Cancelled PPV matches, backstage chaos, and other things Tony Khan doesn't want you to think about.
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00:00Whether it involved icons performing rather embarrassing bumps, top stars refusing to play
00:06ball, or the organization not doing what was right on the night, there have been a number of shocking,
00:12awkward, or humiliating incidents the AEW presidents would prefer you to forget ever
00:17happened. But they all very much did, so let's talk about them. I am Gareth, this is WhatCulture
00:23Wrestling, and here are 10 things Tony Khan wants you to forget about AEW.
00:2810. The Controversial Exit While the likes of Cody Rhodes and Jade Cargill
00:33seemingly left AEW on good terms, the same could not be said for some of the other talents that
00:38ultimately left TK's organization. Take Big Swole, for example. In the wake of leaving the company in
00:44November 2021, the wrestler claimed on her call-in show that the reason she didn't re-sign with AEW
00:50was down to the fact the promotion lacked structure or diversity. And how did the
00:55billionaire boss respond? By defending the company's diversity on Twitter, before bizarrely telling the
01:00world he let go of Swole because he didn't think her wrestling was good enough. Very nice.
01:05Then you have Ivelisse, who took to social media to accuse a coach of mistreatment and claim
01:10Thunder Rosa. Her opponent, during that infamous September 10, 2020 Dynamite encounter, slandered
01:16her name after her release in April 2021. And lastly, you have the latest controversial
01:21All Elite exit Khan would like to move on from Sharpish. That being CM Punk's firing in September
01:27post All In 2023 Backstage Madness. Releases and exits happen in wrestling, but these are just a few
01:34of the uglier departures the AEW president would like his fans to forget about as swiftly as possible.
01:409. The Worst Punches In Wrestling
01:42What should have been a moment that forced the All Elite audience to take this new villainous Dark
01:46Order unit seriously, towards the end of the December 18, 2019 Dynamite, soon turned into one
01:52of the most embarrassing beatdowns in wrestling history. And we were only two months into weekly
01:57All Elite programming. Lovely. After SCU's Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky had got the better of
02:03the Young Books, a bunch of not exactly intimidating creepers surrounded the ring as silly purple lighting
02:09washed over the teams. The crowd were already pretty unimpressed by the lame and uninspiring
02:13attack about 30 seconds in. And not even the arrival of Kenny Omega and Cody and Dustin Rhodes
02:19could shoot some excitement into the flat brawl. Then it happened. One of the unknown massed attackers
02:25began throwing the sort of dreadful right hands that accidentally added fuel to the all-amateurs
02:30wrestling fires. The shots missed Dustin by a country mile. Even four years later, you'll struggle
02:35to find a more embarrassing All Elite angle, or anyone in the company referencing this terrible
02:40TV conclusion. Number 8. Many a botched debut
02:44It does seem that for every marvellous All Elite arrival, Tony Khan finds a way to completely drop
02:49the ball with a new face in his company on night one. There was that time AEW introduced a brand new
02:55giant into the mix in the form of the massive Satnam Singh, by blacking out the arena and throwing the
03:00lights back up to the sound of crickets as the big lad deck Samoa Joe. Andrade El Idolo experienced a
03:06similarly underwhelming first night on Dynamite back in June 2021, awkwardly showing up as Vicky
03:11Guerrero's new client. And that lasted long, didn't it? Remember when Matt Seidel popped up at All In 2020
03:17as the Casino Battle Royale's Joker? Well, TK probably hopes you don't. His slipping star press
03:22debut was just about overshadowed by another awful fall on the night. Oh, we'll get there.
03:27Cries of who are you as the Butcher and the Blade crawled into the AEW system, and Miro showing up as
03:33a video game obsessed best man, are also just a few of the other times Tony got it badly wrong with
03:38an AEW newbie. Now I've got a quick question for you, what has been your favourite AEW debut of all
03:44time? Let me know in the comments section right down below. Number 7. MJF has left the building
03:49Admittedly, it does seem like AEW are finally finding a way to fold this real life drama into a
03:54storyline, with Wardlow finally realising MJF was the person responsible for destroying all the
04:00momentum he'd built up heading into Double or Nothing 2022. However, that still doesn't change
04:05the fact that the controversial events that set the stage for Maxwell Jacob Friedman's explosive
04:09dynamite pipe bomb and summer hiatus last year are the sort of awkward moments TK wishes never
04:15happened. Before Maxwell decided to shockingly no-show a meet and greet on Double or Nothing
04:20weekend, the star was said to have butted heads with his boss over his contract when compared to
04:24the deals handed to other top stars in the company. Sure, Khan was ultimately able to convince
04:29Friedman to get in the ring at the pay-per-view and put his former bodyguard over, and he even managed
04:34to get a viral work-shoot promo out of the salt of the earth before he eventually made an epic all-out
04:39return. But the fact Maxwell had to no-show a fan event to eventually score himself the raise he
04:44deserved. Being put on more than $1 million a year, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling
04:49Observer Newsletter, wasn't the best look. Number 6, The Terrible Mattress Bump
04:54This entry isn't taking anything away from the very real physical punishment each and every
04:58performer likely experiences whenever they decide to step in between the ropes, or enter a cage on
05:04this occasion, and a company doing all they can to protect their workers when they're trying to
05:08execute outrageous spots should be saluted. However, if you can't pull off a jaw-dropping moment safely
05:13without it looking like a bloke simply jumping off his wardrobe and onto his bed, the wise call
05:18would probably be to just move on and try something else, or maybe just not film it in
05:22close-up. Sadly though, Chris Jericho, MJF, and Tony Khan clearly didn't get those memos.
05:27Feeling they absolutely needed to chuckle a champion off of the blood and gut structure for
05:31the story they were telling back in 2021, the company created a landing area that would ensure
05:36a safe fall for the veteran. The only problem was that the way the climactic fall was shot
05:41made the entire impact zone look like little more than a crash mat, some empty boxes, and a bit of
05:46pretend cardboard steel, which is exactly what it was. The idea was to fool fans into believing Jericho
05:52had just been mercilessly sent to his doom, but the way AEW decided to stupidly film this brave fall
05:58completely undermined what had been a pretty brutal match up to that point.
06:02Number 5, all of the non-punk elite backstage drama. Away from all of the backstage mayhem involving Phil
06:08Brooks and the elite in AEW, oh don't worry we'll get there, there have been a number of other rather
06:13regrettable behind-the-scenes incidents that have grabbed the wrong sort of headlines over the last
06:17few years in particular too. Sammy Guevara's high-profile altercations with Eddie Kingston
06:22and Andrade El Idolo last year definitely rank as two of the more embarrassing examples of TK
06:27struggling to keep the drama in-house. And for the longest time, the real-life heat between various
06:33talented performers within the all-elite women's roster was actually more intriguing than the
06:37stories they were telling on screen. For comparison, it's rare to hear of any huge blow-ups going on in
06:43the locker room over in the world of sports entertainment, whereas AEW seemingly couldn't go
06:47a week without a star firing a shot at their colleague before clashing backstage in 2022 alone.
06:53Khan will likely be praying the punker's collision with Jack Perriatt all in 2023,
06:57sits as the last moment of behind-the-curtain madness for some time now. Or maybe he'll just
07:02book Guevara vs Kingston for the banter in 2024 and invite even more hilarious chaos.
07:08Number 4. The All Out 2020 Matt Hardy Incident
07:11The four that took the attention away from Matt Seidel's awkward arrival at All Out 2020
07:15is a moment that should have taught the company a rather painful lesson. As Matt Hardy went to war
07:21with Sammy Guevara that night in a broken rules match, the pair eventually found themselves on top of a
07:26scissor lift backstage. Not quite hitting a spear off the machine in the way they had planned though,
07:31Hardy ended up being very much broken when the back of his head smacked off the concrete floor.
07:36Hardy was clearly not fit to continue, but instead of calling off a match that fans weren't exactly
07:40desperate to see conclude anyway, the veteran was allowed to complete the contest, and AEW received
07:45a justifiable amount of backlash for their failure to properly intervene. Luckily, the company did
07:50respond quickly when Hangman Adam Page was knocked out in his match against Jon Moxley a few years later,
07:56but the poor way they handled the latter's recent concussion on Dynamite proves that there's still
08:00some room for serious improvements when it comes to wrestler safety in these sort of scary situations.
08:06Number 3. Dan Lambert and Brandi Rhodes Dreadful Dynamite Promo
08:10The days of Dan Lambert shooting from the hip on the AEW roster feel like a lifetime ago,
08:15and that's probably how Tony Khan would prefer it to stay. Now there were a few highlights in there
08:20for sure, like that time he took a nasty Lance Archer blackout in the summer of 2021,
08:24but whoever decided it would be a good idea to throw the American top team founder into a promo
08:29battle with Brandi Rhodes should have really been the one on the receiving end of the Murderhawk
08:33Monsters finisher. Both figures were generating all kinds of go-away heat at the time, with not a
08:38single soul in Chicago wanting to sit through the unlikable pair's shots and kayfabe killing retorts.
08:44It was uncomfortable to watch, offensive at times, and was all seemingly done to welcome back a Paige
08:49Van Zandt, who ultimately ended up doing very little of note, after the heelish Lambert mate
08:53beat up, er, another heel. It was yet another low in the consistently ugly Lambert era of All Elite
08:59Wrestling, and a mess the company won't be inviting you to relive on YouTube anytime soon.
09:04Number 2. Pac and Adam Page's Cancelled Double or Nothing 2019 Fight
09:08AEW's first ever press conference in early 2019 brought with it the announcement of two rather
09:14exciting new additions to the ever-growing roster, the Elite's Hangman Adam Page and the Bastard Pac.
09:20The studs ultimately ended up coming face-to-face during that very event, leading to a hotly
09:24anticipated match between the lads being scheduled for the inaugural Double or Nothing pay-per-view.
09:29What should have been one of the first of many mouth-watering All Elite blockbuster fights,
09:32however, soon turned into one of the company's earliest awkward moments.
09:36It also led to a piece of company history TK would no doubt love to erase if given the chance.
09:41With Pac reportedly not being happy to do the J.O.B. for the Hangman, due to him being the Open
09:46the Dreamgate champion for Dragon Gate at the time, the bout was eventually pulled from AEW's first
09:51pay-per-view event. Those creative differences then resulted in the first official match in All Elite
09:56history actually going down on a WrestleGate Pro show over in the UK, and ending in a DQ. You'll love to
10:03see it. 1. Brawl Out and the Punk Saga That Followed
10:06Watching the punker swing a sledgehammer at his workplace repeatedly during All Out 2022's infamous
10:12press conference was surreal. But perhaps even crazier was the sight of Tony Khan helplessly
10:17sitting on and allowing the best in the world to shoot from the hip at his EVPs and biggest stars as
10:22he munched muffins with a ripped-up triceps. This was merely the beginning of an AEW-changing evening,
10:27however, as the Elite and Punk would clash backstage not long after, leading to Khan having
10:32to suspend All Involved and strip them of their gold. A terrible situation, one that could have
10:37possibly been solved by demanding All Involved sit down in a room and settle their differences,
10:42only got more toxic in the months that followed. Khan's attempts to keep his top star and the lads
10:47who helped him start this apparent revolution happy by keeping them as far away from one another
10:51as humanly possible did not work out. And that failure to take decisive action earlier kept the
10:57company under a dark cloud for much of 2023 before Punk's controversial exit in September. TK will
11:03want his fans to remember 2023 as the year he crammed tens of thousands into Wembley and debuted
11:08another weekly two-hour TV show, not as the year he failed to handle a Punk saga that threatened to
11:14undo all of the elite work that had come before it. I've been Gareth from WhatCulture Wrestling,
11:18cheers for not forgetting to watch this video today, and hopefully we will see you very, very soon.
11:23Bye-bye!