Gut-punching news broke over the weekend, deflating the high surrounding All Elite Wrestling’s groundbreaking move to premium cable TV in the US: the highly-anticipated match between Hangman Page and PAC is no longer scheduled for Double Or Nothing. The cancellation, as first broken by Dave Meltzer, arose from “creative differences”. Immediately, the Dave Meltzer Derangement Syndrome quarters of Wrestling Twitter rinsed AEW for their apparent incompetence.
How could the company not know that PAC is unwilling to job as Dragon Gate’s Open The Dream Gate Champion? He hasn’t taken a clean loss on any of his UK dates. It must be a visa cover-up, etc.
On Sunday’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, however, Meltzer broke down the situation thusly:
PAC was scheduled to wrestle Jody Fleisch and Robbie X for the WrestleGate promotion, before the write-off angle materialised as an open challenge. A flown-in Hangman Page answered. Page went over by disqualification, after which PAC Pillmanised his ankle and told his opponent that he only ever wished to hurt him. Having accomplished that, he refused to fly to Vegas, and he refused to compete for AEW.
This angle sought to explain the cancellation of the Double or Nothing match in kayfabe. In reality, as can most reasonably be inferred, PAC refused to play his prescribed role in AEW’s long-term plans. “New things came up very recently,” Meltzer wrote, cryptically, in response to a Twitter follower concerned by a possible lack of planning—or indeed competence—on AEW’s part. This might suggest that PAC had originally agreed to the finish upon initial negotiations, only to disrupt plans under two weeks ahead of the show.
That original finish saw PAC go over Hangman Page at Double or Nothing ahead of a genuine dream match with Kenny Omega at a later show, presumed to be the as-yet-unnamed August 31 return to the Sears Center.
This is the crux of the issue: PAC feels a certain loyalty to the Dragon Gate promotion in which he broke through, and wishes to repay the debt by protecting the integrity of its top prize. It is a noble stance, particularly in this ignoble industry. As is AEW’s, for that matter. The company, sensing the waters in the UK, decided against booking a time-limit draw. That finish proved very unpopular in his awesome RevPro battle against Will Ospreay, and the company is under time restraints on the pay-per-view. AEW wants to build fans for the long-term war. In adhering rigidly to this philosophy, a battle has been lost.
It’s a mess, a huge mess hard to reconcile for those willing to support AEW in this venture. AEW, as a make-good of sorts, is due to release the footage under its official umbrella - making this politicised schmozz the first-ever canon match promoted by the promotion in which clean wins and losses are paramount.
AEW didn’t merely lose out on a marquee, money match packed with show-stealing potential: the upstart league lost out on the opportunity to present an ex-WWE name star in an incredibly flattering light. AEW lost out on the opportunity to present itself as the manifested ideal WWE alternative to both the targeted, disillusioned fanbase and talent pool alike.
This is AEW’s Lex Luger-on-Nitro moment in grim reverse.
Meltzer has hinted at a more than adequate replacement. “[It is] incumbent on them to do something better,” he said. “They have a new story.”
The next few days will clarify everything: the replacement match in and of itself, and AEW’s ability to manoeuvre in the murky world of pro wrestling politics. AEW-contracted legend Chris Jericho is set to headline NJPW Dominion on June 9, 2019 in his quest for Kazuchika Okada’s IWGP Championship. This shocked many, given the puro league’s decision to maintain its existing working relationship with Ring of Honor. Jericho’s contract, and indeed many others, affords him the freedom to work elsewhere—but this, no disrespect intended, isn’t quite allowing MJF to fulfil his dates with Major League Wrestling, because NJPW actually is major league. NJPW is AEW’s key competition in the war for American wrestling’s silver podium. Surely, AEW management sought something in return, especially given the unlikelihood of a title switch.
AEW strives to be the good guy, in this new wrestling war. If that Jericho deal isn’t reciprocal, and if that replacement isn’t on the level of PAC or his best-in-the-world New Japan contemporaries, it might start to look a bit like Surfer Sting at his most hapless.
The following should be taken as reasoned inference: on the Wrestling Observer Radio show broadcast in the small hours of Monday morning, Meltzer remarked, when speculating over the future relationship between PAC and AEW, that “I don’t wanna say there’s no negativity around it”.
This was pointed. Revealing, perhaps. Piecing together the narrative, it appears as if PAC, and not Dragon Gate, is behind the decision. Were Dragon Gate behind this, tying PAC’s hands, one would imagine a certain understanding on AEW’s part. It sucks, but it is what it is. “[There’s] no guarantee that they’ll ever use him again,” Meltzer continued, implying a fall-out more personal than the net result of a political miscommunication.
PAC may have turned himself heel over this, not, as a BASTARD, that he will care. He also may have compromised his drawing power on these isles, as long as he remains Dragon Gate’s top star. If it wasn’t already obvious, it is effectively official now: PAC isn’t going to lose cleanly as Dragon Gate’s top Champion. Disseminating this information through Dave Meltzer, who relayed it to the public via coded message, felt like returning fire.
Ultimately, this is a situation for which the wrestling fandom at large can have few complaints, now that the raw emotion has subsided. We asked for this. We asked for a company steadfast in a philosophy, and not susceptible to the erratic whims of an autocrat. We asked for wins and losses to mean something. We asked for championships to regain their prestige and inherent drawing power in an age of WWE inflation.
Several commenters, distressed by the news, wondered why AEW could not proceed with the match as advertised with a revised, politicised disqualification finish, but again, this arbitrary, copout booking has proven so wildly unpopular in WWE that it, in part, created the platform for AEW’s very existence. AEW aims to present a product in which conclusive, clean wins and losses form a coherent framework in which its audience can invest.
Search through the vast majority of WWE critiques, and this is key to everything. Several major WWE programmes over the last two years have alienated the public as a result of this mentality: AJ Styles Vs. Kevin Owens and AJ Styles Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, most infamously.
Before Sunday’s awesome Universal Title match, this very booking philosophy rendered the Phenomenal almost normal in the minds of the WWE Universe.
We must apply these maxims across the good and the bad.
The true story, here, is that virtually everybody even remotely critical of WWE’s legal machinations and creative philosophy asked for this. You wanted the old days of wrestling back. They’re here. Both parties have a position to defend and the power to defend it. So far, the odious contrarians aside, most have viewed AEW through an optimistic lens. Sadly, that isn’t very wrestling, is it?
The timing is atrocious, but PAC has, nonetheless, exercised his right as a true independent contractor. This is what so many wished for him throughout those long months in exile: independence. The right to work where he sees fit. This is what much of the wrestling sphere wishes for Sasha Banks, the Revival and Luke Harper, but that's the thing about agency. The decision ultimately rests with the individual. The story is an inconvenient truth.
Proper, big-time professional wrestling is back; this is just the other side of the coin
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