While attempting to celebrate his re-Bar Mitzvah on Dynamite, MJF was interrupted by the remaining members of the four pillars of AEW in order to have a sort of meeting of the minds over how the current World Champion is handling his reign. After allowing “Jungleboy” Jack Perry and Sammy Guevara to speak their minds, Darby Allin got in on the fun and took it upon himself to absolutely decimate the disgruntled member of the AEW locker room who have become increasingly comfortable with airing their dissatisfaction out on social media.
“It was my first day at pro wrestling school at the Buddy Wayne Academy, and before I walked into the doors, I stopped, and I said to myself, you’re either going to make it as Darby Allin, or you’re gonna fail as Darby Allin, but you’re not going to change a single thing,” Darby said. “Fast forward all these years later, and I’m in Tony Khan’s office, and I go up to Tony Khan, and I say, ‘maybe I am the worst businessman in this whole entire place because there will never be no bidding war for Darby Allin. Because AEW gives me something that no amount of money can afford me, and that is the opportunity for me to just be me.
“The biggest problem I have with this entire company is you’ve got grown a** wrestlers in the back going on Twitter, ‘I’m not happy, I’m upset. I want out of my contract if I don’t get what I want.’ And that includes you! Our World Champion with his whole ‘Bidding War of 2024’ crap. See Max, AEW means a whole lot more to me than it ever did you, and that’s exactly why I should be world champion. And you know what I’m going to do if you don’t give me a championship match, right? You know what I’m going to do. I’m going to go complain on Twitter. No, seriously, I’m going to beat your face in with my skateboard, and I’m gonna give you a headlock takeover.”
Wow, whether by recommendation from the boys in the back or out of his own moral obligation to put disgruntled stars in their place, Allin took it upon himself to call out wrestlers like Andrade and Miro without so much as mentioning their names all the while making them look downright silly for their unwillingness to make the most out of the cards they were dealt. While this likely won't stop the aforementioned unused AEW stars from voicing their displeasure from time to time, as, in a company with over 100 wrestlers under contract, everyone isn't going to be happy all the time, it'll be hard to take them seriously when Allin's words can easily be thrown in their faces.
Dave Meltzer thinks Darby Allin's promo might actually hurt AEW's business.
Discussing Allin's portion of the over 12-minute opening segment on Dynamite on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that while “The Living Dead Boy” is factually correct, it's probably not the sort of things wrestlers should be discussing on television.
“With the whole thing of Darby Allin talking about, ‘All these guys complain, all these guys wanna leave’ and everything like that. Okay, that’s true, but to talk about it on your own television show, basically, by doing that, you’re telling people you’re the secondary company,” Meltzer said via WrestleTalk. “We’ve seen this since May when this really started happening, and it’s done the company no good.”
On paper, it's hard to argue with Meltzer's thought process, as Tony Khan has been curiously running multiple storylines centered around members of AEW not liking that they work for AEW. Though Meltzer acknowledges that some wrestlers may prefer to be in WWE than AEW, it's not like one company has universally better viewed internally than others, as some ex-WWE guys have thrived in TK's company.
“One of the weaknesses with AEW, two things, number one is that so much of the talent complains publicly, which makes the company look real bad, because there’s no fear,” Meltzer said. “There’s people who don’t wanna be there. And signed contracts because they didn’t think WWE wanted them, and then they had… some people have the WWE attitude coming in and some people don’t. Some people from WWE are tremendous assets to this company, and some people have been anything but that, and it’s a case-by-case basis.”
In the end, if AEW wants to continue to look like the hip, cool company, they can't keep relying on storylines that make the company look bush league, or worse: lame.
“The fanbase has gotten softer, they’re not as into it as they were, because they’re being told… before then, it was like, ‘We’re gonna be number one, or we’re the better product, but they’re the older product, we’re the younger cooler product and all this’” Meltzer said. “Now it’s like, ‘Everyone wants to be there (WWE), half our guys wanna be there or tease they wanna be there, and we’re the product with the guys that either aren’t good enough to be there or the few guys who don’t wanna be there.'”
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