With all the hoopla around Punk/Elite, I thought it’d be a good time to post this anthology. For those who don’t know, TVChase was a reddit-user with a strong background in gathering and examining information (they worked in a newsroom, I believe). Their series breaks down how the feud may have been a work from the very beginning.
If you’re into the feud at all then I highly recommend giving this a read. It’s long—about the length of a novella at least—but it’s some of the most compelling stuff I’ve ever seen on the internet.
Below are links to each part of the anthology. The links come directly from TVChase’s website so you won’t have to worry about visiting that other place.
PART ONE - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tvchase/the-greatest-trick-devil-ever-pulled
PART TWO - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tvchase/the-devil-is-in-details
PART THREE - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tvchase/the-devil-disguise
PART FOUR - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tvchase/the-devil-is-in-details-1846112
PART FIVE - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tvchase/the-devil-you-know-the-devil-you-don
PART SIX - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tvchase/the-devil-due
Random thought: I wonder if Punk ever talked about the rocky movies before the Mox match and subsequent interview. That could be decent evidence that at least part of this is indeed a work.
Honestly, if this turns out to be a work, I will be simultaneously super impressed and genuinely baffled at the effort put in to make me thoroughly put off by this storyline.
The reality, to me, is that this shit may be incredible if they pull it off, but it won't change the fact that a lot of the shit they did in the 6 months scramble to put the show back on track and "fix" the shitshow that was left after Brawl Out made me unsubscribe from FITE and switch to following TJPW and sporadically DDT, over AEW, because the quality of the content had severely declined.
It's that whole "I was just pretending to be a moron" thing. Doesn't change the fact that you looked, acted, and got treated like a moron.
Ditto for me. Day-ones (like me) are likely going to be put off as they remember the early days of AEW where the locker-room was relatively much more friendly; therefore resulting in a (perceived) negative impact on the enjoyment of the product (especially recently with reports of talent being supposedly banned from Collision). Regular marks are just going to be plain confused (and possibly eventually give up) when their babyfaces appear to be feuding with other faces along with heels.
Like how many simultaneous feuds does one person need?
TBH I would have never been an old school wrestling fan because the idea of people actually being this fucking psychotic to eachother, as opposed to playing psychotic characters in a story, absolutely does not entice me.
If keyfabe were alive I would not be interested in watching, say, the ongoing swerve vs wayne storyline, because that shit is literal gang warfare and in reality there's nothing to enjoy about that.