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“Do something……even if it’s wrong!”
Gary Snellbaker, many many times
Now, I know that no one reading this has any idea who Gary Snellbaker is. He was a manager at Philadelphia Coca Cola from back in my previous life as a salesmen for said company. When faced with inept workers under his guidance, he often muttered that phrase to the underachievers. Now to be clear, he didn’t want said employees to do the wrong thing. What he was saying was that they just weren’t doing anything, and screwing up would be better than nothing. It was a backhanded way of saying, “Do you damn job already”.
As I watched the deer in the headlights, he couldn’t have blinked if he tried to look on Tony Khan’s face as Dynamite opened, trying to convince himself as much he was trying to convince the fans that great stuff was coming over the next two weeks, I had a feeling he was about to “do something, even if it’s wrong” and damn, did he.
Now, what was my first clue that he was about to screw the proverbial pooch, again? Well, from the perspective of being the leader of the company, Tony has being doing a lot of things in the wrong manner since this company started. He bestowed EVP Titles on four men who would have just been happy to get a good salary that they probably couldn’t have gotten elsewhere. Out of the four, in my view one performed in a manner of someone who was an officer in the company, but he’s rehabbing a pec injury in WWE now. The other three? Well, you know, I really haven’t seen a lot of positive things from them come out of their positions, and this past weekend they did exactly what an EVP should never, ever do. A leader puts good people in positions of power. Tony made three men EVPs who took a really bad situation from Sunday night after CM Punk’s Chicago Pipe Bomb, and made it exponentially worse. Way to earn your pay Kenny and The Jacksons.
From the beginning, Tony has seemed to be more concerned with being a fan who was able to hang around with wrestlers and book a fantasy federation in real life rather than a leader who would grow a company that could, maybe some day, compete with WWE. He had the money, but he didn’t have the leadership skills and with each passing day the latter becomes more and more apparent.
I remember back at Halloween of the first year when he dressed up like Orange Cassidy and sent pictures of it out on social media. I called it a bad move that will send the wrong message to the talents. Some scoffed at me. Tony is just having fun they said. He’s one of us!!! Yes, that’s the point. The owner of the company should never come off as a cos-playing mark because most wrestlers are predatory animals and once they see that kind of weakness, they take advantage and they realize they have freedom that they shouldn't possess.
And, that is exactly what has happened in AEW. The inmates realized that they could run the asylum and take advantage of the nice guy owner who, in their view, was just happy to be there and own the company. Nice guys get feasted on in wrestling, they always have and they always will.
There has been talk for a while about the politics backstage, some of which was attributed to the aforementioned EVPs (if they still even ARE EVPs). It was all conjecture of course, though I believe that there was definitely at least some truth to some of what was bandied about. The vibe of AEW being “Disney World For Wrestlers” had long since dissipated when Adam Page went on TV, on the go home show before his Title defense against CM Punk, and double crossed the challenger by going into business for himself with a bizarre promo that made no sense at all, especially for a babyface taking on another babyface. At that very point in time, Tony Khan was at a seminal moment in the history of company. Page, who I was very happy to hear get some deserved boos last night, started AEW going down the toilet with his actions and Khan exacerbated it by doing absolutely nothing about it.
Now, in a normal wrestling world, Khan’s inaction would have sent a bad message to the locker room. When you consider that it was allowed to be done to CM Punk, a man with a history of not taking being disrespected lying down, Khan had to know a receipt was coming. Had he taken action against Page at the time, who knows what would have happened. But, he did nothing and to paraphrase Gary Snellbaker, it was definitely wrong.
Of course, Punk got hurt so his anger at Page stewed while he waited for revenge. When he came back, he got his receipt on national TV by also going into business for himself. Khan could have done something then as well to diffuse the situation but again, he played the fiddle why his Rome was burning.
Also while Punk was out, someone “leaked” to some “favorable reporters” that Punk had gotten Colt Cabana fired. It was widely “reported” by outlets, even though there was no truth to it at all. What did Tony Khan do? Not a damn thing until the “story” had blown up and turned into a disaster. By the time he finally said, “Yeah, that isn’t true” it was far too late and serious damage had been done, and it all falls on Khan’s ineffective, at best, leadership. That led to the explosion on Sunday.
So last night, Tony Khan was forced to do something he never wanted to do (at least that is what he has said) and put himself on his own TV show. It’s telling that he did so in a pre-taped segment. Was it due to him being too nervous to face the live crowd? If you saw the bug eyed way he did the promo, that could very well be the case as at time there definitely seemed to be some fear in his face. Could it have been because he thought he would get booed, which he most certainly did? That could be the case as well. Every other time he has been in front of the crowd it was to great applause and adulation, and Tony clearly revels in that kind of reception, just as he prefers to listen to people who call him Booker Of The Year instead of people who, in trying to actually happen to him, point out the flaws in his product.
But those cheers from the fans came before it was public knowledge that his repeatedly poor decision making and lack of leadership had led him to the nuclear fallout that culminated last weekend after the All Out PPV ended. That was before he had to open the show with his hyper bizarre promo talking about how The World and Trios Titles had been stripped, with no explanation as to why.
Now I get that there is an ongoing “third party investigation” into what happened. Why he needs a third party and can’t just do it himself, I hope will be explained at some point. (though explaining things isn't a Khan strong suit) But for now, while the investigation is ongoing, he clearly doesn’t want to say that his EVPs and his World Champion are not there and most probably have been suspended, at the very least. The company hasn’t commented but when you remove those men from your TV open and then announce their Titles are stripped, it’s pretty clear they are on the sidelines right now, as they should be. So I definitely understand why the Titles were stripped but once again, as is often the case, Tony just assumes EVERYONE knows why that happened.
This is another huge flaw in Tony’s leadership, lack of explanations, about far too many things. Last night, he seemingly assumed everyone knew why the Titles were stripped. It’s no different than when he assumes everyone watching knows every wrestler from New Japan and then he wonders why 200,000 people turn off the show when Aussie Open appear. It’s happened so many times now I just accept that he won’t explain things. But this is the time he SHOULD have at least come up with a storyline reason for the Titles being vacated.
Why? Well, there are a few reasons. For one, just go to the comments on Khan’s Twitter where a lot of fans had no idea what happened on Sunday and asked him WHY DID YOU DO THIS? He assumed they knew, but they didn’t. Two, a lot of people tuning in had just paid $50 to watch the PPV and see Titles won. They deserved to be given a reason why that was invalidated a few days later. And three, it’s called storytelling. There was none of that in just saying “I was forced to strip them”. Why? Come up with a storyline for it. “Due to injuries suffered in the two Title matches on Sunday, AEW is forced to vacate the Titles. Blah Blah." It’s not that difficult.
The worst part about all of this was that Sunday night should have been the low point for AEW. It should have been the night that Tony realized how his truly poor leadership had led his company to its nadir. It should have been the night that he realized that his actions embarrassed himself, his father and his TV partner (and you have to wonder how they feel about the mess that is AEW right now after this situation happened on what is, an essence, the set of one of their TV shows since it aired on Bleacher Report). Khan should be in at least the beginning stages of his TV rights negotiations. Could you see him placing that call to WBD right now? Me either.
On a night where Khan could have started a new era for AEW, one that could have shown he has had enough of the inmates running the asylum, what did he do? He told no story as to why the Titles people had just paid to see on PPV were vacated. He put Adam Page, the genesis of the problems, in the Title tournament. And, he brought back MJF and had him do a promo where he talked all about WWE, shortly after he whined about WWE being predatory toward him and his business and Chris Jericho saying we don’t worry about them and what they do. No you don’t, you just reference WWE, Nick Khan and HHH on your show. Brilliant. Could this company BE anymore dysfunctional?
No matter how you feel about Punk, he’s their top draw (by Khan’s own words) and he will be out for months due to injury, if he isn’t fired. That is a loss that will hurt the company. The World Title means less and less as we keep getting interim champs and tournaments. That’s why I suggested yesterday that the wise move would be to wait 30 days to do anything with the Title and use the “Punk can’t defend so he is being stripped” storyline then, all while pushing Wardlow as THE GUY for the next four weeks. It would have made more sense to make Wardlow the focus and let the stink of the Title mess abate. It didn't HAVE to be mentioned last night. Instead, he made it a focal point of the show that he didn’t explain. Who knows how long the EVPs will be off TV. Who knows how WBD feels about even staying in business with a company that has these kinds of headaches. Remember, the management now is not the team that signed them in the first place.
So here we are. I am not saying AEW is done or anything like that. What I am saying is that if you are a fan of it, enjoy it while you can. Any hope of the product growing seems almost nonexistent under Khan’s (lack of) leadership, especially with HHH now in charge of WWE and moving it in a much better direction. Fans that came to AEW because they didn't want to support WWE because of Vince have had that hurdle cleared. They can go back to WWE now and it's become a bigger headache for AEW. And it's not like WWE won't keep coming. On a day when AEW is having major problems due to poor actions from their EVPs, WWE announced the hirings of competent, qualified people to fill the roles in their company. Khan even acknowledged the WWE effect when talking about the numbers All Out did during his scrum, and how angry he was that WWE wouldn’t concede Labor Day weekend to him, even though he announced his company across the street from where Smackdown was running back in the day. In Khan’s world, more and more it seems like he can do whatever he wants, but when WWE does something similar, he’s the victim. That is not a good trait for a leader to have. Leaders lead, whiners whine.
AEW is at crisis point right now. Given how many times I have said Tony needs to step up and be a leader, only to watch him make yet another mistake, I don’t have a good feeling that will change this time. In fact, to again paraphrase Gary Snellbaker, I think Khan will do something…….and it will be wrong.
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