History TroubledProduction / ProfessionalWrestling

* Finally, due to a combination of the collapse of the partnerships with New Japan Pro Wrestling and Wrestling/{{CMLL}}, fan apathy, Triple H basically creating a better and far more popular version of ROH (with many former ROH stars) in NXT, a near lack of enough contracted talent to even fill out a card[[note]]Thanks to their 3 biggest stars (Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks, along with Kenny Omega and Adam Page) leaving to form AEW and the aforementioned Triple H signing every indy worker with a pulse and a clean arrest record[[/note]], and the COVID-19 pandemic, ROH's parent company Sinclair Broadcasting (who were going through financial problems of their own) decided to pull the plug. In Novemeber 2021 the promotion was placed on hiatus with a promise to return "sometime in the spring of 2022" (likely the Supercard of Honor PPV held during Wrestlemania weekend, as the venue had already been booked), while at the same time putting the company up for sale. All Elite Wrestling co-founder/CEO Tony Khan purchased the company[[note]]Khan paid for the company out of pocket and as of now, AEW and ROH are legally separate entities, albeit ones essentially owned by the same person[[/note]] for a as-yet unknown price (though revealed in Sinclair cooperate documents to be no more than $9.6 million[[note]] For context, WWE owner Vince McMahon reportedly paid $2.5 million for the far more well known among wrestling fans WCW and it's far bigger video library in 2001 (a little over $4 million in 2022 dollars)[[/note]]) in March of 2022. Khan would reboot ROH as an AEW sub-promotion in March of 2023, with episodes being shown on the Honor Club streaming service. The Troubled Production didn't end with the new ownership, when Creator/{{TNT}} went to Khan asking for two more hours of wrestling programming he offered them ROH, to which TNT said "Thanks, but no thanks", giving us a third AEW show in ''Collision'' instead. To make things worse, expected ROH top guy [[Wrestling/TheBriscoeBrothers Jay Briscoe]] was [[DiedDuringProduction killed in a car accident]] a few weeks before the relaunch.

** This whole conflict began when wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer was stating that Wrestling/CMPunk was the cause of Wrestling/ColtCabana being demoted off of TV and placed instead to the newly purchased Wrestling/RingOfHonor. Punk and Cabana had once been best friends, but had a major falling out after a lawsuit involving them and WWE occurred. Owner Tony Khan has himself stated that Punk had nothing to do with Cabana being taken off AEW and moved to ROH. Regardless of what, this didn't stop Wrestling/AdamPage during a promo against Punk for their match heading into Double or Nothing 2022 of going off script and making a subtle accusation that Punk got Cabana demoted, much to Punk's noticeable confusion. According to Punk, after the promo, he talked to Page backstage asking him about this and Page straight up told Punk, how he said that promo because he knows Punk tried to get Cabana fired. Punk was not happy about this and it was stated that AEW tried to have Punk and Page resolve their issue, but Punk was not satisfied with how the talks went and felt Page wasn't sorry. During the match at Double or Nothing, Punk stated that he was trying to protect himself during their match and was unsure if Page was trying to hurt him for real during the match such as the fact that a slap from Page caused Punk to get his tooth chipped.

* Speaking of [=DeMott=], in early 2015 several complaints from former WWE developmental talent [[note]](the most notable being [[Wrestling/{{EC3}} Derrick Bateman/Ethan Carter III]])[[/note]] were brought forth about several abuses that [=DeMott=] had done as head trainer of NXT, including making the trainees do dangerous training, bullying/assaulting them, using racial and homophobic slurs, and generally encouraging sexual harassment, and that several trainees had complained to WWE management about this during their tenure with the company. WWE claims they investigated the accusations and found "no evidence of wrongdoing", and [=DeMott=] denied all of it, but resigned to save the company negative press after the accustations contiue to grow and gain more press. v
His depature lead to Wrestling/MattBloom replacing him as new head trainer.

* Speaking of [=DeMott=], in early 2015 several complaints from former WWE developmental talent [[note]](the most notable being [[Wrestling/{{EC3}} Derrick Bateman/Ethan Carter III]])[[/note]] were brought forth about several abuses that [=DeMott=] had done as head trainer of NXT, including making the trainees do dangerous training, bullying/assaulting them, using racial and homophobic slurs, and generally encouraging sexual harassment, and that several trainees had complained to WWE management about this during their tenure with the company. WWE claims they investigated the accusations and found "no evidence of wrongdoing", and [=DeMott=] denied all of it, but resigned to save the company negative press, with Wrestling/MattBloom replacing him as new head trainer.

* Wrestling/MuhammadHassan got taken to Wrestler's Court for refusing [[NoSell to sell]] for [[Wrestling/SgtSlaughter Sergeant Slaughter]], even though that instruction came from Vince [=McMahon=]. Hassan was taken again for telling Wrestling/EddieGuerrero not to use the camel clutch, the move Eddie's father had created and he ''briefly'' used in tribute of. Hassan was punished by having to pay everyone's bar tab, which ran up to $4,000. Once again, [[ShootTheMessenger Muhammad was only following Vince's orders.]] Remember, Wrestler's Court was established because apparently just taking the problem to Vince got even worse results. Imagine ''that''. This, combined with the UPN London Bombing farce, ended Hassan's career.

** Sadly, though, they didn't work it out. At some point during the summer tour, Jack Perry[[note]] who is friends with the Elite and previously took a subtle potshot at Punk when he imitated Punk bloody muffin eating at the scram[[/note]] brought up the possibility of using real glass in a spot; Punk advised against it due to the danger involved. This was also after serval other people including Tony Schiavone, had tried to talk Perry who refused to listen to them and they had went to Punk to try and talk to Perry. This rankled Perry to the point that at All In in August 2023, after taking a bump onto a limousine windscreen, Perry would say into the camera "real glass, cry me a river!".[[note]]Perry was wrestling as a heel and windscreen glass is literally designed to be relatively safe to collide with.[[/note]] This annoyed Punk to the point he got in a backstage altercation with Perry in gorilla which also put Tony Khan in physical danger. Punk would be fired with cause by the end of the week and a few days alter Ace Steele would also be fired.

** Sadly, though, they didn't work it out. At some point during the summer tour, Jack Perry brought up the possibility of using real glass in a spot; Punk advised against it due to the danger involved. This rankled Perry to the point that at All In in August 2023, after taking a bump onto a limousine windscreen, Perry would say into the camera "real glass, cry me a river!".[[note]]Perry was wrestling as a heel and windscreen glass is literally designed to be relatively safe to collide with.[[/note]] This annoyed Punk to the point he got in a backstage altercation with Perry in gorilla which also put Tony Khan in physical danger. Punk would be fired with cause by the end of the week and a few days alter Ace Steele would also be fired.

** Sadly, though, they didn't work it out. At some point during the summer tour, Jack Perry brought up the possibility of using real glass in a spot; Punk advised against it due to the danger involved. This rankled Perry to the point that at All In in August 2023, after taking a bump onto a limousine windscreen, Perry would say into the camera "real glass, cry me a river!".[[note]]Perry was wrestling as a heel and windscreen glass is literally designed to be relatively safe to collide with.[[/note]] This annoyed Punk to the point he got in a backstage altercation with Perry in gorilla which also put Tony Khan in physical danger. Punk would be fired with cause by the end of the week.

* TNA lost its television deal with Spike TV after publicly firing Wrestling/VinceRusso to save face with Spike, then re-hiring him in secret (a ''[[CantGetAwayWithNuthin poorly-kept]]'' secret). They were found out after Dixie Carter accidentally forwarded one of her Vince Russo emails ''to a wrestling journalist''. [[note]] To make things HarsherInHindsight, Russo would go on to trash Dixie and the company despite the fact Dixie went to the bat for him.[[/note]] During that time TNA got a TV deal with Destination America. However they would later lose that deal after Dixie Carter in a fit of anger over her feeling Destination America not showing other aspects of their ratings in a press release, wrote a angry email where she called the executives "Dummies" and then accidentally sent it to network brass; basically making the exact same mistake she did with the Russo and Spike e-mail situation.[[note]] The President of the company apparently responded to the email saying "I'm sorry you feel that way"[[/note]].The loss of the television deal proved to be one of the major difficulties for TNA in the following years, both for the loss of revenue and for their inability to find a permanent home for ''Impact!'' until they were bought out by Anthem.

* 2016 was considered both the promotion's best ''and'' worst year specifically for this reason. Despite putting on the most compelling programming ''Impact!'' has had in a while, including the massively popular "BROKEN" Matt Hardy gimmick, TNA was hemorrhaging money like no tomorrow and closer to bankruptcy than it had ever been before, unable to do tapings due to a lack of funds to pay the wrestlers and crew, and inadvertently falling into debt with several creditors as a result. Towards the end of the year, they were also hit by a string of lawsuits, including a tax lien from the state of Tennessee and one by ''their own company president'' (at the time), Billy Corgan; Corgan had loaned money to TNA several times to keep things running in exchange for minority shares, under the impression that Dixie would eventually sell to him. Dixie actually had no such intentions - she made him company president to placate him and then started shopping around for another buyer, including, reportedly, WWE. When Corgan found this out, relations between them soured and he was eventually booted out of the company after his lawsuit failed. Eventually Dixie was forced to sell to Anthem[[note]]However no money was exchanged, TNA was so far in debt with Anthem that Anthem basically took the promotion itself as payment[[/note]], retaining only a paltry 5% stake, and was subsequently banned from tapings and KickedUpstairs, as all of these events had caused the talent to hate her. Since Anthem took over, the numerous pay issues and production drama that was breathlessly reported on a near-weekly basis have all but disappeared.

** As it stands, AEW is now going to be running a soft draft split in June, with some talent staying on ''Dynamite'' on Wednesday night, like the Elite, while others like Punk are expected to headline AEW's new show on Saturday called ''Collision'', (with the rehired Ace Steele as a producer) as a way to keep the hostile parties separated unless they work it out.

* Finally, due to a combination of the collapse of the partnership with New Japan Pro Wrestling, fan apathy, Triple H basically creating a better and far more popular version of ROH (with many former ROH stars) in NXT, a near lack of enough contracted talent to even fill out a card[[note]]Thanks to their 3 biggest stars (Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks, along with Kenny Omega and Adam Page) leaving to form AEW and the aforementioned Triple H signing every indy worker with a pulse and a clean arrest record[[/note]], and the COVID-19 pandemic, ROH's parent company Sinclair Broadcasting (who were going through financial problems of their own) decided to pull the plug. In Novemeber 2021 the promotion was placed on hiatus with a promise to return "sometime in the spring of 2022" (likely the Supercard of Honor PPV held during Wrestlemania weekend, as the venue had already been booked), while at the same time putting the company up for sale. All Elite Wrestling co-founder/CEO Tony Khan purchased the company[[note]]Khan paid for the company out of pocket and as of now, AEW and ROH are legally separate entities, albeit ones essentially owned by the same person[[/note]] for a as-yet unknown price (though revealed in Sinclair cooperate documents to be no more than $9.6 million[[note]] For context, WWE owner Vince McMahon reportedly paid $2.5 million for the far more well known among wrestling fans WCW and it's far bigger video library in 2001 (a little over $4 million in 2022 dollars)[[/note]]) in March of 2022. Khan would reboot ROH as an AEW sub-promotion in March of 2023, with episodes being shown on the Honor Club streaming service. The Troubled Production didn't end with the new ownership, when Creator/{{TNT}} went to Khan asking for two more hours of wrestling programming he offered them ROH, to which TNT said "Thanks, but no thanks", giving us a third AEW show in ''Collision'' instead. To make things worse, expected ROH top guy [[Wrestling/TheBriscoeBrothers Jay Briscoe]] was [[DiedDuringProduction killed in a car accident]] a few weeks before the relaunch.

* Poor talent relations. Wrestling/SteveAustin, Wrestling/TheUndertaker, Wrestling/MickFoley, Wrestling/TripleH, Wrestling/{{Edge}}, Wrestling/{{Kane}}, Wrestling/ChrisJericho, and Wrestling/EddieGuerrero. Those 8 names drew ''billions'' of dollars for Vince [=McMahon=]. All 8 of them were either turfed, ran off, or given the "creative has nothing for you" treatment by WCW[[note]]You could certainly add Wrestling/ScottHall and Wrestling/KevinNash to that list too, if not for the fact that leaving allowed them to do the [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder huge angle of them coming back]] that made the company profitable for the first time ever, so we'll give WCW a pass on those two names[[/note]]. Way to pick and choose talent, [[Wrestling/EricBischoff Eric]]. Not that Bischoff was the only one guilty in this regard, Jim Herd thought it was a good idea to just hand over top draw (and really ''only'' draw) Wrestling/RicFlair over to the WWF for 18 months.

* Poor talent relations. Wrestling/SteveAustin, Wrestling/TheUndertaker, Wrestling/MickFoley, Wrestling/TripleH, Wrestling/{{Edge}}, Wrestling/{{Kane}}, Wrestling/ChrisJericho, and Wrestling/EddieGuerrero. Those 8 names drew ''billions'' of dollars for Vince [=McMahon=]. All 8 of them were either turfed, ran off, or given the "creative has nothing for you" treatment by WCW[[note]]You could certainly add Wrestling/ScottHall and Wrestling/KevinNash to that list too, but since leaving allowed them to do the [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder huge angle of them coming back]] that made the company profitable for the first time ever we'll give WCW a pass on those two names[[/note]]. Way to pick and choose talent, [[Wrestling/EricBischoff Eric]]. Not that Bischoff was the only one guilty in this regard, Jim Herd thought it was a good idea to just hand over top draw (and really ''only'' draw) Wrestling/RicFlair over to the WWF for 18 months.

* Finally, due to a combination of the collapse of the partnership with New Japan Pro Wrestling, fan apathy, Triple H basically creating a better and far more popular version of ROH (with many former ROH stars) in NXT, a near lack of enough contracted talent to even fill out a card[[note]]Thanks to their 3 biggest stars (Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks, along with Kenny Omega and Adam Page) leaving to form AEW and the aforementioned Triple H signing every indy worker with a pulse and a clean arrest record[[/note]], and the COVID-19 pandemic, ROH's parent company Sinclair Broadcasting (who were going through financial problems of their own) decided to pull the plug. In Novemeber 2021 the promotion was placed on hiatus with a promise to return "sometime in the spring of 2022" (likely the Supercard of Honor PPV held during Wrestlemania weekend, as the venue had already been booked), while at the same time putting the company up for sale. All Elite Wrestling co-founder/CEO Tony Khan purchased the company[[note]]Khan paid for the company out of pocket and as of now, AEW and ROH are legally separate entities, albeit ones essentially owned by the same person[[/note]] for a as-yet unknown price (though revealed in Sinclair cooperate documents to be no more than $9.6 million[[note]] For context, WWE owner Vince McMahon reportedly paid $2.5 million for the far more well known among wrestling fans WCW and it's far bigger video library in 2001 (a little over $4 million in 2022 dollars)[[/note]]) in March of 2022. Khan would reboot ROH as an AEW sub-promotion in March of 2023, with episodes being shown on the Honor Club streaming service. The Troubled Production didn't end with the new ownership, when Creator/{{TNT}} went to Khan asking for two more hours of wrestling programming he offered them ROH, to which TNT said "Thanks, but no thanks", giving us a third AEW show in ''Collision''. To make things worse, expected ROH top guy [[Wrestling/TheBriscoeBrothers Jay Briscoe]] was [[DiedDuringProduction killed in a car accident]] a few weeks before the relaunch.

* Poor talent relations. Wrestling/SteveAustin, Wrestling/TheUndertaker, Wrestling/MickFoley, Wrestling/TripleH, Wrestling/{{Edge}}, Wrestling/{{Kane}}, Wrestling/ChrisJericho, and Wrestling/EddieGuerrero. Those 8 names drew ''billions'' of dollars for Vince [=McMahon=]. All 8 of them were either turfed, ran off, or given the "creative has nothing for you" treatment by WCW[[note]]You could certainly add Wrestling/ScottHall and Wrestling/KevinNash to that list too, but since leaving allowed them to do the [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder huge angle of them coming back]] that made the company profitable for the first time ever we'll give WCW a pass on those two names[[/note]]. Nice job scouting talent, [[Wrestling/EricBischoff Eric]].

* Finally, due to a combination of the collapse of the partnership with New Japan Pro Wrestling, fan apathy, Triple H basically creating a better and far more popular version of ROH (with many former ROH stars) in NXT, a near lack of enough contracted talent to even fill out a card[[note]]Thanks to their 3 biggest stars (Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks, along with Kenny Omega and Adam Page) leaving to form AEW and the aforementioned Triple H signing every indy worker with a pulse and a clean arrest record[[/note]], and the COVID-19 pandemic, ROH's parent company Sinclair Broadcasting (who were going through financial problems of their own) decided to pull the plug. In Novemeber 2021 the promotion was placed on hiatus with a promise to return "sometime in the spring of 2022" (likely the Supercard of Honor PPV held during Wrestlemania weekend, as the venue had already been booked), while at the same time putting the company up for sale. All Elite Wrestling co-founder/CEO Tony Khan purchased the company[[note]]Khan paid for the company out of pocket and as of now, AEW and ROH are legally separate entities, albeit ones essentially owned by the same person[[/note]] for a as-yet unknown price (though revealed in Sinclair cooperate documents to be no more than $9.6 million[[note]] For context, WWE owner Vince McMahon reportedly paid $2.5 million for the far more well known among wrestling fans WCW and it's far bigger video library in 2001 (a little over $4 million in 2022 dollars)[[/note]]) in March of 2022. ROH ran the Supercard of Honor show as as sort of series finale for the "old ROH" (though with Khan booking the PPV it was an AEW show in everything but name), as of April 2022 no further plans have been announced. Though it's been speculated (and heavily implied by Khan and others) that ROH will begin running shows again and basically become the Smackdown to AEW's Raw, all of the ROH titles are still active and the title holders have been appearing on AEW's TV shows with the belts.

* Endless {{Ratings Stunt}}s. The worst of these was Creator/DavidArquette winning the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-h.html WCW World Heavyweight Title]] to help promote the movie ''Film/ReadyToRumble''. Arquette, a long-time wrestling fan, was queasy at the prospect of beating legitimate contenders for the title. He knew that he wasn't qualified to hold the title and that fan response would be overwhelmingly negative[[note]]He was right, of course, and while it wasn't the main reason why [[BoxOfficeBomb/NThroughR the film was a complete flop]] it certainly didn't help. Wrestling/JeffJarrett's involvement in this fiasco also basically destroyed his (already pretty shaky) credibility among wrestling fans, Wrestling/DiamondDallasPage is well liked enough that his role in this mess is usually quietly overlooked[[/note]]. (He ended up donating all of the money he earned to the families of deceased wrestlers and to Darren Drozdov, a wrestler who had suffered permanent paralysis after a move gone wrong.)

* The fans and workers of other promotions alike derided the "WWF style" of wrestling when Vincent Kennedy [=McMahon=] took over, but there were good reasons for its development. Vince Jr. insisted on having a larger ring than everyone else, which automatically made matches that much slower as wrestlers took that much longer to simply get to one another and conversely, cause rope breaks or exploit the turnbuckles (it also made the wrestlers look proportionately smaller, leading people to make remarks like "Man, he looked bigger in WCW/TNA/ROH/etc..." when a new wrestler shows up). The WWF also had one of the single hardest rings in the business because he thought it looked nice, but several wrestlers naturally refused to bump, or in some cases even execute basic positions like the bridge on it, resulting in much lower-impact fights, less technical wrestling, and less awe-inspiring antics from what was once Wrestling/AntoninoRocca's home promotion. While promoting the products on Highspots.com, Wrestling/HarleyRace credited overly hard rings to cutting his career short more than his vehicular crashes. On top of this, Jr. was oddly conservative in his insistence on using plain hemp, polyester, or jute nylon ropes rather than cables or wire ropes[[note]]Most companies use 14ga aircraft cable inside a garden hose, which is then wrapped in colored tape. You can easily spot new cable "ropes" because you can still see the kinks in the hose.[[/note]] because that's what Vince Sr. used. This meant simply trying to move faster to offset the larger ring was a risky option, lest one collide with the ropes too hard and break them. The switch to plain rope after familiarizing himself to cables most infamously lead to the injury of Wrestling/MarkHenry. In the mid-1990s, the wrestlers and WWF staff successfully banded together and convinced [=McMahon=] to get rings with enough give for them to more easily compete with superior in-ring products[[note]]Wrestling/JimCornette takes credit for the current design, though he didn't actually create it, it's just a modified NWA/WCW ring. Unfortunately he wasn't able to convince Vince to replaces the ropes with cables[[/note]], but much of the derided "WWF style" had crystalized by this point and the other physical issues with the ring remained.

** For that matter it became common backstage with how when WCW would punish someone like Steiner, it would be a suspension with pay which basically means there was no real punishment. It got so bad with that, they even made a on-air subtle joke about it: while dealing with delinquent wrestlers, on-air commissioner Ernie "The Cat" Steiner declares that if they mess up, he'll have them arrested, because if he sends them home someone at the office might pay them.

** For that matter it became common backstage with how when WCW would punish someone like Steiner, it would be a suspension with pay which basically means there was no real punishment. It got so bad with that, they even made a on-air subtle joke about it.

** This whole conflict began when wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer was stating that Wrestling/CMPunk was the cause of Wrestling/ColtCabana being demoted off of TV and placed instead to the newly purchased Wrestling/RingOfHonor. Punk and Cabana had once been best friends, but had a major falling out after a lawsuit involving them and WWE occurred. Owner Tony Khan has himself stated that Punk had nothing to do with Cabana being taken off AEW and moved to ROH. Regardless of what, this didn't stop Wrestling/AdamPage during a promo against Punk for their match heading into Double or Nothing 2022 of going off script and making a subtle accusation that Punk got Cabana demoted, much to Punk's noticeable confusion. According to Punk, after the promo, he talked to Page backstage asking him about this and Page straight up told Punk, how he said that promo because he knows Punk tried to get Cabana fired. Punk was not happy about this and it was stated that AEW tried to have Punk and Page resolve their issue, but Punk was not satisfied with how the talks went and felt Page wasn't sorry. during the match at Double or Nothing, Punk stated that he was trying to protect himself during their match and was unsure if Page was trying to hurt him for real during the match such as the fact that Punk got a tooth chipped by one of Page's slaps.

** This whole conflict began when wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer was stating that Wrestling/CMPunk was the cause of Wrestling/ColtCabana being demoted off of TV and placed instead to the newly purchased Wrestling/RingOfHonor. Punk and Cabana had once been best friends, but had a major falling out after a lawsuit involving them and WWE occurred. Owner Tony Khan has himself stated that Punk had nothing to do with Cabana being taken off AEW and moved to ROH. Regardless of what, this didn't stop Wrestling/AdamPage during a promo against Punk for their match heading into Double or Nothing 2022 of going off script and making a subtle accusation that Punk got Cabana demoted, much to Punk's noticeable confusion. Punk was not happy about this and it was stated that AEW tried to have Punk and Page resolve their issue, but Punk was not satisfied with how the talks went and felt Page wasn't sorry.

** As it stands, AEW is now going to be running a soft draft split in June, with some talent staying on ''Dynamite'' on Wednesday night, like the Elite, while others like Punk are expected to headline AEW's new show on Saturday called ''Collision'', as a way to keep the hostile parties separated unless they work it out.

** A turnover among signed talent began to show at this second attempt at a date: Adam Scherr was replaced with Impact Wrestling's Moose. Lina Fanene took to Twitter to say she would not be able to show up at the event and protesting the fact that she still appeared on promotional graphics. Matt Rehwoldt, who was due to commentate the event, claimed he had been unable to contact the promoters while not having his travel or accommodation expenses paid for. Various wrestling journalists also struggled to contact the promotion, though they managed to discover that local UK talent generally had yet to be paid while the bigger names had already been paid deposits or in full, with some logistical questions not even being sorted the week of the show.
** It finally emerged the week of the show that WES had only been able to sell 350 tickets for the show. WES finally cancelled the event, putting out a widely-criticised statement that blamed the cancellation on talent no-showing the event. Some of the talent who travelled for the show put on meet & greets to try and compensate the unpaid local talent, with most people agreeing that WES had burned all the goodwill they had.

* On the topic of Daniels, TNA was known for making other companies who want to book its contracted talent go through its front office (fair enough, except the whole "independent contractor" thing means this should have been unnecessary) and also insisted on the direction booking must go in even after the talent has been secured. Their priorities seemed questionable at times, as TNA insisted The Motor City Machine Guns could not job to Ring of Honor's TagTeam Champions The [[Wrestling/ChrisHero Kings]] of [[Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli Wrestling]], but allowed Wrestling/ProWrestlingGuerilla to make their own X Division Champion Christopher Daniels job to Chris Hero, one half of those very same Kings of Wrestling.

** Triple H developed the initial concept [[note]] Triple H wanted WWE to bring in Wargames but Vince refused to bring it in and while Triple H booked NXT had Wargames, WWE would not bring in Wargames to the main rooster till Triple H was completely in charge of creative[[/note]] , inspired by WCW's iconic [=WarGames=] match — it would start with two wrestlers in the ring, with new wrestlers entering in five-minute intervals from the four "unbreakable" plexiglass pods built into the chamber.

** Punk would ultimately return in August to start a feud with Moxley over unifying their championship belts. During the build up, Punk in one of his promos actually made a off-script comment where he called out Page, going as far as saying that "the apology must be as loud and as public as the disrespect". During this time, Meltzer continued to claim Punk got Cabana demoted and that he is being difficult in the locker room.[[note]]Multiple wrestlers such as Wardlow, FTR, Jade Cargil, and Ricky starks among others, have spoken positive of Punk and him helping them.[[/note]] Around the same time, Wrestling/TheElite (Wrestling/TheYoungBucks and Wrestling/KennyOmega) seemly made comments themselves after the shows that came off as subtle {{Take That}}s towards Punk. The Elite themselves are friends with Cabana.

* Speaking of somewhat similar issues, earlier that year MJF had a match set with Wardlow heading into their PPV Double or Nothing 2022. However, on the weekend of the show, MJF no-showed a fan event he was scheduled to appear in. MJF was said to have expressed legitimate frustrations with Tony Khan over his payment and the fact Tony was apparently mad at him for doing a unapproved interview with Ariel Helwani.[[note]]Helwani is a sports journalist who had an infamous interview with Tony Khan, after which Khan accused him of bias for playing much harder ball with him than he would have with a WWE executive. Helwani himself stated that Tony was the worst interview he did due to Tony's lack of answers to almost all of Helwani questions. Helwani would himself later appear on WWE programming, all but confirming speculation that he was very buddy-buddy with WWE, which Khan wouldn't take well, ''at all''.[[/note]] MJF was said to have almost no showed the show itself, but Tony managed to get him to appear at the show where Wardlow [[CurbStompBattle swiftly destroyed MJF]]. MJF did appear on the following ''Dynamite'' (the same one mentioned above where Punk would injure his foot at) and cut a WorkedShoot promo on Tony and the company and would not appear again till All Out 2022.

** Punk has shown to be interested in returning and their was believed to be talks about Punk coming back to AEW and even sorting things out with The Elite. Punk noticeably was sharing Instagram post that hinted towards him returning.
** On March 22nd Meltzer on his message board claimed that Punk refused to lose Moxley before All Out and got his lawyer involved. This lead to Punk posting (and then quickly) deleting a story on his Instagram where he stated such things that he got his lawyer involved because he wasn't medically cleared at the time when AEW wanted him to do the match and that Moxley was pitching a Film/RockyIII storyline for them where Moxley would beat Punk and then they do a rematch. Punk stated that Moxley refused to lose to Punk unless they did that storyline. Punk thought it was a bad idea (he has now famously in that post stated he has never seen a Rocky movie) but did it after getting medically cleared and did it for the boss.[[note]] Rumors stated their was heat between Moxley and Punk (though Punk actually spoke positive of Moxley at the scram). Other rumors stated that Moxley's biggest issue was that he did not like being seen as just a interim champion and wanted his title legitimized.[[/note]] He also called out Meltzer for his lies and also called Jericho "A liar and a stooge" [[note]] Jericho himself is another known source for Meltzer and many have even speculated he was the one talking to Dave[[/note]]. Meltzer later apologized a few days later and admitted he knew about Punk not being medically cleared at the time of the suggested match which is in fact the reason Punk had got his Lawyer involved. At the very least Dave admitted to withholding information regarding that matter
** Moxley a few days later would go his wife's Renee Paquette and state that he was not even under contract during the summer of his interim title run and how he could have easily shown up to Summerslam if he wanted to and Moxley felt he was bending over backwards for the company. He never denied the claims of refusing to lose to Punk unless they did his idea.
** As it Stand AEW is now going to be running a soft draft split in June with some talent staying on Dynamite on Wednesday night like the Elite while others like Punk are expected to headline AEW's new show on Saturday called Collison. This is a way to keep the the hostile parties separated unless they work it out.
*** Around the same time too as all of this was occurring, Wrestling/EddieKingston was supposed to have a match with Wrestling/SammyGuevara at All Out 2022. However that match was cancelled after Eddie got into a backstage altercation with Sammy. The cause was that Sammy had made a unapproved insult about Eddie's weight in a promo , which Eddie did not take well at all. Eddie was later suspended for a few weeks as a result of this incident. Eddie still had a match at All Out, just not with Sammy-who also had another match with someone instead. Sammy would also a few weeks after the Media Scram incident, get into another backstage fight. This time it was with Wrestling/AndradeCienAlmas, which started when the two got in a twitter argument and Andrade confronted Sammy the night of that week's dynamite show in the arena it was held at, and attacked him. Andrade was suspend and was gone for months. Like Punk he is now going to be on Collison going forward.
* Speaking of somewhat similar issues, earlier that year MJF had a match set with Wardlow heading into their PPV Double or Nothing 2022. However on the weekend of the show despite being scheduled for a fan event, MJF no-showed the event. MJF was said to have expressed real frustrations with Tony Khan over his payment and the fact Tony was apparently mad at him for doing a unapproved interview with Ariel Helwani. [[note]]A sports journalist who is very buddy-buddy with WWE, Helwani had an infamous interview with Tony Khan, after which Khan accused him of bias for playing much harder ball with him than he would have a WWE executive. Helwani himself stated that Tony was the worst interview he did due to Tony's lack of answers to almost all of Helwani questions.[[/note]] MJF was said to have almost no showed the show but Tony managed to get him to appear at the show where Wardlow [[CurbStompBattle swiftly destroyed MJF]]. MJF did appear on the following Dynamite (the same one mentioned above where Punk would injure his foot at) and cut a promo on Tony and the company and would not appear again till All Out 2022 which as shown above, had its own issues.