The word on the Briscoes and AEW is that a WarnerMedia official is against the company adding the former Ring of Honor tag champs because of homophobic tweets posted by Jay Briscoe back in 2013.
Briscoe apologized for the tweets shortly after posting them, and that this issue dates back nine years, it’s not likely that it would have come back up had the brothers signed in 2022.
Now, of course, with the reports on someone from WarnerMedia bringing it back up as a reason not to sign the tag team, it would be an issue again if they were to sign.
Which brings me to a point about the nature of reporting on the pro wrestling industry.
Nothing going on behind the curtain gets out by accident. It’s the same as with reporting on what goes on behind the curtain in anything else.
The things behind the curtain that get out, get out because somebody wants them to get out, and uses back channels with compliant writers and editors to do their bidding for them.
If I had to guess on this one with the Briscoes, it may be that Tony Khan just doesn’t want to sign them, for whatever reason, and he recognizes that a sizable portion of the fan base wants him to, and he needs cover.
“But I can’t, because the TV partner won’t let me,” is a decent cover.
It’s also gutless, if that’s what’s happening here.
Meanwhile, we still have a makeshift cartoon tag team as the tag champs.
Quick hits
- The Britt Baker-Thunder Rosa steel-cage match highlights the card for this week’s “Dynamite.” Odd booking, to have a much-anticipated pay-per-view match serve as the setup for a free TV match, but the expected Thunder Rosa title win in her hometown of San Antonio will be a good payoff for a feud practically a year in the making.
- Can we please move on from Jade Cargill having “Smart” Mark Sterling as her mouthpiece? It’s been just plain weird since the outset, having a white guy speaking for a strong Black woman. Would have been nice to have seen Lio Rush as her hype man, and I bet he’s still available.
- Scorpio Sky won the TNT title last week, but he could be an interstitial champ, with Wardlow set to challenge him on Wednesday. A Wardlow title win would be a natural setup to a feud with MJF that has been a couple of years in the build. Sky, if he is to drop the title in short order, would deserve better. Another way to work this could be to have MJF interfere to cost Wardlow his title opportunity, and get his payback for Wardlow’s turn at “Revolution.” Then we get our Wardlow-MJF feud, and Sky can move on to build as a singles champ.
- Adam Cole has been buried, and why? Months of beating jobbers, then a clean loss to “Hangman” Adam Page at “Revolution,” and now Cole’s main job is to serve as the reason for the Young Bucks and reDRagon to end up feuding with each other. Cole is one of the most over guys in the company, but he’s not getting anything resembling star treatment.
- Months of build for Daniel Garcia and TwoPoint0 finally makes sense, with the trio forming a new faction with Chris Jericho and Jake Hager. This is another good use of veterans to help homegrown talent get over.
- I’m interested to see where the pairing of Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley, with William Regal as their manager, is headed. The tag-team division is already deep – think FTR, Hardy Boys, Santana & Ortiz, Lucha Brothers, Top Flight, The Acclaimed, The Gunn Club, Private Party, Varsity Blonds.
- There’s not even oxygen as it is without having to throw two top singles into a makeshift tag team into the fray.
Story by Chris Graham
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