Well, the CM Punk era in AEW is done. Not going to bother recapping the details. I largely sympathize with CM Punk. But, the industry isn't what it used to be. If Crash Holly had thrown shade at the Undertaker in the attitude era, there was definitely gonna be some physical consequence. But, in this day and age, if you put your hands on someone backstage, deserved or not, probably gonna get fired. Especially if it's a second time. But I'm not sure Punk really cares. For better or worse, Punk has always been a person who cares more about being right than getting along. If he was going to make it in AEW he was going to have deal with barbs and jabs and the occasional disrespect. He wasn't willing to put up with it. Maybe he should have been.
Fair to say that in the end the CM Punk experiment didn't work. This really should have been a slam dunk for all involved, but they couldn't get everyone on the same page.
I want CM Punk to come back to the WWE. Cut a promo saying people think he doesn't know when to apologize. But that he does. Then go on to do a string of apologies. To Vince McMahon, to the wonderful doctors of the WWE. Then, to the greatest pro wrestler of all time... HHH. Say that he deeply regrets that they were never able to work together at Wrestlemania, but now he wants to be able to work under such a true visionary.
Essentially make him the biggest schill in the fucking world. Then, turn him from CM Punk to GM Punk. Have him basically play HHH's authority character. He will be the most hated man in the industry by far. When he uses the phrase "best for business" there would be nuclear heat. It would be fucking glorious.
As for Payback. Was pretty decent. Like an above average PPV. Like a B-
Trish vs Becky was surprisingly the match of the night. I don't think Trish's work has been great since her return so my expectations were low, but she sure showed me. They were in sync and had a lot of great spots that were well set up. Could have done without the interference at the end. Definitely best match of Trish's return run, and the best Becky's had in a while too. Feud lasted too long, but ended (hopefully) on a strong note.
Rey Mysterio/Theory and LA Knight/Miz can be summed up the same way. Great talents, worked well together, but the matches had no intrigue. LA Knight was obviously going to win his match, so even with Cena as guest ref, it wasn't too interesting. Austin Theory is completely lost in the shuffle right now, and while he and Rey did great work, it was hard to care.
Sami Zayn & KO vs Judgment Day was good if you like that sort of thing. It was a streetfight, but more of the "we're going to go around the arena and do neat and sometimes silly spots" than the "we're going to try to kill each other" type. Sami Zayn and KO look like putzes for not having a plan for when all of judgment day interfered. Sami Zayn's Blue Thunder Bomb can't even get a pin when it's done onto a pile of chairs XD. Not my type of thing, but fun. Likely leading to a war games match with Judgment day vs Sami and Friends.
Raquel Gonzalez and Rhea Ripley was really solid. Great showcase for Raquel. They kept things simple, allowing Raquel to showcase her power on Rhea who was placed in the unfamiliar position of being the smaller woman. Not every match needs dives, heavily choreographed sequences, etc. Don't think they needed the interference at the end. Would have been fine for Raquel to lose clean.
Rey Mysterio vs Nakamora was good, but not great. As expected Shinsuke focused on the back and dominated most of the match. They worked well together and everything worked but it just kind of felt like it was missing something. It felt like the match was finally starting to kick into third gear and it just... ended. To my recollection there weren't a lot of spots where Seth felt truly in danger of losing the title. Near falls, long submissions, etc. Feels like maybe they were holding back in anticipation of a rematch or something.
It was a fun way to spend my Sunday morning. Nothing I'd recommend anyone going out of their way to see, except maybe the Trish vs Becky match. I think we're seeing a kind of shift in the way WWE is viewing PPVs. Back in the day they were asking for 50 bucks a show, and now it's like 60 bucks or something for a year's worth of shows plus whatever else is on Peacock (in the US at least). It's a lot less of an ask in terms of money, so maybe they don't need to make the same kind of push. Not saying they're putting on bad stuff, but they're not using all of their top talent, not every title is being defended, not every match has an epic build or hype package, etc. They had some big matches opening and closing the show, then stuff in the middle that was varying degrees of decent. And I'm guessing they'll do more of a blowout kind of thing for the big four and maybe MITB or something.
We'll see how it works for them. For me personally, they've been kind of stuck in a good but not great pattern for a while now. I can't recall seeing a PPV in a while where I regretted having spent the time watching it (especially since they're recorded not and you can go at your own pace), but I also haven't been blown away in a while. Very comfort foodish Wrestling since Mania.
