WWE champ Cody Rhodes is taking blood money from the people who bone-sawed a journalist. AEW champ Adam Page is telling ICE to “f*ck” off.
Advantage: AEW.
“F*ck ICE airing commercials during ‘Dynamite.’ Let ‘em know,” Page wrote on Bluesky last night, including links to HBO Max and TBS, the entities in the Warner Bros. Discovery family that air AEW “Dynamite.”
Page, a 2011 Virginia Tech alum in his second reign as the AEW world champ, is echoing a message from Brody King, one-half of the AEW world tag champ duo “Brodido,” who wore a T-shirt with the message “Abolish ICE” during AEW’s excursion to Mexico City earlier this year.
King is selling a t-shirt commemorating the moment, with proceeds going toward families impacted by ICE raids.
So, that’s AEW.
The country’s #1 pro wrestling company, WWE, for its part, is very much in bed with the Trump-friendly Saudi royal family, with the announcement – headlined by Rhodes – earlier this month that the company will stage its 2027 Wrestlemania event in Riyadh.
ICYMI
No controversy there at all – none of us have a single problem with WWE taking the blood money from the people who ordered the beheading of an American journalist, not to mention, the Saudis had an awful lot to do with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
The new generation of Saudi leaders is trying to use the country’s oil money to sanitize the country’s awful public image.
I somehow failed to mention: modern-day slavery, women are still second-class citizens, if they’re lucky.
This sportswashing effort includes throwing money at pro golf, because of course, pro golf, and WWE.
The money they’re throwing at WWE even got former AEW world champ CM Punk, who returned to WWE in 2023, to offer an unqualified apology for past critical comments.
Everybody’s got a price, right?