10 Most Badass Wrestling Threats EVER
5. Penta Actually Says...
As brilliant as AEW is at its peak, being a U.S. TV wrestling product, certain concessions must be made to the format and the audience.
Dynamite and Rampage while broadcast worldwide on various platforms are financed - and ultimately made viable - by the commercial revenue driven by the ad breaks on TBS and TNT respectively. They are the paymasters, which is why performers who don't speak English as their primary language receive minimal time on the microphone. It's not ideal, especially since it's easy to infer just how threatening Penta El Zero M is without explicitly understanding him. Alex Abrahantes' "Penta says" gimmick is an attempt at a compromise, but it just isn't the same.
It just isn't the same as Penta calling Tommaso Ciampa a "bald piece of sh*t".
Perhaps AEW could sacrifice the odd minute-by-minute rating to experiment with the acclaimed 'Road To' video packages on TV and build characters via translated pre-tapes. That way, the full brilliance of Penta's promo game could be illustrated.
When accepting a challenge made by Ciampa for his AAW Heavyweight title back in 2016, Penta responded "Maybe I don't know English, but I'm a bad motherf*cker, you bald piece of sh*t".
Penta didn't need to concoct some hypothetical scenario about what he'd do to Ciampa; he only needed to say the beautifully economic "I'm a bad motherf*cker", knowing his demented arm-breaking style would back the threat up.