💥 🥊 SATURDAY NIGHT’S ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING! 🥊 💥
THE TAG TITLES ARE ON THE LINE. WHO TAKES IT?
Tonight, AEW comes LIVE from the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut! Their card for the night includes:
– The AEW Tag-Team Championships are on the line as 🏆 FTR takes on MJF & Adam Cole.
– Andrade El Idolo vs. Buddy Matthews in a LADDER MATCH. Winner gets control of Andrade’s mask
– Samoa Joe vs. Gravity
– Kiera Hogan vs. Mercedes Martinez
– A promo from CM Punk
– Juice Robinson & The Gunns vs. Action Andretti & Darius Martin & El Hijo Del Vikingo
And much more!
Show starts at 8pm EST | 5pm PST | 7pm CST | 6pm MST | 9pm AST | 1am BST
AEW can be seen on: TNT in the US, TSN+ in Canada, ViX in Latin America, ESPN in Australia, and FITETV/DAZN in the UK, EU, and elsewhere.
Enjoy the show!
Really solid show, quite possibly the best so far, but I continue to be incredibly confused with what they are doing with Punk.
If you're gonna do a pretender angle, then the show cannot support or suggest the idea that matches with Punk are anything more than a match with Punk. He can say and claim whatever he wants, but if there starts to be graphics, or stipulations, or anything else, for "the real world championship", etc, then it all falls apart because why would AEW, in kayfabe, actively promote a disputed linage, or entertain that it is possibly legitimate, from someone they suspended and stripped the title from?
Possession of a belt does not make you the champ, and they are literally showing this right now with Christian, and did it a few months ago when QTV stole the TNT belt from Wardlow. They have made it very clear that the belt is a symbolic representation of the championship, not the literal thing, which is also why MJF has the Triple B. So given a match against Christian is not a championship match for the TNT title, then neither is a match against Punk for any other title.
AEW, the kayfabe wrestling promotion and controller of titles, have a vested interest in challenging the narrative of a pretender in order to protect the integrity of their titles. Part of that presentation should include people like Tony Schiavone, any face commentator, other face wrestlers, and things like prepared video packages, graphics/overlays, etc, pointing out how Punk isn't the champ, that he was stripped of the title, that he can't just declare himself the champ, etc. Given they are doing this with Christian, it feels almost Codyverse levels of disconnected from the rest of the programming to have Schiavone announcing special guest referees for Punk's matches, while Christian is met with rightful contrition. It is after all the same story being done twice; man claims to be champion due to holding physical belt, but he isn't.
Again, I'm talking kayfabe here. Khan's announcement back in September exists in kayfabe because it was made on official programming.