Yo! Yo! Listen! (Bowens on the left, Caster on the right)
TV TRRRROOOOPPPPEEEESSSSSSS!!! THE ACCLAIMED! HAVE ARRIVED!!!
The Acclaimed are a professional wrestling tag team currently working in All Elite Wrestling consisting of "Platinum" Max Caster and "The 5 Tool Player" Anthony Bowens. The tag team grew to prominence in the promotion due to the duo's zany personalities, often involving Caster performing a freestyle rap about his opponents before a match and Bowens hyping the moment with loud and exaggerated screaming. Caster's raps are usually crass and vulgar, and often seem to be intended to shock the audience rather than actually insult his opponents.
With their shared quirks the Acclaimed often work together and come up with new and creative ways to harass their AEW cohorts (and Tony Khan whenever he has enough of their antics and puts his foot down). Soon their antics caught on with the fans and it didn't take long for them to become one of the most popular acts in the company.
On September 21, 2022, at AEW Grand Slam, the Acclaimed would win their first AEW titles by defeating Swerve in our Glory to become the AEW Tag Team Champions. During this reign, they earned Billy Gunn of all people as a de-facto honorary member. Alongside Billy Gunn, the Acclaimed would later become AEW Trios Champions by defeating the House of Black at All In 2023 on August 27, 2023.
Part of the Acclaimed gimmick is "scissoring" which, in this case, means two people making a V-shape with the index and middle finger and then vigorously rubbing their hands together. (Video example here
). This gesture has been very popular with fans, many of which bring large cardboard scissors with them to AEW shows.
Outside of AEW, Max Caster is a member of the wrestling collective Shook Crew, and has uploaded many of his full-length rap songs to their YouTube channel. Anthony Bowens meanwhile is one half of the channel Michael & Anthony which he shares with his boyfriend, covering both vlogging content and comedy skits.
"Scissor me, Daddy Tropes!":
- Affectionate Nickname: When the Acclaimed are allied with Billy Gunn, Bowens likes to call him "Daddy Ass" (in reference to his previous gimmick as WWE's Mr. Ass). This is almost always followed by Bowens scissoring with Billy.
- Ambiguously Bi: Caster fancies himself a ladies' man, but also tends to flirt with other male wrestlers.
- A recurring joke on his Twitter is his flirtatious comments made towards MJF, often addressing him as his boyfriend, calling him cute, or implying that they are secretly in a relationship, usually leading to MJF angrily denying Caster's advances or implying that Caster is stalking him. Said comments sometimes lean further, sometimes being more sexual and in some instances very deviant.
- During a diss against Jungle Boy he claimed that he wouldn't kiss the wrestler, although he is "his fetish." What exactly said fetish is remains up in the air.
- Early in his heel run, he would commonly play with his opponent's hands and kiss them after beating them, seemingly doing so to try to make them uncomfortable and to demean them after a loss.
- Arch-Enemy:
- Tony Khan after Caster's "controversial Dark 100th episode rap." Following Caster's suspension, Tony would often accompany the team to the stage to make sure they don't say anything too offensive, much to the team's annoyance.
- The Gunn Club following their betrayal of the Acclaimed.
- Swerve in Our Glory; though more so Swerve Strickland, who goes out of his way to mock and antagonize the Acclaimed.
- Breakup Breakout: Invoked by Max during his rap against Christian, where he says that Christian was cool "but only when he had an Edge"
- Bullying a Dragon: Max will never tone down the vulgarity of his raps, even when faced with strong or feared opponents.
- Prior to their match against Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston, Max said that Mox and Eddie exchanged Valentine's gifts, that Eddie looked like a box of Newports, and that he and Bowens want to talk to Mox's wife Renee for "oral sessions." note This was one of the few times that Bowens was interrupted during his catchphrase and the match went about how one would expect.
- Would happen again to Caster during his match against a debuting Samoa Joe, where Caster ridiculed Joe's multiple X-Division reigns, mocked Joe's history with injuries, made a masturbation joke about Joe's towel, and referenced Joe's short lived NXT title reign in 2021. He would then continue to badmouth Joe after the bell had rang, only to be bounced and pinned by Joe in under three minutes. As a sign in the crowd put it:"Yo! Listen... Joe is gonna kill you." note
- Character Catchphrase:
- Courtesy of Bowens after every rap: "[City name]! The Acclaimed have arrived!" During the pandemic era, he would say "AEW" instead of Jacksonville, and on episodes of Dark recorded in studio, he says "Universal Studios."
- Caster begins every entrance with "Yo! Listen!"
- In promos leading up to matches, Bowens with say something like "I'm gonna kick your [X]-looking ass."Example
- At the end of every promo, Caster will say "And that's a mic drop."
- During their alliance with the Gunn Club, Bowens had "SCISSOR ME, DADDY ASS!" followed by him scissoring with Billy Gunn. This returned when Billy re-aligned himself with them after his sons betrayed him.
- "EVERYONE! LOVES! THE ACCLAIMED!"
- Bowens has started to frequently yell "Dammit Max!" whenever Caster is acting overly obsessive with MJF, making sexually inappropriate comments, or simply being annoying.
- Cheap Heat: If Max Caster isn't making fun of wrestlers, he'll be making topical jokes and insults towards the city they are currently in. He said that Prince is overrated while in his hometown of Minneapolis for example.
- Establishing Character Moment: Their first promo on Dynamite saw them cutting a freestyle against the Young Bucks, mocking the cover of their book, Killing the Business ("I'm just saying that it's strange, y'all two are brothers looking at each others thangs!'). Their first Dynamite match set them up against SCU, where they scored a big upset win and earned a title shot.
- Gay Best Friend: An Inverted Trope, with Anthony Bowens as the Straight Gay foil to Max Caster's Camp Straight antics.
- Gratuitous Rap: Caster usually enters the ring performing a freestyle diss against his opponents.
- Heel–Face Turn: After being betrayed by the Gunn Club on the 7/6/22 episode of Dynamite, they cemented themselves as faces as they returned the favor on the 7/15/22 episode of Rampage.
- Large Ham: Both of them; Caster for his raps and Bowens for his acting alongside the raps and yelling into the microphone while in the ring.
- Oh, Crap!: A few of Max's raps when entering after their opponents have been so provocative that their opponents have run up the ramp to attack the pair before the bell, eliciting this kind of response from whichever of the pair was holding the microphone.
- Older Than They Look: Many fans mistake Caster for being in his early to mid 20's when he's actually in his early 30's; roughly a year older than Bowens.
- Put on a Bus: Caster was temporarily pulled from matches due to a controversial rap on Dark where he used a real-life sexual assault case as an analogy for victory. Fortunately, he returned after several weeks.
- Real Men Wear Pink: The Acclaimed has mostly worn either pink-colored or accented gear and has had pink lighting since their current theme song.
- Red Baron: Bowens as 'The 5 Tool Player.'note Caster is also often addressed as 'Platinum Max Caster.'
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Bowens is the hyped-up and loud red oni compared to Caster's laid-back and snarky blue oni.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Caster's raps often take inspiration from news going on in or about the state at the time of recording.
- Shock Jock: Caster plays this in spades, with his raps often containing questionable if not outright inappropriate references in the lyrics. He also tends to do demeaning things to his opponents after winning a match such as kissing their hands.
- Straight Gay: Although not outright portrayed with his in ring character, Bowens is an openly gay man, and co-owns a Youtube channel alongside his boyfriend Michael.
- Take That!: Many lines in Max Caster's raps will involve him taking a shot at a public figure unrelated to the match."You're a stain on this business, man! I mean J Jarrett is worse than Vince McMahon!""I don't even know why we're a team! [Matt Menard and Cool Hand Ang] are more annoying than Marjorie Taylor Greene!"
- Talking Is a Free Action: Very few opponents think to interrupt them during their entrances. Two such examples which each worked both ways: Bowens was belted during his "The Acclaimed have arrived!" catchphrase by Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston before the bell rang; and one half of a jobber team tried interrupting Caster during his rap and he got whacked with the duo's boombox, while the other tried jumping Bowens in the middle of his catchphrase and got thumped.
- Think of the Censors!: Their first entrance back after Caster's absence had them reading a blatantly clean and corporate script, Bowens lampshading how terrible the script is, and Caster immediately ripping it up before returning to his freestyle diss tracks.
- Verbal Tic: Yo! Yo! Listen! Max Caster often preceeds his raps with this kind of vocal warm up. Yo!
- What the Hell, Hero?: During Caster's rap before their Tag Team Title defence against former champions Swerve In Our Glory, he called out Swerve Strickland for cheating (although since Swerve is an unapologetic heel he laughed it off), but also called out his still-ostensibly-face partner Keith Lee for "turn[ing] a blind eye" to his partner's deceit, which clearly bothered the big man. During the match, Keith ended up reaching the limits of his tolerance for Swerve's shenanigans and ended up walking out on him, leaving him to be beaten by The Acclaimed.
