Medicine for the AEW/IWC Sickos

After five long years, I have to admit the AEW/IWC Sickos really are proving that sometimes people do live in alternate realities. I used to think they were simply just trolls who wanted to poke the bear with a stick but now I realize that is not true. That just like flat earther’s or the Lost Cause people who even if you show them the facts, they will still live in their own head.

At this point I am going to have to do something drastic; I am injecting them with a cold dose of reality.

I realize that they are going to fight this, scream, insult and yell at me but I want them to know, I am doing this for their own good.

Everybody who knows these kinds of people, slowly starts to want to run away from them or just get physical with them. I can’t blame them because it’s like the little kid who keeps flicking your ear from behind and making you slap him across the face.

Lets start with attacking some of their biggest complaints that I get from them, or their smear tactics and I will try to calmly retort them and try to avoid insulting them.

WWE RELEASES ARE CRUEL AND WWE IS JUST A GREEDY CORPORATE MONSTER

Novel concept, but the goal of every business is to make money and to do that you have to balance your books and stay in the black. Unfortunately, that means that people get released if the company no longer feels your are helping them make money.

But again… how dare those mean people try to make money. Shame on WWE. Don’t they know that wrestling is suppose to be fair? That you pay everyone and always take care of them because its the right thing to do?

I understand that everyone wants to be like AEW but that is not a well run business and it shows with them just keeping people with no plan. Its run by a guy who treats this like a personal dream project where he gets to be a “rasslin promoter” and hang out with his friends.

TNA did this before when Dixie Carter ran TNA and back then fans went after her and crapped on the promotion. Smart people understand, wrestling business needs to be successful for it have longevity and for the WWE that means making their shareholders and investors happy.

Out of all the people who were released on the main roster, only Braun Strowman had a consistent presence for the last year or so. According to the reports he was making 1.2 million per year and between hip and knee problems was no longer in the shape he was when he was a top star.

It’s no different from when the Jacksonville Jaguars released Gabe Davis this past week. He was getting paid millions of dollars, didn’t perform to the expectations of his contract so they released him.

If you listen to Jaguars fans, nobody is up in arms about that not being fair. More like Davis was a bust and the Jaguars should have not signed him.

The cold fact is the WWE still has over 210 wrestlers for three different brands and not enough time to get them over. There will probably be more cuts down the line because its not reasonable to expect a company to not downsize employees who they view as expendable.

Every company does it in the world so why would you expect the largest professional wrestling company to not do so?

But that is just one narrative that has cropped up that is a bit easy to explain without getting emotional. Next one is a bit of a doozy and apologies as this will have me a bit lathered up.

TONY KHAN IS THE NEXT PAUL HEYMAN; A CREATIVE GENIUS

File that under “tell me you don’t know wrestling and never watched ECW”.

This isn’t even an attempt to smear Tony Khan but just show how much people REALLY don’t understand ECW when they make that statement.

First off not just Tony but most wrestling promoters in wrestling history couldn’t hold a candle to Heyman’s creativity.

His greatest hits are legendary no matter what era you were in. Just look at the list of Heyman’s hits in ECW that didn’t even involve an overabundance of cursing, violence or extreme high spots.

-The creation of “The Franchise” that had Shane Douglas teasing accepting the NWA title before rejecting it and branding himself the “franchise of ECW”.

-The Raven vs. Sandman feud which involved multiple matches, the debut and then face turn of Beulah and Kimona Wannalaya.

-Raven “brainwashing” Sandman’s wife and son to become part of his flock

-The Sabu-Taz rivalry which saw Bill Alfonso turning heel and help launch Rob Van Dam

-The WWE vs. ECW invasion and Jerry Lawler showing up on ECW TV

-Dusty Rhodes vs. Steve Corino featuring Corino run down Rhodes before “The American Dream” brought the house down.

As much as people like to think of ECW for just blood and guts and action, Paul Heyman was telling stories that riveted in our hearts. It was also because Heyman understood people, grew up in New York City and always had his fingers on the pulse of youth and America.

Plus Heyman can take any wrestler and hide his weaknesses and promote his strengths. Look at Public Enemy as the perfect example as he was able to get them over and make them credible when everyone else failed.

Heyman was a guy who understood cool and how to be ahead of the curve rather than behind it. Raven was the ultimate example of someone who resonated with the youth as he channeled the angst of the grunge movement.

Comparing ECW and AEW is laughable as AEW still comes across as uncool and trying to hard to be relevant. You always understood the end game of Shane Douglas and Raven because even though they were “smart” they didn’t try to be too cryptic. It was nuanced but simple while we still don’t understand the entire point of Jon Moxley and the Death Riders.

I mean seriously what the hell is the grand point about them anyway? We are in May and after 8 months we still have no idea what the hell this group is about.

Heyman had experience being a promoter since the age of 19 doing event and nightclubs in NYC where he understood how to get people’s attention.

You could never take your eyes off ECW TV and never did you ever say that ECW was boring. Meanwhile you watch AEW right now and even alot of normal AEW fans are calling the product boring.

But more importantly unlike Tony Khan, Paul Heyman RAN ECW and was the boss. His way was the law and you didn’t have guys with “Creative control” or being in positions of power to abuse it. Whatever Heyman said, that was it and as we saw with Sabu, if you pulled anything, he would let you go.

To simplify it to the morons… comparing Paul Heyman to Tony Khan is comparing The Kansas City Chiefs with the Southwest Kansas Storm Arena Football team.

But wait, there is more as the next one has REALLY started to get people annoyed.

NOBODY LIKES CASUALS ‘CAUSE THEY RUIN WRESTLING.

Under the AEW/sicko definition, a “casual” is evil incarnate that ruins wrestling, Man!

They just don’t understand the minutia of wrestling and should enjoy all wrestling. They should embrace everything about it and don’t complain.

Its statements like the above that make families look at you weirdos and wonder if your kids will be safe. You have become the equivalent of the creepy weirdo at the end of the bar who you wonder molests corpses in his or her spare time.

The reality is that casual fans mostly go to a wrestling show to have fun. They want to see the good guy win, the bad guy loose, not turn their eyes away due to too much violence and generally go home happy.

This isn’t rocket science and no WWE didn’t even invent this; this has been going on since the days of Shakespeare. You want to bring more people in especially the non-hardcode people because if they like it, they will talk about how great of a time they had.

Then they will tell their friends, their family and who knows, maybe they will go back for more and bring their friends.

Novel concept but hey what do I know.

But the best part of having “casual fans” is that they spend money, enjoy the product and really don’t care about the backstage and online drama.

To them this is just entertainment, not the end all be all of their lives. Not something that has then posting over 28 replies on one wrestling post online attacking people and calling them names.

Casuals don’t go online and chase Kat Dennings off X because she “Should watch AEW instead of WWE crap”.

Every wrestling promotion needs to grow their casual base if they want to make more money because lets face it, you need more customers.

More customers means more money and who doesn’t love money?

But lets tackle that next juicy tidbit that has been regurgitated by the sickos.

HARDCORE WRESTLING AND BLOOD IS NEEDED!

Well, families and TV executives will heavily disagree with you and last time I checked that is the lifeblood of any product on TV.

For all the glossing over and waxing poetic of ECW, let the record show that ECW lasted for a grand total of 6 years. And while I loved ECW, the fact it that the company had numerous issues with financials and networks that were a huge factor in killing it.

Advertisers for toys, video games, t-shirts and other products don’t want to be associated with violent images. A lot of people don’t enjoy the sight of blood, excessive violence or barb wire or steel chairs hitting a person. You can say that its scripted, “Fake” or part of the show but bottom line is it turns most people’s stomachs

If your a parent of small children, do you want to subject your kid to having nightmares over the sight of glass protruding out of human skin?

Vince McMahon saw the writing on the wall years ago when he pivoted towards the PG era. That Disney, DC Studios, Marvel and Nickelodeon were making huge money off their products because it was family friendly.

Meanwhile look at how many great matches there have been in the history of pro wrestling and a lot of them don’t need the blood and guts. Does anybody care that WrestleMania 40 with Rhodes and Reigns had no blood?

How about when Goldberg beat Hulk Hogan in Atlanta?

Hell, even go to Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels in TNA and tell me how much blood there was

Hardcore is the equivalent of something a SMALL minority crave that they find without it, it makes the product suffer. They are mostly also the group that I bet also loves tentacle porn, sexualized anime, gore and other extreme things.

Many people do not like it and don’t care for it; mostly of the time normal people will change the channel and give up on the product. So conventional wisdom would mean that companies should try to phase it out if they want to grow their brand.

But hey, if your dad is a billionaire and you want to just have fun then damn the torpedos and full speed ahead

(Sorry, really trying hard but the more I write the more I can feel the anger).

By the way here is the other beauty that I have had to deal with.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE STRONG STYLE OR LUCHA LIBRE… YOUR RACIST.

Under this logic, I guess since I don’t like sushi, schnitzel, snails and clam chowder I am a racist xenophobe who hates Japanese people, German people, the French and New Englanders.

See I applied IWC logic to real life and look how stupid that sounded.

This is what people need to understand when it comes to wrestling styles especially in America but also over the vast majority of the world. Its not rocket science what people like when you break it down to the basics.

In other words, doesn’t matter the style, people want to see the move execute, feel that the action is “real”, see the wrestler react to the crowd and make it presentable

Go back to an Eddie Guerrero match and watch him in the ring and see how different he is compared to the indy darlings of today.

You watch wrestling because its a live action physical cinema. You want to feel that a story is being told in the ring and that every move has meaning towards it. Not like how the IWC sickos view it where you must have the spots, chain moves and action that feels like your watching a video game.

But at the end of the day, this is the biggest pet peeve that must be ingrained.

TRIBALISM IS ALL WWE’S FAULT, THEY ARE PICKING ON AEW.

First let me state this; from day 1, AEW came into this sport with the mindset that they were going to SAVE pro wrestling. That they were the hero’s of the story and were all about “protecting wrestlers”, “giving the fans what they want” and even “WWE is the Harvey Weinstein of pro wrestling”.

Spare me the indignation of now playing the victim and complaining about people trashing you and talking crap. Between The Elite, Tony Khan, the current AEW wrestlers who speak out on “bad WWE” and the sickos, you have become tribalism.

You sure love playing the martyr and at the same time taking shots while saying “tribalism sucks”.

I admit that I have written everything in my columns and believed at the time that I was right. I also knew that whatever I said, it would get back to me and I would have to be a big boy and take it.

As my grandfather one told me when I was very little “Be a man and accept the consequences of your actions”.

Ricochet doesn’t have to go online and respond to haters nor does he have to bash WWE on the way out of the company. Does he have the right to?

Absolutely as its freedom of speech and that what the country is about.

But once you talk trash about something, prepare to get roasted or fire back without crying victim. You don’t see Giants fans whining about Eagles fans making fun of how bad their teams are.

But the AEW Sickos seem to get all lathered up about how they feel WWE attacks them or mocks them. Our resident Tony Khan sicko geeks constantly attack everyone on the board labeling us pedophiles or other derogative words every time we criticize the product. And then complain about tribalism when they get return fire and claim that they are the victims.

This is the consequence of throwing the first punches and going there with people. You will get dusted, you will get return fire back and people will make fun of you.

If you don’t like it, then don’t go online and interact with them. I couldn’t care less in the grand scheme of things with AEW as I got lots to do and things to get done. To me the chat boards are a waste of time and I have more pressing matter than to post 18 responses on an article.

Instead TKW and his friend (or burner account) whine about how they are the victims of WWE fed and while continuing to stoke the fires of insults and childish games.

And all they have done is create more of what they claim they hate while whining like petulant toddlers.

AEW wrestlers have to face the fact that actions and words have consequences. You can’t just talk trash about WWE or TNA or NWA and expect to come out unscathed. This is the real world, and people will defend their position and sometimes it will unfortunately get nasty.

If you don’t want to deal with crap, then try to just ignore the noise and focus on real life instead of internet drama.

But this all leads to the last thing that REALLY needs to be addressed with the sickos.

YOU HATE AEW AND WANT IT TO FAIL CAUSE YOU ARE A WWE TROLL.

Over the last two plus years, AEW has gotten more and more grief and hate and the rise of this “AEW sucks” has come up. And yet I will admit, I did want AEW to fold for numerous reasons and still do. As I said, I am a big boy and will admit to everything and not hide behind a stupid screen name handle.

I did like AEW when it first started. It was what I wanted in a professional wrestling company as matches had meaning, the roster wasn’t bloated, storylines were creative and had drama and it was a well run promotion.

But to the AEW Disciplinary Committee, Phil Marks of Pro Wrestle Times, AEW Neckbeard, and many others including myself we got frustrated with how things become.

From bungling Cody Rhodes, Brawl Out, CM Punk being driven out, the hoarding of talent and the lack of good storylines made it hard to watch. And not just us as viewership has gone from 1 million viewers in 2022 to now AEW Dynamite is averaging around 575 to 610K. AEW Rampage has been cancelled, Ring of Honor is nearly an afterthought and even attendance has dwindled.

If you think this is pure subjective, then you are lying to yourself and behaving like Baghdad Bob during the Gulf War.

Through all of this, we begged AEW to change and fix what was broken only to get more of the same.

To fans like myself, this is the equivalent of rooting for the Washington Redskins when Daniel Snyder owned them. We wanted changes for the better, for the owner to stop behaving like an idiot and to listen to the fans who were unhappy with the product.

The question sickos should be asking is why Tony Khan doesn’t listen to what people are criticizing him about. He and his father did just that this year when fans complained the Jaguars were poorly run and that the team was terrible.

They swallowed their pride, fired the head coach and the general manager and hired people who were qualified to do a good job. It is the smart thing to do, and nobody attacked the Jaguar fans who asked for and demanded that.

But instead of listening to the fans for the most part, Tony has continued to double down on running the company by himself, enabling wrestlers to dictate business and continue to run the company like a passion project.

He forced people to make a choice and its not being a hater, its just giving up on a bad relationship.
I end this column with a simple question to the sickos; Why should we love something that is no longer what we loved about it and the people in charge don’t want to change or bring in the change we want?

Why should people support something that causes it nothing but grief?

To listen to interviews from fighters, sports reporters and more, check out the website at www.LastCallPodcast.com or follow me on www.twitter.com/LastCallwChrisC