Say WWE's Name, Say It Until You Bury Them

Cody should take shots at WWE, fuck "class"
Photo Credit: WWE.com

So, the Fight for the Fallen post-main segment where Cody, Kenny Omega, Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus, the Young Bucks, and Shad Khan presented a check for $150,000 to the Jacksonville Victims' Advisory Assistance Council, was notable for a few reasons. Omega's incomprehensible speech proved once again that he's to be seen and not heard, but that wasn't the thing that riled up the peanut gallery. Cody, in his portion of the yakking, said that "[WWE] can't counterprogram us." He didn't say WWE by name, which is why I used the brackets there, but everyone knew what he was referring to, and that's WWE Network airing EVOLVE opposite Fight for the Fallen. Again, it's worth noting that counterprogramming, say, Fyter Fest or All Out, is probably fair game, even with WWE's gigantic market share comparative to All Elite Wrestling. I mean, it's predatory, and the leader punching down is awful and shows the leader is punching down because they're scared, but the actions of a corporation in a capitalist slapfight with another corporation. No matter how you slice it, in this oncoming war, AEW is corporate, so you should be careful in your adoption of them as a "woke" fave.

That being said, going counter to a charity show is a special kind of ghoulish, but it shows that WWE will stoop to any level of anticompetition to snuff out any contenders to its throne. Yet, people were mad at Cody for having WWE in his mouth, the same as when he smashed a throne with a sledgehammer at Double or Nothing. The company that is trying to dethrone the leader, they say, shouldn't say the leader's name or mention them. I can't for any reason think why that's a good idea. AEW is trying to gain a foothold in a market dominated by WWE. Ignoring them would be like ignoring something like climate change or the New York Yankees. You have to take shots at them.

It's not like WWE has a precedent of being this "classy" organization in this regard. The moment that Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage jumped ship to World Championship Wrestling, thus legitimizing them with a Northern audience, WWE went right into attack mode introducing the Huckster and the Nacho Man. The only reason there aren't more examples is that they have been on top for so long that they have no worlds to conquer. They were never threatened by TNA or Ring of Honor. They didn't have to punch down visibly. But I guarantee you that if, in some alternate universe scenario, that TNA somehow took a lead in their aborted attempt at a new Monday Night War that they would've been on the attack. I also guarantee that if somehow, AEW gets a bigger market share than WWE that WWE will go on the attack again with bad parody characters of Omega and Cody. Hell, they'll probably have someone like Braun Strowman or Baron Corbin destroy the Dusty Rhodes statue.

However, "they do it too" is a terrible reason to do anything, but that doesn't mean AEW isn't justified in their attacks. As it turns out, negative advertising, despite people saying it's unethical or whatever, works. Pepsi has taken shots at Coke. Burger King and Wendy's go after McDonald's. People do it because it works, and when it's corporations engaged in it with other corporations, it's kinda like Ken Watanabe from the Godzilla reboot saying "let them fight." No corporation is good, so when they fight, really, it's the only heel vs. heel matchup that happens to be acceptable by anyone. AEW, a corporate entity, going after an even worse corporate entity in WWE is not classless or to be frowned-upon, it is par for the course.

And really, the tone of people decrying this move make it sound like WWE doesn't deserve the static. The favorite go-to is that the Khan family also donated to Donald Trump's campaign, which yes, it's true. The Khans suck shit, no doubt, but the idea of scale erasure is this thing among people trying to prove that their mode of consumption is "woke" compared to the other, when in all reality, despite there being no ethical consumption under capitalism, there are levels of malfeasance, and it is reductive and terrible. The Khans donating a million to the Trump campaign and then vocally regretting it after the girls started getting mad at him is not a good look. However, it is a better look than WWE donating much more to Trump, getting Linda McMahon in a cabinet seat, and then going to the White House for smiling photo ops with the country's terminally wet leader. Watching AEW doesn't make you "woke," but when you attack AEW or AEW fans from a position of being a WWE partisan, well, man, you should probably reexamine your life choices.

So yeah, if Cody has a boutique shot at Paul Levesque or WWE in general at every AEW show from here until they put WWE in the ground, so be it. You don't have to like it, but really, to pretend that it's some kind of faux pas is explicitly a defense of a company that has set wrestling back continually for running on 40 years now. If one corporation wants to take shots at another, it's not my place to judge its morality, or lack thereof. If the corporation is WWE, well, I'm all for it, no matter how shitty the corporation doing the attacking is.