The Phantom Rant: The War Between WWE and AEW

Greetings conversationalists all across the world wide web. It is I the one and only “Phantom Lord” Joseph Davis and this is The Phantom Rant. As always I am coming to you from New York City and it’s been an interesting week or so since my last column was published. Brock Lesnar came back as we know and…well, nothing. He wasn’t on RAW. He wasn’t on Smackdown. Sure they replayed the clips on the shows…but The Beast himself was nowhere to be found. What we did get though was Logan Paul coming out to trash talk John Cena. Drew McIntyre was also there to help attack Cena only for Homelander…err Cody Rhodes to make the save. Apparently for Clash in Paris we’re getting John Cena vs. Logan Paul. So they kinda wasted a Brock return for nothing…at least it seems they did. The WWE lately is doing a game of anything you can do we can do better especially when it comes to AEW.

“It can change, but the main event for this show is Brock Lesnar and John Cena. So, it’s a big one. Which is why Brock’s not in Paris—because of this. They wanted him for this show, not for the Paris show, and that’s where Logan Paul got the gig.” Credit to Dave Meltzer for the quote

So AEW has their second biggest ppv of the year coming up in September and it’s on that day that the WWE is like “hmm, we should do one of our PLE’s”. Nick Khan (President of the WWE) says they aren’t competition…but this is what you do to competition. You screw with them on big days like this. Now we’re still waiting for AEW Forbidden Door to happen next week so we don’t know what matches would be happening at AEW All Out. But to throw together a PLE of your own just for the purposes of eating some PPV buys from them…that is pretty damn ballsy. Ballsy and petty. AEW lives and dies from the PPV buys they get so who knows how many buys this would take away from AEW if it happens.

Honestly though I don’t know why the WWE is wasting a John Cena farewell match on a throwaway PLE. I mean it’s not like AEW does anything to make the WWE nervous. The WWE is just doing it to screw with them. I mean if it were me in charge of the WWE, until AEW proves they can be an actual competitor in the ratings I wouldn’t be counter programming against them. As it stands right now John Cena’s final match is supposed to be on a Saturday Night’s Main Event from Boston. But there’s rumors they might change that and put it up against AEW’s World’s End PPV. Though there’s a Peacock exclusive NFL game that day and NBC doesn’t want to compete against itself. Though, I wonder if these people understand that they’re not on PPV against them per-say. Technically they are on video on demand against AEW. I can watch the AEW PPV live (if I so choose) and watch the WWE one on demand. It’s not like it’s 1987 and the WWF is strong arming cable companies to take this new PPV called Survivor Series over the NWA’s Starrcade if they want Wrestlemania next year.

In more breaking news about the WWE screwing with AEW, there’s word today that their unofficial developmental fed TNA Wrestling might consider moving to Wednesday nights to take on AEW Dynamite. On the one hand that would be great for me because I don’t currently have a cable package that has AXS which is where TNA airs. But on the other I don’t think I would be inclined to just watch one over the other just because they changed nights. There’s this magical device called a DVR and I could tape one while watching the other.

All of this because the WWE wants competition…just competition they can control. “They (WWE) really want TNA to become the other promotion because they can control TNA. And it’s a—this is a major full court press. They just want this guy (Tony Khan) out of the box. And they know that if, if the numbers stay good, that he’s going to get a renewal at a much bigger number, just like they did, and a number that will make him increase. It’s already very profitable. The number will make him incredibly profitable, and they’ll never get away with him, you know, away from him or anything like that. So they feel that they need to make sure this is the last contract.” 

It’s amazing how the WWE can try to monopolize the industry. Though they have been doing this for the past 40 years. So nothing is shocking…to me anyway. Again if I were in charge of the WWE, I would not concern myself with AEW. If they get a good TV deal…that’s great. Good for them. But having TNA become NXT 2.0 does nothing but hinder TNA’s growth if they wanted them to be a true number two company. But lets be honest. The WWE doesn’t really want to have TNA as a true number two. What they want is just to pilfer talent when the time comes. As it is Joe Hendry is almost certainly going to the WWE when his TNA contract is up. Jordynne Grace all ready left for the WWE when hers was up. I don’t know how long Masha Slamovich is signed to TNA, but you better believe the WWE will snatch her up when that contract is done.

If you want an idea of what an official WWE partnership with TNA would look like, just look at Triple A this weekend with Triplemania. The WWE dictates everything that Triple A does now. They have to be more WWE in their presentation. Have WWE style matches. Basically everything that they were known for…they have to forget. It’s like the line in the song Subdivisions by Rush. CONFORM OR BE CAST OUT. That’s all the WWE wants. They want everyone to conform to their ideals of what wrestling/sports entertainment should be. When you’re number one I guess you can do that.

Where does AEW go from here though? It’s not like AEW can say “oh, well lets run a PPV up against Wrestlemania” or something. As much as AEW frustrates me as a fan, I think they need to stay the course. Yeah, the ratings could be way better. But they do well enough for their time slot (well Dynamite does…) so it’s not like they are going to get canceled anytime soon. AEW needs to succeed to ensure the WWE doesn’t become the only game in town. The WWE would love to crush AEW so there is no place else to go. Only WWE and WWE associated companies would exist.

So yeah, AEW needs to survive and overcome these threats from the WWE. I’m not worried about AEW PPV’s because usually the PPV’s over deliver when it comes to match quality and the like. I think in the end this plan of the WWE will end up backfiring on them. Either it will become too expensive for them to constantly run up against AEW or they’ll pull a Vince McMahon and just lose interest.

Like I said, if it were me I wouldn’t be wasting all these resources going against AEW. But here we are. On the brink of a new war. It isn’t a Monday Night War. But it will heat up and there will be collateral damage and a lot of it. Meanwhile I’ll be here just trying to keep up with everything.

On that note I am done for this week. As always you can leave feedback down below, on twitter or email me at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com