10 Wrestlers Who Were Critical Of AEW

2. Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon
WWE

On two separate occasions, Vince McMahon has - through his own words or via a company press release spoken in his voice - presented All Elite Wrestling as a mix between the worst excesses of an ECW house show and an illegal fighting ring.

If he joined the hundreds of thousands of his ex-customers a week that watch AEW Dynamite, he'd see that he's not completely and utterly wrong, though the blood his acolytes have informed him about haven't yet reached the spurting-out-of-Mass Transit's-head levels enough for him to use "gory self-mutiliation" without it sounding tongue-in-cheek.

This follows his original sentiment about TNT not approving a "Blood and guts" product for weekly consumption, approximately six months before the network got set to host the first iteration of the match before the pandemic put everything on pause. AEW is many, many things, but McMahon's attempt to make this specific image stick are far more cynical than the other cutting remarks elsewhere on this list.

 
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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett