to admit it or not. It's even about getting Cain Velasquez, who had all the potential in the world before he signed with the evil empire, and who is not going to draw giant ratings on his own, but is a name fans perusing can recognise and go "Oh shit, this could be pretty fucking good" and stick around because of in a certain place. It's about securing your fucking future, instead of "taking it easy" and having one that is severely capped because no one knows or gives a fuck about who you are.
> 
> I'm not interested in seeing Punk go out there every week, or even very often, and having three or four star matches on the reg. I want him to come in and talk shit about Cody and his ego and how he wishes he was his father who helped destroy wrestling with his multiple jets. Punk vs. Dustin -- cool. Punk wins and bloodies Dustin. Punk vs. Cody? Also cool. Punk wins, because he is way more of a star than Cody. Punk vs. Cody II -- maybe for Cody's EVP stake? Colt Cabana fucks over Punk and gets handed a big sack of money -- money he says that Punk owes him. Punk wins their match, because Punk is a bigger star than Colt Cabana and always will be. Punk vs. Cabana with a roll of quarters on a pole? Some old-school shit with the guy who gets the roll of quarters getting to use them -- because the feud is about money. Cabana actually gets the quarters, but can't nail Punk who gets them and smashes them over Cabana's big melon for the finish. All this can happen over the course of months, and you've had, what -- five CM Punk matches? Not only that, but absolutely none of these are a PPV main event. If you get to the stage where you want to do Punk vs. Omega -- who truly is The Best in the World -- well, you'd need to be much more clever about using Omega, but that could actually be a match that Punk loses clean. Hang on, this Kenny Omega guys means something to this promotion, yeah? I'll keep my eyes on him. That means more than him going 20 minutes with Alan fucking Angels. And, if his ego can take it, you send him to Tom Prichard's school in the meantime to learn how to work with a bit more psychology, throw a proper punch and maybe even attract more people to the school and kick-start some sort of developmental system. He can work 20 minutes with Alan Angels at a JPWA house show and actually help instead of hurting.
> 
> Argh, wrestling shouldn't be as hard as people make it out to be, but given how few people get it, it fucking must be.


Your ideas make me sad. They really fumbled so much with this company.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

bdon said:


> You may have not said it. I felt like you’d implied it, which is why the $10m number always threw me off in the CM Punk discussions.
> 
> If that isn’t the case, as you have said, then my apologies.


Oh, no offence taken. I just wanted to clear it up. I know you wouldn't have done it maliciously or anything. And I may have even said it, because they really should have gone out of their way for him, haha. The "good riddance" attitude of a lot of fans is a big misguided in this situation, I think.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

prosperwithdeen said:


> Credibility is huge if you’re asking for a lot of money. If Lesnar went and lost in UFC he wouldn’t be worth anywhere near what Vince pays him. The guy was a beast and his impact on WWE has been a lot smaller than expected. So what makes Punk different or in a better position to push business after losing? I dont remember anyone advocating for Janela, that’s a lie. I didn’t even know who the guy was until he faced Moxley.


Brock Lesnar did lose in the UFC. What was his impact on the WWE supposed to be? Why do you think Vince keeps offering him bigger and bigger deals to stick around? You don't think he's still on the same deal as he was in 2012, do you? Punk's got way more credibility than almost the entire AEW roster is the point. Punk's in a better position to push business because he's an amazing promo and was a star lost from wrestling for five years at that point. You don't emphasise that he lost and hope it doesn't hurt him. It wouldn't help him, and it obviously would have been better if he had won, but I cannot believe I am talking to AEW fans about the credibility of CM Punk, who can actually fucking work, when you've got the AEW roster as Exhibit A through fucking P. 

Okay, so can we all agree that Janela should be scrapped? Thank god for that. Wait, he's about to go 50/50 with Lance Archer and people _are_ going to defend it.


----------



## Britz94xD (May 17, 2019)

AEW aren't doing themselves any favours with the geek roster. Getting guys like Punk, Edge, Rey Mysterio would've encouraged more stars of that caliber to jump ship. Sasha Banks (who wasn't happy with WWE) didn't want to jump ship so bad she agreed to add two more years onto her 3 year contract after she saw that Double or Nothing last year. That says it all.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

I’m still thinking about CM Punk vs Omega.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

The Wood said:


> Brock Lesnar did lose in the UFC. What was his impact on the WWE supposed to be? Why do you think Vince keeps offering him bigger and bigger deals to stick around? You don't think he's still on the same deal as he was in 2012, do you? Punk's got way more credibility than almost the entire AEW roster is the point. Punk's in a better position to push business because he's an amazing promo and was a star lost from wrestling for five years at that point. You don't emphasise that he lost and hope it doesn't hurt him. It wouldn't help him, and it obviously would have been better if he had won, but I cannot believe I am talking to AEW fans about the credibility of CM Punk, who can actually fucking work, when you've got the AEW roster as Exhibit A through fucking P.
> 
> Okay, so can we all agree that Janela should be scrapped? Thank god for that. Wait, he's about to go 50/50 with Lance Archer and people _are_ going to defend it.


My guy I’m not saying that Punk is not a star and that he can’t work, and of course he’s more popular than the AEW roster. No one is arguing any of that so I don’t know where that came from. 

What I’m arguing is that Punk is not a big enough star to bring in 300K live viewers if no one including Rousey and Lesnar who were both bigger stars were able to. That’s a huge number for a live increase. 

As far as Lesnar, he was still a big deal in UFC and was a champion. Day and night to Punks situation.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

Do people not realize that stars don’t want to risk coming and working with AEW’s mid and undercard talents? Archer should not be working any fucking angle with Joey Janela. Jericho should not be working any angle with Orange Cassidy, no matter how “over” Cassidy is to the 750k that show up. Some guys take this shit seriously.

Not everyone has Jericho’s ego in needing time prove they can get anything over.


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

bdon said:


> Do people not realize that stars don’t want to risk coming and working with AEW’s mid and undercard talents? Archer should not be working any fucking angle with Joey Janela. Jericho should not be working any angle with Orange Cassidy, no matter how “over” Cassidy is to the 750k that show up. Some guys take this shit seriously.
> 
> Not everyone has Jericho’s ego in needing time prove they can get anything over.


They’re working the same angles you consider “bad” in WWE. Worse angles most of the time. Then after those angles there’s no intention of putting that talent through a rebuilding phase. That’s not the issue. The issues are money (Punk), loyalty (Orton),and stability. (Kross and Scarlett)


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

Now Punk is tweeting at Cody / TK about the tnt open challenge

guy learned from the school of SCSA to always keep his name in the game somewhere


----------



## Prosper (Mar 25, 2015)

LifeInCattleClass said:


> Now Punk is tweeting at Cody / TK about the tnt open challenge
> 
> guy learned from the school of SCSA to always keep his name in the game somewhere


Post please lol


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

The Wood said:


> Why do AEW fans talk about credibility when it comes to Punk? Y'all advocate Joey Janela being under contract when he ran away from Enzo Amore at a Blink-182 concert.


It's the same reason people were saying Tessa isn't very good, Killer Kross has no potential Scarlett Bourdeaux isn't that hot etc.

AEW fans get upset when wrestlers reject them and the coping mechanism is to say they aren't that good, aren't that credible or come up with literally any other excuse to discredit these people. The reality is that if AEW posted on Twitter today "CM Punk Is All Elite" all of these people would change their minds, Punk would be compared to Hogan signing with WCW in 1994 and everyone would take back their criticisms of him and say he's worth whatever AEW paid. If you, me, Cult or any of the "Cynical six" said "Hey wait a minute...weren't you guys against him coming in" we'd be ignored or called haters.

And yeah, the same people saying they don't want CM Punk because he sucks or because he isn't credible are the same people who defend Marko Stunt and Orange Cassidy as being good signings that are positives for AEW.



LifeInCattleClass said:


> Now Punk is tweeting at Cody / TK about the tnt open challenge
> 
> guy learned from the school of SCSA to always keep his name in the game somewhere


Unless there is a post he's since deleted he responded to a "Who would you like to see Cody defend the TNT Title against?" with a heap of joke answers. Here was his big tweet to them:



__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1280252387253538816
Worth viewing the comments to see Tony Khan marking out for CM Punk. "I saw you 13 and a half years ago as a fan!"

Total amateur hour.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Britz94xD said:


> AEW aren't doing themselves any favours with the geek roster. Getting guys like Punk, Edge, Rey Mysterio would've encouraged more stars of that caliber to jump ship. Sasha Banks (who wasn't happy with WWE) didn't want to jump ship so bad she agreed to add two more years onto her 3 year contract after she saw that Double or Nothing last year. That says it all.


Hey, you've turned the corner, haha. I remember you having the optimism I had when this thing first started, but quickly went downhill. Welcome to "the dark side" (we're better than The Dark Order, trust me). 



prosperwithdeen said:


> My guy I’m not saying that Punk is not a star and that he can’t work, and of course he’s more popular than the AEW roster. No one is arguing any of that so I don’t know where that came from.
> 
> What I’m arguing is that Punk is not a big enough star to bring in 300K live viewers if no one including Rousey and Lesnar who were both bigger stars were able to. That’s a huge number for a live increase.
> 
> As far as Lesnar, he was still a big deal in UFC and was a champion. Day and night to Punks situation.


My guy, don't try and be condescending -- you're a good poster, but that look doesn't suit you. It came from you talking about him having no credibility now. In a promotion that has a dude the size of David Arquette who no-sells his matches by putting his hands in his pockets because "Who cares?", CM Punk losing a couple of fights a few years ago isn't something to hold against him. He can easily talk his way around that (although why bring it up?). 



bdon said:


> Do people not realize that stars don’t want to risk coming and working with AEW’s mid and undercard talents? Archer should not be working any fucking angle with Joey Janela. Jericho should not be working any angle with Orange Cassidy, no matter how “over” Cassidy is to the 750k that show up. Some guys take this shit seriously.
> 
> Not everyone has Jericho’s ego in needing time prove they can get anything over.


100% this. And Punk's tweets at AEW being a total joke kind of go a ways to proving that point. If these people are artists, they don't want to have their pieces hanging in the same gallery that gives space to the monkey that smears its faeces.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

prosperwithdeen said:


> They’re working the same angles you consider “bad” in WWE. Worse angles most of the time. Then after those angles there’s no intention of putting that talent through a rebuilding phase. That’s not the issue. The issues are money (Punk), loyalty (Orton),and stability. (Kross and Scarlett)


I don’t like WWE, but Moxley didn’t go to Japan hoping to work DDT. He went to Japan for the prestige that NJPW gives him, check one off the bucket list.

Until AEW passes WWE in the ratings and pop culture (looking more and more unlikely, unless WWE keeps losing ratings), then those guys on that level would rather mail-it-in working WWE’s shit angles than working AEW’s shit angles and playing afterthought to Cody and Jericho.

AEW has to fix their culture if they want to ever land someone on that level.

That or provide something that only AEW can offer those guys. And I assure you, a match with Cody, Jericho, working angles with Janela and Cassidy...isn’t it.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Who in WWE is as bad as Cassidy or Janela, by the way? I hear this from AEW fans all the time, but is there actually anyone as bad as them? I just went down the Raw roster on Wikipedia, and no one. R-Truth is a comedy guy, but he's jacked to shit -- especially for his age. Jinder Mahal is the drizzling shits in the ring, but also looks like an actual dude who _should_ be able to beat someone up. There's no one on SmackDown either. I'm not sure how small a guy like Kalisto is, but he looks like he's in shape, and he's a dynamo out there, which is more than Janela or Cassidy have going for them. 

If you were programmed into a several week feud with Spike Dudley, Hornswoggle, Colin Delaney or James Ellsworth, I can kind of understand the complaint. Ellsworth is the most recent one, and that was fucking stupid. But apart from that, there is literally no one on the WWE roster that is going to make you look like a bigger insta-geek than Janela, Cassidy or Marko Stunt.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

If you’re a tag team, then AEW definitely offers you something that no one else can. But if you’re a singles competitor who takes your line of work seriously, then even if you are top dog in the company, working angles with Cody and Jericho mean you will be working a completely “sports entertainment”-style angle. And if you’re not involved with them, then you’re not a focal point of the show.

Why would someone want to work “sports entertainment”-style in front of less people?

And I’m not being a hater. I’ve been called everything from hater to fanboy. I’m genuinely asking this question, because I’m curious what AEW offers that WWE can’t at this point? Creative freedom is obviously the easy answer, but that becomes a bit of a false narrative when we look at the show’s makeup and see it is ALL about Cody and Jericho.

AEW needs to find that thing, that one thing that can make the wrestling world take notice, stop, and say to themselves, “I’ve got to be a part of that!”

And I hope this doesn’t come off as me shitting on AEW. I obviously watch and enjoy the show, especially when they’re not protecting angles and are progressing storylines, but these are just questions I’m coming to grips with myself recent times.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

I disagree with the tag team thing. I wouldn't want to go to AEW and work with Best Friends, Angelico & Evans, Lucha Bros or many of the AEW teams at all. It's white noise and it's as firmly mid-card as WWE. They can tell people that tag team wrestling matters all they want. The tag teams worth are shit in AEW include FTR and SCU. Honestly, they're better as heel teams, so you'd probably want to be a babyface team, which means you wouldn't even work Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus in any sort of meaningful sense. 

WWE's tag teams are mid-card, but you've got some talented fucks there. 

MLW probably has the most burgeoning tag team division. It's not crash hot, but you do have The Von Erichs and The Hart Foundation there. It's got an element of discover to you. Plus, with Tom Prichard agenting your matches, you'd probably get way more out of that as a learning experience than you would "Okay, we all do our moves and then we all catch Chuck and fall down." Fuck that.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> I disagree with the tag team thing. I wouldn't want to go to AEW and work with Best Friends, Angelico & Evans, Lucha Bros or many of the AEW teams at all. It's white noise and it's as firmly mid-card as WWE. They can tell people that tag team wrestling matters all they want. The tag teams worth are shit in AEW include FTR and SCU. Honestly, they're better as heel teams, so you'd probably want to be a babyface team, which means you wouldn't even work Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus in any sort of meaningful sense.
> 
> WWE's tag teams are mid-card, but you've got some talented fucks there.
> 
> MLW probably has the most burgeoning tag team division. It's not crash hot, but you do have The Von Erichs and The Hart Foundation there. It's got an element of discover to you. Plus, with Tom Prichard agenting your matches, you'd probably get way more out of that as a learning experience than you would "Okay, we all do our moves and then we all catch Chuck and fall down." Fuck that.


Heh. I knew that comment was going to draw your ire.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

bdon said:


> Heh. I knew that comment was going to draw your ire.


Haha, fair played to you. I just think that the whole thing about them being good with tag teams is a myth, and I refuse to let it slide.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> Haha, fair played to you. I just think that the whole thing about them being good with tag teams is a myth, and I refuse to let it slide.


They give tag teams more stage, but it is definitely midcard. They could absolutely do so much more.

But hell, there WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION struggles to get air time.

Thanks Cody and Jericho!


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

They get time to go out there and do whatever they want to do. It's just not usually very good at all. It's probably the most overrated thing about AEW.

Well, that and Cody, as I am discovering.


----------



## Klitschko (May 24, 2020)

They got a good tag team division in my opinion. Lots of talented people. But tag team wrestling will always be in the midcard, no matter what promotion you look at.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

I definitely think it can main event. You just need main event level tag teams.


----------



## Klitschko (May 24, 2020)

The Wood said:


> I definitely think it can main event. You just need main event level tag teams.


It can main event occasionally, but not be the main part of the show. That will always be the single guys. 

I like AEW tag teams better. Some people maybe think WWE tag teams are better, but at the end of the day the WWE tag teams are usually treated as a joke and the definition of midcard. 

On the other hand if you look at ppv's alone for example, the tag team matches in AEW are always in the upper midcard or as semi main events. Omega/kenny vs Young Bucks, Young Bucks/Lucha Bros at Don, their ladder match at ALL OUT. They just main evented night 1 of Fyter fest, even if it didn't really count for much with it being a free ppv but Cody could have easily main evented that show instead, but he didn't. Tag team wrestling matters more in AEW in my opinion.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Klitschko said:


> It can main event occasionally, but not be the main part of the show. That will always be the single guys.
> 
> I like AEW tag teams better. Some people maybe think WWE tag teams are better, but at the end of the day the WWE tag teams are usually treated as a joke and the definition of midcard.
> 
> On the other hand if you look at ppv's alone for example, the tag team matches in AEW are always in the upper midcard or as semi main events. Omega/kenny vs Young Bucks, Young Bucks/Lucha Bros at Don, their ladder match at ALL OUT. They just main evented night 1 of Fyter fest, even if it didn't really count for much with it being a free ppv but Cody could have easily main evented that show instead, but he didn't. Tag team wrestling matters more in AEW in my opinion.


Eh, if the right tag team came along in the right promotion at the right time, it could be the main part of the show. Nothing disqualifies it. Rocca & Perez, for example. If the WWE decided they wanted to push McIntyre & Bryan as the top stars in the world and make them a tag team and have everything centre on them (admittedly unlikely), then there's no reason they _couldn't_ do it. McIntyre & Bryan vs. a heel Reigns & Rollins duo could easily headline a PPV, even a WrestleMania.

None of those AEW tag matches are really any more significant than, say, The New Day vs. The Revival in a Ladder Match at TLC.


----------



## shandcraig (Mar 23, 2008)

Can we stop talking about this relevant guy that is holding onto dear life with Twitter to feel he is and talk about something more relevant


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Are we really going to call CM Punk irrelevant now? Wow. 

Tony Khan seems to think his jabs are relevant, by the way. ;-)


----------



## Klitschko (May 24, 2020)

The Wood said:


> Eh, if the right tag team came along in the right promotion at the right time, it could be the main part of the show. Nothing disqualifies it. Rocca & Perez, for example. If the WWE decided they wanted to push McIntyre & Bryan as the top stars in the world and make them a tag team and have everything centre on them (admittedly unlikely), then there's no reason they _couldn't_ do it. McIntyre & Bryan vs. a heel Reigns & Rollins duo could easily headline a PPV, even a WrestleMania.
> 
> None of those AEW tag matches are really any more significant than, say, The New Day vs. The Revival in a Ladder Match at TLC.


I mean if you're just looking for a tag team match to main event a big show then the Stampede match from AEW's DON2 would be a good example. Had the tag Champs, the young bucks, LAX, all tag teams main eventing their biggest show. And even before that match, they were all a huge part of the story that the whole show was revolving around for months. 

But anyways to get back on topic. CM Punk would have been a huge help to the company. Too bad they couldn't sign him.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Klitschko said:


> I mean if you're just looking for a tag team match to main event a big show then the Stampede match from AEW's DON2 would be a good example. Had the tag Champs, the young bucks, LAX, all tag teams main eventing their biggest show. And even before that match, they were all a huge part of the story that the whole show was revolving around for months.
> 
> But anyways to get back on topic. CM Punk would have been a huge help to the company. Too bad they couldn't sign him.


I have already banished Stadium Stampede from my mind.  

I hope this jousting with Tony Khan leads to Punk getting mad enough to sign with another company. Imagine if Punk got the backing to do something and they snagged Rey Mysterio and Miroslav Barnyashev. Oof. 

A lad can dream.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Imagine thinking AEW is actually building stars that could be on the level of a top end wrestling star.
> 
> MJF is about 2-3 years off becoming a main eventer in AEW and him becoming a big wrestling star is probably very unlikely unless AEW really takes off and starts getting competitive with the WWE's two main brands. MJF as much as I enjoy him is struggling creatively and is stuck in midcard hell.
> 
> ...


He knows he has no leverage in MMA to get a fight anymore, the mystique is gone, he’s going to get wrecked. 

In wrestling he can always keep his options open if he ever gets that itch again.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

You couldn’t invest big money in Punk knowing he’d do limited dates and expect a quality return on investment. He has to be All-In or not in. The AEW schedule is easier as is and while work rate is important he’d probably only wrestle once a month, twice during PPVs and specials.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

He can always say he’s done and then come back.


----------



## Chelsea (Jul 26, 2018)

This was supposed to give Punk back all those 20 years that Ryback took off his life.


----------



## reyfan (May 23, 2011)

No shit, some people rather than just say "no" will say only for a stupid amount of money so they will either get a huge paycheck or shut the other party up.


----------



## sideon (Sep 18, 2008)

Punk had a couple of successful storylines, but he was nowhere near the star he and his fans think he is.


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

prosperwithdeen said:


> Post please lol


Nothing noteworthy

he was just replying to Cody / TK with joke contenders to the TNT championship

just by replying you know he gets associated


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1280252387253538816


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Punk's got 2.6 million Twitter followers. AEW's got 233k. I'm not sure it's CM Punk that's getting the rub off them.


----------



## Fearless Viper (Apr 6, 2019)

I didn't know that a lot of WFs are business experts lol.


----------



## Britz94xD (May 17, 2019)

sideon said:


> Punk had a couple of successful storylines, but he was nowhere near the star he and his fans think he is.


If Punk was given half of what Roman Reigns got as the world champ, would he be more over than Reigns?


----------



## shandcraig (Mar 23, 2008)

I hope we never see another thread about this guy ever again


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

sideon said:


> Punk had a couple of successful storylines, but he was nowhere near the star he and his fans think he is.


True but he was the perfect star to kick things off for AEW. He had the WWE rebel thing going. Shame they missed out. They will regret in a few years when MJF is the only legitimate star that they have had created.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

TKO Wrestling said:


> True but he was the perfect star to kick things off for AEW. He had the WWE rebel thing going. Shame they missed out. They will regret in a few years when MJF is the only legitimate star that they have had created.


Page, Sammy, Wardlow, Jungleboy, [maybe] Darby all say hello.


----------



## Rick Sanchez (Dec 30, 2012)

shandcraig said:


> I hope we never see another thread about this guy ever again


Not going to happen anytime soon. He's one of the most talked about wrestlers out there. It's been six and a half years since he walked out and people still can't stop talking about him. And his haters will say he's not a star and blah blah, but they can't stop talking about him can they?


----------



## shandcraig (Mar 23, 2008)

Rick Sanchez said:


> Not going to happen anytime soon. He's one of the most talked about wrestlers out there. It's been six and a half years since he walked out and people still can't stop talking about him. And his haters will say he's not a star and blah blah, but they can't stop talking about him can they?



Right lets talk about someone that doesnt want to wrestle and thinks hes still the best. Move on its been 6 years. Focus on people that give a shit and will show up.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

shandcraig said:


> Right lets talk about someone that doesnt want to wrestle and thinks hes still the best. Move on its been 6 years. Focus on people that give a shit and will show up.


Punk walked away because he gave a shit.


----------



## The Raw Smackdown (Jan 8, 2017)

Well I'm not surprised. Like I said before if he really wanted to wrestle his ass would be doing it now so it's whatever honestly. AEW has been doing fine without him and will continue to do fine so at this point I don't feel like he was a big loss.


----------



## shandcraig (Mar 23, 2008)




----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

optikk sucks said:


> Page, Sammy, Wardlow, Jungleboy, [maybe] Darby all say hello.


Come on bro.

None of these guys will become legitimate wrestling stars in front of 600-700 thousand people on TNT. Some of these guys won't even become main event guys in AEW.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Come on bro.
> 
> None of these guys will become legitimate wrestling stars in front of 600-700 thousand people on TNT. Some of these guys won't even become main event guys in AEW.


You literally don’t know that unless you can see into the future. In which case you should be investing in stocks and playing the lottery.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

NXT Only said:


> You literally don’t know that unless you can see into the future. In which case you should be investing in stocks and playing the lottery.


You can't make legitimate stars with such a small audience. It'd be like suggesting that wrestling's next big star is going to have their big rise on NXT without ever hitting the main roster. 

And to be honest many of the guys listed by Optikk whilst I like all of them are quite overrated by the AEW fans. Wardlow is probably never going to be known for being more than MJF's bodyguard in the early days of AEW, Darby is very overrated as is Sammy. Jungle Boy has potential if used properly and so does Page but you could argue that he already is kind of a star anyway.


----------



## SZilla25 (Sep 1, 2016)

Britz94xD said:


> AEW aren't doing themselves any favours with the geek roster. Getting guys like Punk, Edge, Rey Mysterio would've encouraged more stars of that caliber to jump ship. Sasha Banks (who wasn't happy with WWE) didn't want to jump ship so bad she agreed to add two more years onto her 3 year contract after she saw that Double or Nothing last year. That says it all.


You’re referring to the sold out in 4 mins, critically raved Double or Nothing that had the Cody-Dustin match and Moxley’s surprise debut, right?


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

SZilla25 said:


> You’re referring to the sold out in 4 mins, critically raved Double or Nothing that had the Cody-Dustin match and Moxley’s surprise debut, right?


I imagine that poster is referencing the battle royale which featured a dude with one leg, a shit ton of comedy guys and maybe 3-4 serious wrestlers competing for a World Title shot.

I'll agree most of AEW's first shows when they were PPV were quite strong. TV is where they struggle and continue to do so.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

optikk sucks said:


> Page, Sammy, Wardlow, Jungleboy, [maybe] Darby all say hello.


Page & Wardlow are the only ones with a shot. Ironically both will rely on MJF to get to that point. Darby, Sammy, and Jungle Boy will never be megastars.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

Chip Chipperson said:


> You can't make legitimate stars with such a small audience. It'd be like suggesting that wrestling's next big star is going to have their big rise on NXT without ever hitting the main roster.
> 
> And to be honest many of the guys listed by Optikk whilst I like all of them are quite overrated by the AEW fans. Wardlow is probably never going to be known for being more than MJF's bodyguard in the early days of AEW, Darby is very overrated as is Sammy. Jungle Boy has potential if used properly and so does Page but you could argue that he already is kind of a star anyway.


You can, Stone Cold was made in a time where they were getting half the fans that WCW was. It is the same ratio now.

Problem is what is a star. Stars, to me, only move things. There is a difference between being a star and being over.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

TKO Wrestling said:


> You can, Stone Cold was made in a time where they were getting half the fans that WCW was. It is the same ratio now.
> 
> Problem is what is a star. Stars, to me, only move things. There is a difference between being a star and being over.


Stone Cold also was performing in front of 3-4 million people every week during a wrestling boom. 3-4 million people watched him weekly on TV and those 3-4 million obviously told their friends or people found out about Stone Cold because at his peak RAW was drawing an overall rating of 7 million people (Most of them being casual wrestling fans). 3-4 million is a much higher number than the 700,000 smart marks who tune into AEW.

For AEW to be successful they need a guy that is going to cross over into the mainstream and bring attention to AEW. None of the guys listed are ever going to do that.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Stone Cold also was performing in front of 3-4 million people every week during a wrestling boom. 3-4 million people watched him weekly on TV and those 3-4 million obviously told their friends or people found out about Stone Cold because at his peak RAW was drawing an overall rating of 7 million people (Most of them being casual wrestling fans). 3-4 million is a much higher number than the 700,000 smart marks who tune into AEW.
> 
> For AEW to be successful they need a guy that is going to cross over into the mainstream and bring attention to AEW. None of the guys listed are ever going to do that.


I really dont see AEW 2020 being too far behind WWF 1996 in terms of viewers. It is scaled way differently. AEW is clearly as big as 93-97 WWF/post 2000 WCW.


----------



## Ozell Gray (Jan 2, 2020)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Come on bro.
> 
> None of these guys will become legitimate wrestling stars in front of 600-700 thousand people on TNT. Some of these guys won't even become main event guys in AEW.


Its really 731k viewers

Dynamite's average viewership and ratings

3/18/20 932,000 0.35 rating
3/25/20 819,000 viewers 0.34 rating
4/1/20 685,000 viewers 0.25 rating
4/8/20 692,000 viewers 0.29 rating
4/15/20 683,000 viewers 0.25 rating
4/22/20 731,000 viewers 0.25 rating
4/29/20 693,000 viewers 0.27 rating
5/6/20 732,000 viewers 0.28 rating
5/13/20 654,000 viewers 0.23 rating
5/20/20 701,000 viewers 0.26 rating
5/27/20 827,000 viewers 0.32 rating
6/3/20 730,000 viewers 0.29 rating
6/10/20 677,000 viewers 0.23 rating
6/17/20 772,000 viewers 0.28 rating
6/24/20 633,000 viewers 0.22 rating
7/1/20 748,000 viewers 0.29 rating

Average viewership 731k viewers and 0.27 rating 

Its a small correction but you're right no one's going to be a star in AEW because its watched only by 731k viewers which is a small fraction of the wrestling audience.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Page & Wardlow are the only ones with a shot. Ironically both will rely on MJF to get to that point. Darby, Sammy, and Jungle Boy will never be megastars.


you said "star", not megastar.

the only megastar in pro-wrestling right now is Brock Lesnar. MJF won't reach that level


----------



## Ozell Gray (Jan 2, 2020)

I think CM Punk still wants that WrestleMania main event and moment he talked about before getting from WWE for walking out on them. The way negotiations work is you start off high but then you come to an agreement on a lower payscale. Punk would've taken a 5$ million contract from AEW if they offered him that but we'll never know the full story to it. 

They need another big name to co-exist alongside Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley because those are the only 2 who are big names there. See if thats where CM Punk would've came in at and would've been the big name behind the other 2 and would've given them possibly a little boost. 

Overall I think CM Punk goes back to WWE after Vince McMahon is done being mad at him because Vince is known to do business with people he used to be mad at so Punk will be no different from the rest of them.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

optikk sucks said:


> you said "star", not megastar.
> 
> the only megastar in pro-wrestling right now is Brock Lesnar. MJF won't reach that level


Hey odds are against him. I truly believe he can be the biggest star since Cena. It will take a ton of major breaks but it has for every star before him. 

Put it this way,_IF_ there is going to be a megastar from this generation, my money is on MJF as the safest bet. Whether or not that occurs in AEW, or WWE, is something to see as time rolls on.

But he could pull it off in a very JR Ewing/Dan Scott sort of way.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Hey odds are against him. I truly believe he can be the biggest star since Cena. It will take a ton of major breaks but it has for every star before him.
> 
> Put it this way,_IF_ there is going to be a megastar from this generation, my money is on MJF as the safest bet. Whether or not that occurs in AEW, or WWE, is something to see as time rolls on.
> 
> But he could pull it off in a very JR Ewing/Dan Scott sort of way.


See, it's overrating someone again here.

MJF is a fine talent, good speaker, decent in the ring but my dude is also like 5'9 and under 200 pounds. 

If we ever have a guy that breaks out and becomes a megastar again it'll be a guy like Cena or Roman. Big impressive looking men that are attractive to men, women and children, can talk, can wrestle and most importantly connect with an audience.

Right now I don't know who that will be but MJF isn't that guy and I'm a fan of the guy.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

Chip Chipperson said:


> See, it's overrating someone again here.
> 
> MJF is a fine talent, good speaker, decent in the ring but my dude is also like 5'9 and under 200 pounds.
> 
> ...


Likely a bigger guy, yes. Austin/Rock/Goldberg/Cena were all huge. But MJF has that special it factor that literally no one else has today so I will keep my money on him.. Odds are long that there will be another megastar anywhere, WWE has completely given up on trying to create them, odds are low AEW will be able to do it, other than WWF no one else has produced a true megastar other than WCW/Goldberg.

But a storyline is all MJF needs to get there because he could make millions hate him in seconds. That is rare, no one else has been able to do that in years.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

TKO Wrestling said:


> other than WWF no one else has produced a true megastar other than WCW/Goldberg.


Oof. That's a massive insult to guys like Flair, Dusty, Lawler, Race etc who went mainstream without the WWE. Hell, even in the Monday Night War era you could argue that Nash, Hall and Sting all hit that megastar status in WCW when before Hall and Nash were simply main event guys in WWE.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

NXT Only said:


> You literally don’t know that unless you can see into the future. In which case you should be investing in stocks and playing the lottery.


They’re not stars yet and are capped in AEW. 



SZilla25 said:


> You’re referring to the sold out in 4 mins, critically raved Double or Nothing that had the Cody-Dustin match and Moxley’s surprise debut, right?


Selling out in 4 minutes during an internet age isn’t as impressive as people make out. You sell out before people have seen the show too.

Double or Nothing also had a Casino Battle Royale for a World Title shot where Glacier froze people with ice magic.



Chip Chipperson said:


> Stone Cold also was performing in front of 3-4 million people every week during a wrestling boom. 3-4 million people watched him weekly on TV and those 3-4 million obviously told their friends or people found out about Stone Cold because at his peak RAW was drawing an overall rating of 7 million people (Most of them being casual wrestling fans). 3-4 million is a much higher number than the 700,000 smart marks who tune into AEW.
> 
> For AEW to be successful they need a guy that is going to cross over into the mainstream and bring attention to AEW. None of the guys listed are ever going to do that.


This is it. If you take 3 million people and they each tell three friends about wrestling, if just 10% of those people decide to keep watching, that’s 900k people. If the same thing happens again in a few months, that’s an additional 1.17 million fans.

If the same principle was applied to AEW, then they would get 910k fans after the first instance. And not even 1.2 million after the second. But the retention rate would probably be lower given the lack of popularity.

So Austin ends up performing in from of 4.1 million people, whereas MJF ends up performing in from of 1.2 million. He can’t possibly be a third of the star Austin was within those oarameters



TKO Wrestling said:


> I really dont see AEW 2020 being too far behind WWF 1996 in terms of viewers. It is scaled way differently. AEW is clearly as big as 93-97 WWF/post 2000 WCW.


No way. It’s not even close.



optikk sucks said:


> you said "star", not megastar.
> 
> the only megastar in pro-wrestling right now is Brock Lesnar. MJF won't reach that level


He might if he leaves AEW. See how this wreaks havoc for the company?


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Oof. That's a massive insult to guys like Flair, Dusty, Lawler, Race etc who went mainstream without the WWE. Hell, even in the Monday Night War era you could argue that Nash, Hall and Sting all hit that megastar status in WCW when before Hall and Nash were simply main event guys in WWE.


Argue it away! I love it, I was WCW 4Life. But I am talking mainstream, huge star. Put it this way, the only two WCW wrestlers that I could have seen Vince calling to main event Mania the last 10 years are Goldberg and Hogan. And Hogan was WWF.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Ric Flair and, in the right circumstances, Sting. Scott Steiner if he was healthy and him being Scott Steiner was more of a work. Booker T would have a shot if he was young and healthy today. Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit.

There are plenty of guys, really. I think in this era, Vader would get a shot.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Hey odds are against him. I truly believe he can be the biggest star since Cena. It will take a ton of major breaks but it has for every star before him.
> 
> Put it this way,_IF_ there is going to be a megastar from this generation, my money is on MJF as the safest bet. Whether or not that occurs in AEW, or WWE, is something to see as time rolls on.
> 
> But he could pull it off in a very JR Ewing/Dan Scott sort of way.


Cena got very lucky, because he came up at a time when pro-wrestling was still fairly popular. MJF and AEW wrestlers have their work cut out for them. I agree that MJF would be the guy to become a megastar in this current/future generation. Hell, he has reached TMZ news. That's not something to be forgotten.

But yes, within pro-wrestling, the guys I mentioned will also be legitimate stars. 99% chance Vince or whoever will be itching to sign these guys when their AEW contracts are up.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

optikk sucks said:


> Cena got very lucky, because he came up at a time when pro-wrestling was still fairly popular. MJF and AEW wrestlers have their work cut out for them. I agree that MJF would be the guy to become a megastar in this current/future generation. Hell, he has reached TMZ news. That's not something to be forgotten.
> 
> But yes, within pro-wrestling, the guys I mentioned will also be legitimate stars. 99% chance Vince or whoever will be itching to sign these guys when their AEW contracts are up.


Oh, for sure. Once these AEW wrestlers contracts starting coming up you will see all the WWE fans constantly lashing out at AEW for signing WWE guys do an about face and be creaming in their pants to add the AEW guys.

I agree that Vince will be after several of them. And if he gets MJF + Hangman, it will be the toughest day in AEW history.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

There’s a difference between seeing MJF go to a larger stage and seeing Matt Hardy chew scenery on a smaller one.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

I feel like guys are referencing crossover appeal. I don’t think there will ever be a star who can bring in viewers to wrestling. But someone who can maybe become an action hero in movies or something. That’s possible.


----------



## Ozell Gray (Jan 2, 2020)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Hey odds are against him. I truly believe he can be the biggest star since Cena. It will take a ton of major breaks but it has for every star before him.
> 
> Put it this way,_IF_ there is going to be a megastar from this generation, my money is on MJF as the safest bet. Whether or not that occurs in AEW, or WWE, is something to see as time rolls on.
> 
> But he could pull it off in a very JR Ewing/Dan Scott sort of way.


In order for him to be a megastar he'd have to be watched by more than 731k viewers which is what hes watched by now in AEW. If MJF will become a big star its going to be in WWE where he'll be watched by 2 million people in the U.S and millions of people around the world. 



TKO Wrestling said:


> Likely a bigger guy, yes. Austin/Rock/Goldberg/Cena were all huge. But MJF has that special it factor that literally no one else has today so I will keep my money on him.. Odds are long that there will be another megastar anywhere, WWE has completely given up on trying to create them, odds are low AEW will be able to do it, other than WWF no one else has produced a true megastar other than WCW/Goldberg.
> 
> But a storyline is all MJF needs to get there because he could make millions hate him in seconds. That is rare, no one else has been able to do that in years.


WWE has been trying to make Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins into big stars and they even tried it with Dean Ambrose but he flopped. This idea that they don't want to create new stars goes complety against what they've been doing since 2012 when the shield debuted at Survivor Series.

Ric Flair was a big name who wasn't in the WWF so yes theres been "megastars" made outside the WWF other then Goldberg in WCW.



TKO Wrestling said:


> Argue it away! I love it, I was WCW 4Life. But I am talking mainstream, huge star. Put it this way, the only two WCW wrestlers that I could have seen Vince calling to main event Mania the last 10 years are Goldberg and Hogan. And Hogan was WWF.


Ok you're being real disengenious here. Ric Flair was a mainstream star outside the WWF who was in the NWA, AWA, and WCW. WWF wanted Sting but he didn't go because he feared how he'd be booked there so he decided not to go there.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

NXT Only said:


> I feel like guys are referencing crossover appeal. I don’t think there will ever be a star who can bring in viewers to wrestling. But someone who can maybe become an action hero in movies or something. That’s possible.


That sucks because if we don't find someone that has that Austin or Hogan in him, wrestling is screwed.


----------



## NXT Only (Apr 3, 2016)

TKO Wrestling said:


> That sucks because if we don't find someone that has that Austin or Hogan in him, wrestling is screwed.


Wrestling is fine as a niche product. Hoping it grows into a mainstream thing again tho is unlikely


----------

