10 Wrestlers Who Were Critical Of AEW
"All Elite Wrestling? More like SMALL PETIT WORST THING" and 10 more things wrestlers actually said.
AEW is not a perfect promotion.
Since its 2019 launch, it has featured plenty of acts, matches and storylines that haven't lived up to the "Elite" billing, and that's just based on the assumption that the company name was ever to be taken as literal. It's also not perfect because the very idea of perfection is rooted in subjectivity.
WWE has, at times in its complicated past, skirted close to what some would consider perfection. But somebody out there somewhere will think that 2022 WWE is the best the company has ever been. The odds seem slim but there are simply too many folk to not make it so. Christ, shortly after crowds returned, there were some empty-heads on Twitter daring to suggest that the control the company exerted over the presentation during the empty Performance Center/ThunderDome days made for a better atmosphere than the tepid one generated by a bored crowd. As if the punters were (or have ever been) the problem.
So AEW is not a perfect promotion. But it's often very very good, finding ways to reconnect lapsed fans with a present day product and disinterested wrestlers themselves with the thing they first fell in love with. That's not to say every ex-pro has had the kindest stuff to say...
10. Chavo Guerrero
Now confirmed to be no longer part of the AEW roster, Chavo Guerrero wasn't too pleased to find himself removed from it shortly before his formal release.
Speaking to Wrestling Inc Daily, he wasn't best pleased with how things had ended after a relatively indifferent run alongside Andrade;
“So, originally when I started AEW, talking to Tony Khan, it was like, alright, so you can start working for maybe it was about two months...Coming back in early February, started giving Tony some texts, no answer, no reply. Called him, left him a voice message, no reply whatsoever. I am like, ‘Hmm, okay.’ Then all of a sudden I see I am not part of the page anymore, of the AEW roster. So, it kind of p*sses me off, to be honest...Hey, I am a big boy, if there’s not plans for me, totally fine, I get it. But answer your phone. I deal with billionaires all the time, he’s not the first one, so it kind of p*sses me off a little bit. After working with Vince McMahon, you can deal with anybody. So I am like, ‘Answer your phone.’ This is not cool. So that’s where we are at.”
Khan has since noted that he "owed" Chavo a call, so amends may be made now the two sides have formally parted ways.