All the objective metrics - or quarter hour ratings and t-shirt sales at least - suggest that fans are still all in on The Acclaimed's scissoring shtick, but if last week's National Scissoring Day scanned as a risk that paid off, the latest development with 'Smart' Mark Sterling feels in desperate need of a director to yell "Cut".
Following a disappointingly non-committal victory for Swerve Strickland over Billy Gunn, itself a supplemental down for how little it did to maintain the heat between the former and current Tag Champions, Sterling and Tony Nese arrived on the scene to break up Daddy Ass getting a post-match scissoring from Max Caster and Anthony Bowens. He explained he had obtained legal use of the gesture, would make all the money from the t-shirt sales, and could and would sue if they dared test it.
And what, he's willing to put all that up for a shot at the Tag Team titles on Rampage in three weeks? There's obviously heat in robbing the fans of something they love in the short term, but the entire angle reeked of leaning into the result of The Acclaimed getting over rather what got them there. Caster and Bowens are characters and scissoring is a gimmick. Opponents should ideally target the former rather than the latter, no matter how many shirts all this sh*t flogs.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he 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 on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
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 music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
